Although some of the benefits of a clean and tidy office are obvious, it’s also worth considering the effect it has on your employees’ health. It’s not just the look and feel of a clean environment being good for your employees, but also the practice of poor cleaning technique or lack of regular cleaning altogether than can lead to both physical and mental illness, high employee turnover and a poorly performing business as a direct result.
Spread of Germs and Illness
Poor cleaning not only leads to the spread of germs and illness, but can even contribute to the growth and incubation of dangerous microbial colonies, which continue to infect employees and become harder to deal with as time goes on. The spread of germs is due to poor cleaning in two main ways. Firstly, poor employee cleanliness, which you can’t control, but can encourage, and secondly, more importantly, poor office cleaning quality, which you can control.
A recent study found that germs left on a door handle at the front door of an office could spread to as many as 60% of communal office surfaces within 2 to 4 hours. Considering that this was only one door handle in the entire office to begin with, imagine how quickly germs spread when most of the office isn’t properly cleaned. An illness that has infected one employee, even if they don’t feel the effects too much, can easily spread throughout the entire office if the spread of germs isn’t contained, and when your office isn’t cleaned properly overnight, the spread becomes even worse.
Focus Cleaning make sure to pay attention to even the smallest details, to make sure that office germs don’t spread rapidly throughout your office and strike everyone down with illness.
Poor Air Quality
A less obvious effect of poor cleaning in an office environment is the air quality and how it affects your employees’ health. Poor air quality not only helps the spread of illness, by carrying more germs, but also affects employee mood and mental health, leading to mental illnesses such as stress and depression. Poor air quality can come about from a number of poor cleaning and office practices, some of which may be unavoidable. Open windows and office plants can help clean the air, but these aren’t always an option. However, poor air quality can also be a result of poor cleaning.
If the office is allowed to accrue grime and dust, then the air that filters through the office is likely to pick up the grime from surfaces and spread it around, leading to a much dirtier and less ideal environment. This is especially true if you have air conditioners, for example, which are very likely to spread bad air around if they are allowed to accrue dirt.
Focus Cleaning know that poor cleaning leads to poor air quality, so we make sure that everything is clean, even if it doesn’t seem immediately important to the casual eye.
Mental Health: Stress and Happiness
It’s not just physical illnesses that you need to look out for as a result of poor office cleaning, but also mental illnesses. Working in a messy, untidy and undesirable environment increases employee dissatisfaction, and in turn this can lead to long term effects such as added stress, depression and other mental illnesses, which harm your employees’ health. Allowing desks, computers and communal areas to accrue grime, dirt and mess will lead to decreased happiness throughout the office, so don’t let it build up. Make sure that your cleaners are not only doing their job properly, but that they do it regularly enough to stop the build up of mess that leads to poor employee health.
