After almost two years of living through the coronavirus pandemic, many offices have welcomed back their employees. The reintegration process began slow, but since the vaccine rollout began, the number of in-person workers has substantially increased. The COVID-19 vaccine helps reduce your risk of contracting the virus and suffering from serious complications, but transmission is still possible. That’s why many businesses have continued to operate with safety guidelines in place while encouraging good hygiene throughout their facility. To help you reduce your overall risk without hiring corporate cleaning services, here are some simple ways to keep your office healthy during the pandemic.
1. Reconfigure the Office
Some offices rely on assigned cubicles while others have a more open seating plan. Take some time to evaluate your current office configurations and consider ways you could change things to create a safer environment. This may include strategically moving desks throughout the office so that everyone’s at least six feet apart or adding plastic guarding around individual areas to help eliminate transmission between workers. Many federal and government buildings still require masks to be worn, so make sure that you’re adhering to your local laws. If you’re unable to reconfigure the office, utilize a mask mandate for all employees while they’re not actively eating or drinking.
2. Maintain Social Distance When Possible
Since the best way to reduce transmission is to social distance, you should continue to practice these habits in the office. While it’s not always possible, you should keep your distance as much as you can. Some of the best ways to do this include limiting occupancy allowance in the kitchen/break room and bathroom, using teleconference tools strategically, limiting the number of people in an elevator at any given time, and creating more COVID-friendly office designs as discussed above.
3. Consider Flexible Schedules
Many people began to work remotely during the pandemic and don’t need to physically be in the office. Consider leaving the choice up to the employee. If they can do their job efficiently without disruption from home, let them. If they have to be in the office, try staggering schedules to limit the number of employees that are present at once. There are several great options for business scheduling that can not only keep your office healthy but also improve overall productivity and employee morale.
4. Identify Hazards and Reduce Risks
The common areas within an office are the biggest areas for concern when it comes to inner-office transmission. These areas tend to be smaller, but they’re also accessible to everyone throughout the day. Consider identifying these locations in your office and amending them to help reduce the overall risk of transmission. This can include repurposing office space for multiple, mini-break rooms, switching to individual serving sizes for coffee creamer, sugar, and condiments, and spreading out seating in any given room.
5. Increase Sanitization of High-Touch Areas
Go through your day and take notice of how many things that you touch. Chances are that 90% of them are areas where others are commonly touching as well. Therefore, one of the most important ways you can keep your office healthy during a pandemic is to increase the frequency of disinfecting high-touch areas. This includes everything from door handles and printers to counters and elevator buttons. To help, Bee Line offers High-Touch Point Day Porters to sanitize frequently touched surfaces throughout the day. This includes all high-touch points within your office so you can feel confident that germs are being eradicated regularly.
6. Discuss Protocols
While cases are dropping again, many people are still testing positive for COVID-19. If someone in your office tests positive, it’s important that you have protocols in place so that you can take swift action. If you’re not sure what to do in this situation, don’t worry. Bee Line has an action plan in place that can help you reduce the impact of a positive case.
Bee Line’s action plan includes closing off infected areas for at least 48 hours with proper ventilation followed by medical-grade disinfection by our professional cleaners in full PPE. After all contaminated areas have been pre-wiped and misted with our surgical-grade misting technology and re-entry is safe, we’ll notify administration or facility managers.
7. Deep Clean Your Office Regularly
Another way to improve the health and safety of your office is to schedule regular deep cleanings. Rather than relying on custodial services that only focus on surface-level issues, work with Bee Line and receive ongoing cleaning plus comprehensive misting every weekend that includes both pre-wiping and disinfectant misting across all surfaces throughout your office. Regular office cleaning helps reduce the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks and ensures that every square inch of your office has been cleaned, disinfected, and sanitized before everyone returns on Monday.
8. Get Feedback
Finally, allow your employees to give feedback and ask questions. If something’s not working, figure out an alternative or try to make it better. Working during a pandemic can create a lot of stress for employees and it’s important that you let them know you’re there to help answer any questions and ease their minds while they’re in the office.
We’ve integrated many of these activities into our daily lives already, so keeping your office healthy doesn’t have to cause a huge disruption. Instead, you’ll reduce unnecessary risks, breakthrough cases amongst vaccinated individuals, and the amount of overall exposure that your employees and clients face on a regular basis. While it’s almost impossible to completely eradicate your risk of COVID-19, undergoing regular sanitization in conjunction with healthy habits and safe behaviors in the office can drastically reduce this risk. To help you get the most out of your efforts, Bee Line offers a 10-step protocol for your employees’ safe return to the office. All of our processes are in accordance with the CDC guidelines for cleaning and disinfecting public spaces and we only use products that have been approved by the EPA for use against the virus that causes COVID-19. While our Black Light auditing can help track and report disinfection efficiency, there is currently no technique that’s been proven to test for the complete eradication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is why ongoing cleaning plans are the safest course of action.
Bee Line is one of the only certified and medical-grade cleaning companies in the region. Our specially trained teams and surgical-grade misting technology works to disinfect every square inch of your office harmlessly and efficiently. This is essential in keeping both employees and clients safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. To stay up to date with Bee Line’s latest cleaning tips, advice, and COVID updates, sign up for our newsletter. If you need to schedule a service call Bee Line at 312-BEE-LINE or message us today to get started.
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