Along with the holiday season comes cold and flu season.
Having the cold or flu circulating in your office can put a damper on productivity and workflow. With multiple people calling out sick each month, it can be hard to keep up with one of the busiest seasons for some industries.
Educating yourself on the best ways to keep you and your staff safe from the holiday season ick can keep your business running at top efficiency.
To help you keep your office safe from the cold and flu, here are some easy and helpful tips.
Encourage People to Stay Home
Now, you may be thinking, “isn’t this the opposite of what I want?” And the simple answer is no.
By encouraging one sick staff member to stay home, you are preventing more of the staff from falling ill.
The slight inconvenience of losing one helping hand for up to a week is much more feasible than having an almost empty office for a month.
According to the CDC, a cold can spread through the air, not only through direct contact with an ill individual. That further demonstrates the importance of a staff member staying home when sick.
Many offices found a satisfactory telecommute working module when the pandemic struck; you can reenlist this module for the cold and flu season. If a staff member is sick but still feels up to working, you may be able to let them work from home.
Offer Sanitizing Products
Offering staff members individual sanitizing products, such as spray disinfectant and hand sanitizer, could save you from a huge office sick day.
At the start of the cold and flu season, place hand sanitizer and spray disinfectant on every desk in the office. That will allow your staff to keep their stations free from germs as well as communal spaces.
Convenience is everything when attempting to implement new office protocols. Each staff member having their own sanitizing products is the best way to encourage these practices.
And did you know, most spray disinfectants kill 99.9% of viruses, bacteria, and fungi.
Promote Frequent Hand-washing
This tip may seem like a no-brainer, but of the many things Covid taught us, people don’t wash their hands often enough.
One of the best ways to promote frequent hand-washing is ensuring that all soap dispensers are full at all times.
Another way you can encourage this is by putting up signs around the office. And we don’t just mean a sign that says, “please wash your hands.” Add some scientific facts to the sign that emphasize the importance of hand-washing.
Some of those facts could include the following.
- London researchers estimate that if the population routinely washed their hands, we could prevent a million deaths each year.
- Respiratory infections can be reduced by 16% with the act of hand-washing.
- Diarrheal disease-associated deaths are estimated to be reduced up to 50% by washing hands with soap and water.
You can find these facts and other hygiene-related information on the CDC website.
Hire a Commercial Cleaning Service
If you don’t already have a commercial cleaning service come in on a weekly to bi-weekly basis, you should start now.
At RJC, we can help keep you and your staff safe from a variety of illnesses by keeping your office in tip-top shape!
We offer services such as electrostatic spray cleaning and sanitization, which are perfect solutions to your cold and flu season woes.
Stay ahead of the curve and keep your office ick-free.
Contact RJC today and receive a free quote!
