HYGIENE FEATURE 27 CHTMAG.COM G4S FM’s healthy workplace project compliments cleaning contracts proving that intelligent cleaning and good hand hygiene can reduce sickness levels in the workplace. Lorraine Davis is head of cleaning at FM service provider G4S Facilities Management meeting rooms with location-specific messages including “What will you pick up at your meeting?”, “Swap ideas, not germs” and “Washing hands is as important as shaking them”; and action stickers for use in the lift, meeting rooms, restaurant, on the printer, or telephone reminding people to wash their hands. Posters in bathrooms explain how to wash hands properly in order to remove germs. In addition to raising awareness, the programme includes a variety of practical products that are strategically positioned around the workplace at locations where they are needed. If products are located within arm’s reach it really helps with compliance. This includes a desk caddy which fits disinfecting wipes allowing people to clean the surface of their desks, phones and keyboards, foam hand sanitiser to be used before and after shaking hands and tissues to catch sneezes – all of which is particularly important for hot desking environments where many people might use the desk throughout the day. Hand sanitisers and tissues in reception areas, staff restaurants and meeting rooms also encourage good behaviours. Hand sanitisers and wipes kill up to 99.99 per cent of germs. When the project is launched in a workplace, an exhibition stand is erected at the client site, where the new initiative, and its benefits, are promoted to employees. Handouts and the desk caddies are shown, samples are given and questions answered. The team assesses each site individually to decide what products are needed and the type of education required. It then creates a bespoke site-specific programme. Regular updates, new posters and seasonal awareness raising helps to keep the project fresh in people’s minds and ensure that employees don’t slip back into old habits. CLEANING HYGIENE TODAY Britain is officially a nation of soap dodgers. Research has revealed that one in five people don’t wash their hands after using the loo, 10 per cent only dash their fingers under the water rather than washing them properly and 40 per cent wash their hands for less than 10 seconds - half the time required to kill germs effectively said the report from hand hygiene experts Cuticura. And if washroom habits aren’t bad enough, then desk habits are even worse. Another study brings to light that office desks are dirtier than the average toilet seat. The office loo contains just 49 germs per square inch, while office telephones harbour over 25,000 germs per square inch, and keyboards and computer mice contain between 1,000 and 3,000 germs, making them 400 times dirtier than loo seats. The culprits include people failing to wash their hands, eating at their desk, and not clearing their desk at the end of each day to allow it to be properly cleaned. By not washing their hands properly, and allowing their desks to breed germs, people risk food poisoning, the common cold, flu, diarrhea and vomiting, Norovirus, MRSA and a host of other nasties. This all comes at a cost. The average UK worker has 9.1 days off sick a year at a cost of almost £29 billion to organisations, according to research from PWC – or five per cent of the annual payroll according to Kimberly Clark Professional. HEALTHY WORKPLACE PROJECT All of which places enormous pressure on facilities professionals, and their cleaning contractors, to educate building users to become more hygienic. Which is where the Healthy Workplace Project comes in. Created by Kimberly Clark Professional, and used by G4S Facilities Management across a number of sites, the project aims to encourage better hygiene behaviour both at work and at home with the aim of reducing the risk of catching cold and flu viruses by up to 80 per cent. The initiative is a general awareness campaign, for workplaces to educate and encourage people to become more hygiene conscious. It includes a variety of posters for different areas of the office – from break-out rooms to washrooms and individual office cubicles – reminding people of the importance of washing their hands, and the benefits of a healthy workplace; tent cards which are placed in areas such as reception, the staff restaurant and OCTOBER 2015 “Cleaning regimes should also have a seasonal programme with enhanced cleaning over the winter period”
Cleaning Hygiene Today October 2015
To see the actual publication please follow the link above