Cleaning professionals are under more and more pressure to perform their duties as quickly as possible. This is happening in a variety of settings, from the cleaning of commercial office space to schools to hospitals and hotels. During this unprecedented era when people are exhibiting high levels of anxiety about the cleanliness of a facility, the traditional way of cleaning won’t do much to appease the needs of people entering and exiting your facility. The No. 1 priority for facility managers and janitorial staffs is to clean each facility to protect the health and safety of patrons.
Indoor Air Quality
One of the most hazardous in house misconception about health and safety is the overlooking of indoor air quality. In some instances, a facility may be cleaned and every aspect of the facility may even appear to be clean, but is the air clean? Poor air quality is known to cause a number of health problems, such as respiratory diseases (including the spread of COVID-19), allergies, and even lung cancer. The misconception about indoor air quality is that it’s safer than outdoor air quality, however, that is not true. While you may assume that you aren’t exposed to air pollution when indoors, the EPA suggests that the air inside homes, schools, offices, and other facilities can be two to five times more polluted than outdoor air.
To improve your building’s air quality, it’s important that facility managers and cleaners understand the sources of indoor air pollution. Unfortunately, these sources are wide-ranging and come from both inside and outside the building. Within a building, sources includes emissions from building materials, HVAC equipment, furnishings, and office products; dust or debris within air ducts and on surfaces and mold in water-damaged materials. Exterior sources includes pollen, street dust, pesticides, chemicals, oil, dirt, and debris that can easily make their way inside a building by hitching a ride on the shoes of building occupants. A simple – yet often overlooked – way to resolve the exterior sources of indoor air pollution is by implementing a proper entrance matting system. By providing a way to scrape and brush away dust, dirt, and debris and absorbing moisture effectively, a properly installed matting system can stop a vast majority of exterior sources of indoor air pollution at the door, preventing them from making their way into your facility and adversely impacting the air quality.
Together, We Are Ready For Anything
As we begin to set foot in the dawn of a new era, creating a culture of hygiene is going to play a critical role in how businesses operate. In this era of COVID-19, the awareness of social hygiene is heightened to extreme levels and people are paying close attention to how businesses clean their facility. To make cleaning easier for the janitorial staff, occupant participation can contribute to a boost in productivity. Occupants can participate in a culture of hygiene and assist the janitorial staff by keeping areas organized so that floors and horizontal surfaces can be easily cleaned, vacuumed, or mopped. Occupants can also wipe refrigerator handles, microwave oven controls, and other shared surfaces in break rooms. Even staying home from work when sick can help contribute to maintaining the health and safety of a facility.