What preparations have you got in place to ensure your home or office is safe and protected against Covid 19 (coronavirus)?

Coronavirus has definitely got us all thinking about our cleaning routine and this extra time at home has given us the perfect excuse to do a proper spring clean! I don’t know about you, but it seems we are all getting pretty used to our little clean bubbles at home so the thought of going back to an office where everyone touches everything suddenly seems quite gross!

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Therefore here are some top tips to ensure your office is safe for returning back to work!

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man cleaning gray carpet

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Tip 1: Get those carpets clean!

Greet your returning employees with brilliantly clean carpets! Professional office carpet cleaning is such an effective way of reducing dirt and bacteria build up in an office and it makes such a difference to the overall aesthetic of the building. Dirty carpets can really stand out and leave an impression on your staff and customers that you definitely didn’t want associated with your brand!

Let’s think about a coffee cup in your office (yum we love coffee… I can almost smell a fresh cup now…!). Every time you fancy a fresh hot beverage, you change your mug right? If we used the same mug for weeks on end in the office, the mug would start to get mouldy and full of bacteria (and everyone in the office would think you were super weird!). Well carpets kind of work the same. They act like a filter system and like your coffee cup, they should be cleaned regularly for optimum results!

A professional carpet clean has so many benefits from making the office look and feel more professional, to actually having a number of health benefits too! Especially in offices where we keep our shoes on the whole time (although we do like the sound of office slippers being introduced!), just think of the germs and bacteria that each employee is naturally walking into the carpets every day. Also, dirty carpets can affect conditions like asthma and other conditions and illnesses. As with any form of cleaning, regular carpet cleaning helps to create a much safer and healthier working environment for your staff to be in.

Top things to look for when picking a carpet cleaner:

  •  Ensure they are experienced with working with commercial carpet! Most commercial carpet is fitted differently to standard carpet so they need to know what they are doing!
  • Ensure they don’t use large quantities of water. The last thing you want is soggy office carpets for days on end!
  •  Ensure they can work out of hours and don’t charge hidden fees for this service as it is always safest and best to get carpets cleaned out of your normal working hours.

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office cleaning staff cleaning office tables from dust

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Tip 2: Dusty desks no more!

Ensure your office has a full deep clean before staff return. Not only does regular office cleaning reduce the threat of coronavirus and gets rid of nasty bugs, but your office is likely to be super dusty too if it hasn’t been used in a while right?! So make sure you get your professional office cleaning company to do a super deep clean before all the staff return back to work. Make sure they concentrate on areas like skirting boards and ceilings to remove any cobwebs and spiders that may have chosen your office as their new place of residence!

Employees may be nervous to return back to their old office life when we have been told for what seems like forever to become hermits! So, give them the peace of mind that they are returning to a sparkly clean office that is safe and not covered in sticky coffee stains that have been left for a month or two!

If you are unhappy with your current cleaning company or your current team require additional support, we work with a fantastic commercial cleaning company called Sparkle Cleaning. Check out their website here or call us today for more information.

Top things to look for when picking a general cleaner:

  • Ensure they follow your GDPR guidelines! It is so important that you pick a company that you can trust and wont breach the GDPR policies you work so hard to maintain.
  • Ensure they work to a set list of tasks so they don’t forget to clean any areas. A good cleaning company will have set procedures in place to ensure the same level of clean is carried out each and every time!
  • Pick a company with commercial cleaning experience – cleaning is a task everyone thinks they can do but not a lot of people can do it well!
Cleaning and disinfection of office to prevent COVID-19, Man in protective hazmat suit washes office furniture to preventing the spread of coronavirus, pandemic in quarantine city.

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Tip 3: Fog off Coronavirus!

Our final top tip is to get your office fogged before your staff return. Fogging is the process whereby high pressured machinery is used to create a fog-like mist of antiviral products to cover all surfaces. This is the BEST way to ensure your building has been fully disinfected as the mist covers everything from keyboards and phones to the ceilings and walls! It is completely safe for electrical products and is such a fantastic and easy way to ensure your office is totally safe from harmful bacteria or viruses that may be lurking on those surfaces or in that carpet!

Top things to look out for when picking a fogging company:

  • Watch out for cowboys! No we aren’t talking about the ones you find roaming around in Texas! We mean that when picking a fogging company, do your checks! There are lots of companies pretending to be experienced and trained to fog but this is NOT a task you want carried out by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing (especially if you have had any cases of Coronavirus in the office!) Here are some questions you can ask:

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  1. When did you get your qualifications?
  1. Can we see your certificates in infection control and fogging to ensure you are qualified?
  1. Are you insured to complete this work?
  1. What previous fogging and infection control experience do you have?

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  • Check the products they are using – whilst we aren’t expecting you to whack out a chemistry degree to analyse the products, it is always good to make sure the chemicals they are using for fogging and infection control are hospital grade and, if possible, are effective against coronavirus (if this is a concern). Only a very limited number of companies will have certification that their chemicals are effective against coronavirus so if they make claims about their products killing certain viruses, make sure you request the documentation to back up their claims!  

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So there you have it! Here are some of our top tips, questions and information to look out for when thinking about returning back to your office! As we slowly creep towards the end of lock down, it is really important that you start getting prepared and get these things sorted. You want to reaffirm your commitment to your staff by ensuring they return to a SAFE and HEALTHY working environment. If you need office cleaning services and help organising any of the above, please get in touch today! A Cleaning Service can organise all of this and help return your office back to a space you and your staff can be proud of!

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