CHEMICALS & DOSING EQUIPMENT
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Nigel Crunden, business specialist at Office Depot, examines the challenges that cleaning operatives face when cleaning breakrooms, and how the right chemicals and dosing systems can ensure optimum hygiene levels.
With any working environment comes a range of cleaning challenges to overcome, depending on the specifications of an individual area and the activity that takes place there.
Breakrooms or break areas are widely used by employees as a space in which to relax and eat lunch or snacks. Although facilities management (FM) teams may have regular cleaning rotas in place throughout commercial premises, extra care and attention has to be given to certain areas depending on the purpose of the space. An obvious example of this is the washroom, where there is a constant need for a sufficient level of hygiene and cleanliness. However, breakrooms are also ‘hotspots’ for the build up of harmful bacteria which, if not dealt with promptly, could be hazardous from a health point of view.
Under the Workplace Regulations Act, employers are legally obliged to provide a specific area in which staff members can take a break from their daily routine. Employers should be mindful about keeping standards of cleanliness in these areas as high as possible in order to maintain a healthy and productive workforce and a pleasant area in which to recuperate.
It’s also important that employers consider the frequency with which food and drink is consumed in the
30 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2015
breakroom. This means that surface areas must be safe enough to place food on and clean enough to prevent the transfer of infections.
There are a number of ways in which to overcome this challenge. However, an important pre-requisite to general advice around this issue is to ensure that there is a daily cleaning rota in place for breakroom areas. Ideally, cleaning should take place twice daily, at both the start and end of the day. This should be further supplemented by placing antibacterial wipe dispensers in the room itself, with instructions to employees to clean the area where they have eaten lunch or a snack, before resuming their duties.
While this should only compliment mainstream cleaning efforts, it is important that staff members play their part in maintaining the space designated for their recreation. This is something that the FM team may wish to pass on to operational line managers in order to reinforce the message.
Moving onto cleaning products, FM teams may purchase numerous specialist cleaning products, some of which either clean or disinfect instead of doing both simultaneously. Here, it is worth remembering that by using multipurpose cleaning products, both of these requirements are covered off. Within areas of a
business where food and drink is either prepared or consumed, it is vitally important that this level of deep cleaning takes place instead of merely eradicating surface dirt.
As well as multi-use products, there are a number of dilution control systems which provide cleaning operatives with the ability to dilute concentrated cleaning solutions for use in trigger sprays or a mop bucket, without the need for complex calculations. This not only helps to save product by limiting overuse, but it can also help maximise the standard of cleaning as incorrect dilution can result in the deposit of oily residues on surfaces. Better guaranteeing a higher standard of cleaning in this way is obviously an advantage in areas such as the breakroom.
Most modern workplaces will claim to be clean and hygienic throughout but some employers need to be reminded to give additional attention to high priority areas of the building such as the breakroom. Not only is there a motivation for employers here in terms of protecting the health of employees, but by creating a clean, welcoming space for them to relax in, there is the potential for productivity levels to rise.
www.officedepot.eu
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