WINTER MAINTENANCE PREPPING FOR WINTER
Clean facilities and sound hygiene practices are essential to maintaining high levels of public health and creating environments where people can thrive.
Recent years have intensified our awareness of these issues. The pandemic served as a major wake-up call to treat hygiene and cleanliness as a key strategic priority for many organisations as poor work environments can have detrimental business impacts.
The physical space we work in can cause illness. A 2021 study by cleaning brand Chicopee found that some of the dirtiest touch points in the workplace included the bathroom door lock, fridge handles, and the top offender, the computer mouse. The long-term effects of the pandemic have seen businesses become more conscious of keeping communal areas safe for workers.
The winter months pose a particular challenge, as this is when seasonal viruses are more prominent because they thrive in cooler, damper conditions.
Maintaining high levels of hygiene and cleanliness during winter is also more difficult, largely because there are more people utilising indoor spaces, and natural ventilation methods are less feasible than in the warmer periods of the year.
How can cleaning teams ensure they
are prepared for winter? From a top-level strategy perspective, looking at a building holistically and sharing responsibility for occupants through close working relationships between cleaning and services teams is a must. This will involve sharing information and best practices, as well as regular communication to ensure each knows the schedules and priorities of the other.
Flexibility and agility are also important. Rather than being confined to contracts with a set scope, flexible contracts can enable cleaning resources to be adapted through the year as and when needed. This will better allow cleaning teams to be ready for whatever nature might throw at us, from another virus to an extreme weather event.
With winter on the horizon, there is an array of measures that should be considered if cleaning regimes are to be robust, agile, and effective enough to overcome the heightened risks, says Charlotte Parr, Director at Portfolio.
Technology and data are key to achieving this. Churchill’s workplace hygiene programme, PRISM, enables workplace, property, and facilities managers to understand the bacterial and viral content of certain environments to implement tailored infection prevention solutions. This information can underpin smarter cleaning schedules.
In terms of preparing for specific tasks that are associated with winter, it is important to make sure that cleaning teams are fully trained and prepared, as the work required to keep a building clean is often different to what is typical during the drier, warmer months of the year. For example, more dirt gets walked into buildings which not only requires heavier floor cleaning but can also add to the risk of slipping.
What we have found is that building occupants also respond well to prompts and advice about hygiene practices. Cleaning teams have an important role to play in educating people about how to stay safe in their environment, be it tips on how to thoroughly wash hands, or steps they can take to keep their workstations clean.
Don’t forget to think about your
cleaning staff While the health and wellbeing of building occupants should be front and centre of cleaning strategies, it is all too easy to forget about the very people who ensure spaces remain safe throughout the year.
As key workers, they do not have the option of working from home and must continue to come into the workplace. We therefore need to keep them safe and healthy, just as it is their job to help safeguard the wellbeing of the people using their buildings.
With winter on the horizon, there is a wide-ranging array of considerations that need to be considered if cleaning regimes are to be robust, agile, and effective enough to overcome the heightened risks. The key to success is to prepare early, bring staff up to speed and leave no stone unturned, no matter how small a measure it may appear.
www.churchillservices.com/portfolio/
48 | TOMORROW’S FM
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