How Office Housekeeping Will Change Post COVID-19

Tags: office housekeeping

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world affecting industries and forcing corporates to re-evaluate their hygiene and safety policies. In this new normal, it is the responsibility of company heads to keep their workplace safe for employees and guests by ensuring their office housekeeping department follows all the precautionary measures while carrying out their daily tasks.

It is no surprise that, given the current circumstances, your housekeeping department and your employees have to adapt to the new protocols and policies to keep your office safe and hygienic. Therefore, you have to encourage drastic measures within your workforce, some that may be short-term, while others that have to be continued for several months. As a result, you must revamp the hygienic ethos of your corporate space, and here are some tips on how to do that.

1. Modified Housekeeping Services

First and foremost, the essential housekeeping services of your workplace must be modified to meet the new hygiene standards and protocols. Your office housekeeping staff needs to undergo rigorous training so they can get acquainted with the new procedures. Everything they do, from cleaning and maintaining the decorum of the office to serving beverages to guests, has to be modified.

For example, you need to ensure that any kind of food or beverages served to guests or employees have to be served in one-time use cutlery by using trays, to avoid contamination of the food and drinks. Office crockery must be avoided at all times. Everyone should be encouraged to get their own bottles and crockery, and at the same time, the staff should be encouraged to wash their own crockery. Although we are currently fighting COVID, we also need to keep environment-friendliness at the back of our minds. So try to limit the use of paper or plastic cups, plates, forks, and other disposable cutlery and reduce the amount of waste generated.

2. Overhauled Cleaning Protocols

You have to overhaul the cleaning protocols wholly. The office housekeeping staff must clean and sanitise the office more frequently now by using disinfectants and not just soapy water and regular floor cleaners. The surfaces that are touched often like doorknobs, handles, taps, lift doors, buttons, coffee machines, phones, etc. need to be cleaned on a bi-hourly basis. This is crucial as these surfaces can be hotspots for contamination. Even the cleaning equipment and tools used by the housekeeping staff must be disinfected and sanitised every day.

Next, your office's high-traffic zones like the reception area, meeting rooms, pantry, etc., must also be cleaned regularly. Particular emphasis should be placed on meeting rooms, and hence, they must be cleaned before and after every meeting. Another vital zone that must be cleaned and disinfected frequently is the washroom. Washrooms will be used by all your employees, even those who might be sick or infected. Therefore, maintaining a high level of hygiene in washrooms is crucial. And, at the end of the day, your office needs to be fumigated with disinfectants to eliminate any viruses, minimising the risk of contamination.

The personnel cubicles and workstations need to be cleaned and sanitised regularly, especially at the beginning of the day. However, it can be difficult for the housekeeping staff to do that without infringing on your employees' privacy. Thus, you must provide your employees with personal alcohol wipes that they must use to clean and sanitise their workstations at least once a day. Similarly, it would be best if you urged your employees to be self-sufficient in maintaining the hygiene standards instead of solely relying on the housekeeping staff.

Additionally, there must be a proper process to dispose of gloves, shoe covers, masks, tissue papers, wipes, etc. It must be in a location easily accessible by all your departments, yet away from any high-traffic zone. The biohazard disposal must also be marked appropriately, and it should be disposed of carefully in high-quality garbage bags.

Personal Safety Practices

With stringent health checks, you should also enforce various safety practices that need to be followed by your employees. To begin with, everyone who enters your office needs to use sanitiser to disinfect their hands. This must be mandatory even for your employees who may leave for short breaks during the day.

As for your housekeeping and security staff, they must wear PPE kits that include disposable gloves, masks, and shoe covers. You must also encourage your employees to wear face masks at all times, even if they do not feel sick. This will significantly reduce the chance of the virus spreading within the workplace.

In the coming months, your office's housekeeping department will have to take up the mantle to face the challenge. They need to work harder and develop a robust strategy to keep the facility safe and healthy for everyone who enters it. But along with this, your employees will have to act smartly so that they can keep themselves, and other individuals around them, safe and healthy.

Unify Facility Management Pvt. Ltd. understands the changing conditions of the office housekeeping market, and we are transforming our operations to tackle new challenges. We are dedicated to providing excellent facility management services while upholding the highest hygienic standards. Reach out to us for more details.