Have you ever wondered why the skills of your employees isn’t transcending into good revenues? If yes, your office could be lacking in drawing optimum productivity from the employees. While time management and motivation do influence productivity intricately, there is one major cause that goes unnoticed. Cleanliness! And we aren’t talking about just clean desks and laptops. Clean offices, right from air vents to behind- the- desk spaces, every nook and corner needs to be clean.

You might ask why? What difference does an unclean air duct have on employee’s productivity? The effect is HUGE! You might not even realize, unclean spaces harbour allergens like dander, pollen, microbes and pests like cockroach that release bio waste into the air. These allergens assimilate with office air, polluting the indoor environment. The detrimental effects of indoor pollution aren’t even visible but cause symptoms like irritability, lack of concentration, reduced physical endurance, reduced immunity, allergic reactions like hives and rashes, itching, sinus, sneezing, and even depression- all resulting in low productivity.

(Image Credit: FCS – Office Cleaning, UK)

Here are the top 5 cleaning tips you can follow to ensure optimum productivity of your work force:

1. A Thorough Cleaning Regimen: Depending upon your office size, set up a thorough cleaning regimen and specify the number of days cleaning would be done. Although daily dusting and light cleaning is recommended, if you are on a tight budget and can’t hire help, you can mark well in advance on calendar the days you’ll be devoting to cleaning. Use environment and people safe cleaning chemicals and methods to reduce chances of allergies and irritation. (read more)
2. Hire Professionals: Regular or once in a while, it is highly recommended you hire professional cleaners. They are experts in cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting the entire premises. Professionals have the right equipment to reach every possible corner and chemicals to thoroughly clean the entire space. From budding enterprises to well established corporate houses, every business venture needs professionals to clean and get rid of pests polluting the indoor environment. You can set up a weekly, bi weekly, monthly, quarterly or half yearly cleaning contract, as per your budget, with a cleaning company.
3. Proper Garbage Disposal: There should be a proper garbage disposal system installed in your office and ensure trash is taken out regularly. Even trash bins need to be cleaned and sanitized regularly. If that peanut butter sandwich cannot lie on your desk for too long, it sure can’t rest forever in the garbage bin to invite a swarm of flies.
4. Set an eating zone: Food smell is not only distracting, it also invites unwanted guests like flies. Food crumbs, spilled gravy, leftovers, stains of sauce all over the office is unsightly and unhygienic. Set an eating zone for your employees to minimize distractions and let healthy environment prevail. What can be worse than an office workstation smelling like grilled sandwich or “aloo gobhi”!
5. Set up hand sanitizers: Those hand sanitizers have a work to do in real! Disinfect hands killing off disease causing germs! Install hand sanitizers in restrooms, common room and lobby. Easily accessible hand sanitizers promote the culture of hygiene among office employees. Healthy employees who do not fall sick very often is sure a win for the company too. Refer to this detailed study of the benefits of hand hygiene by a PHD group on National Institutes of Health, US.

These factors have a huge effect on offices with a large workforce or at co-working spaces and business centres. That is why we need to take special care when office hygiene is concerned.