Summer is right around the corner, bringing warm weather and some much-needed good news! With the success of Covid-19 vaccinations so far, more and more companies are hoping to return to business as usual. Before getting too excited, however, there are some lessons to consider from the past year and a half. 

When the pandemic first hit, many people got a crash course in sanitization and how we can spread germs. Going back to the workplace, it’s likely that many employees will feel some apprehension or anxiety, so it’s critical to properly sanitize and disinfect your workspace before then. 

On the whole, people adjusted to the new cleanliness expectations reasonably well, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. So to help you and your company prepare for the switch back to in-person work, we compiled some helpful tips you can use to keep everything clean, sanitized, and safe for everyone! 

Office Cleaning Tips 

When you prepare your office building or workspace for employees to return to, you should try to ease any anxiety or fears they may have. Re-entering the workspace should be a comfortable experience for everyone, and in order to achieve this, there are a few simple tweaks you can make.

Employee Guidelines

Before any employees set foot in the workplace, make sure they are aware of any changes or tweaks to your health and safety expectations. For example, while disinfecting and cleaning are very important to focus on, your employees’ mindsets should be equally important. In addition, they are likely still apprehensive about working in a smaller space with larger groups of people, so set new expectations early. 

These can include:

• Posting the Centers For Disease Control Covid-19 guidelines around the office.
• Updating sick day and illness protocols for employees.
• Maintaining social distancing within the workspace, if possible. 
• Offering remote work as an option to employees who need it as an option.

High-Visibility Cleaning

Another switch you might want to consider is that of high visibility cleaning. It has been standard practice for janitorial work to be done after hours or out of sight of the other employees in the past. In contrast to this philosophy, high-visibility cleaning encourages cleaning and maintenance crews to work throughout the day, in sync with the rest of the workplace.

Switching to high-visibility shifts helps with two significant aspects of post-pandemic work. Firstly, it makes your janitorial services more visible and present to your other employees. This can provide some reassurance that the office is constantly being cleaned and set some employees more at ease with being at the workplace. Secondly, your business will be cleaned at more regular intervals. During the peak hours of the day, you don’t have to worry about germs on surfaces or objects around the office as much.

Maintain Previous Practices

Even though there are some newer protocols in place to address Covid-19 concerns, you should continue to do all your standard practices as well.

Reinforce regular, everyday cleanliness habits like:

• Wash your hand with soap and water every time you use the bathroom.
• Encourage employees to wipe down their workspace after using it, and provide some essential cleaning products to allow for this.
• Schedule regular deep cleans, as daily cleaning won’t cover everything in the office. Regular deep cleans allow for carpet cleaning, unique space cleaning, and thorough cleaning and disinfecting of the entire office. 

Control High-Touch Surfaces

The final aspect of health and safety you should focus on is high-touch surface cleaning. During your day-to-day cleaning, ensure that your office cleaners focus on the surfaces that have the most use. These surfaces can include:

• Doorknobs 
• Tables
• Chairs 
• Handrails 
• Light switches
• Elevator buttons 
• Equipment handles
• Telephones
• Desktop keyboards
• Vending machine buttons

And more!

For these surfaces, invest in disinfecting products that are guaranteed to kill germs. Keeping all these surfaces clean on a day-to-day basis saves money and time in the future, so don’t neglect them. 

Janitorial Cleaning Services

Of course, taking all of these steps will significantly increase the safety of your workplace. Still, the new implementations, cleaning products, and work shifts can sometimes cause a considerable strain for a business. As you may quickly realize, taking on the challenge of post-pandemic cleaning can be stressful and time-consuming. 

Instead of trying to take this on yourself, we recommend turning to a professional cleaning service, such as our industry-leading janitorial services! We are cleaning professionals with a long history of providing top-quality janitorial and office cleaning services, and our goal is to help you and your company return to normal as effectively as possible. 

Our teams of cleaners and disinfection specialists are trained to use CDC and EPA-approved products that are the most effective at killing Covid-19 germs and constantly stay up to date with new cleaning guidelines. In addition, we provide a vast array of cleaning services, ranging from standard day-to-day janitorial work to warehouse deep cleaning and just about everything in between.

As an MBE Corporate Plus certified services provider, we constantly provide industry-leading services and have a certified track record to show for it. A partnership with us allows you to continue to focus on your work and company while we handle all the dirty work for you!

LACOSTA

For more than 32 years, LACOSTA has provided industry-leading janitorial services to our clients, alongside our managed labor and facility support teams. With our focus on safety, customer satisfaction, and mutual accountability, we take pride in our service to you. 

If you are interested in learning more about our services and our safety culture, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We would be happy to discuss how our methods and procedures would apply to your business in particular!