The Most Commonly Contaminated Surfaces in Office Spaces

Consider this: How many surfaces do you touch in a day? Probably quite a few.

Spreading germs can be as simple as sneezing into your hand instead of your arm or blowing your nose and forgetting to wash your hands – then touching a door handle.

Germs easily get into our food and drink when we consume them, and into our eyes, nose, and mouth by touching our face.

Did you know? Germs can survive for hours on our hands and can multiply into the millions in only 24 hours. Imagine how many germs are lingering at the workplace! This is why it’s important to implement regular office cleaning in your Edmonton office.

While we can’t eliminate every germ, we can do our due diligence. A sanitized office is a must to help keep the invisible world of germs under control and help mitigate employee sick time. Let’s discuss some of the most commonly contaminated surfaces in office spaces:

Modern empty business corporate office meeting room ready for businesspeople

Faucet Handles

If your office doesn’t have automatic faucets, they should be regularly cleaned and disinfected. People touch faucets before washing their hands, which makes them a hot spot for housing germs.

Sink faucets should be cleaned as often as washroom faucets. When cleaning a faucet, be sure to clean the entire faucet top to button – and the spot where the faucet meets the sink; this area is a prime target for grime and mould.

Keyboards and Mice

If you’re in the office, chances are you’re using the keyboard and mouse for a good portion of the day. Even if you wash your hands often or use hand sanitizer, germs can still spread when you touch any other contaminated object.

Keyboards are especially difficult to clean, with plenty of small, tight spaces for dust, debris, and germs to hide. In fact, the average desktop keyboard has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat! Yuck.

Be sure to take that little extra time each day to wipe your keyboard and mouse carefully.

Kitchen Appliance Handles

Besides the washroom, the kitchen is the second most popular common space in the office. Whether it’s grabbing another cup of coffee or heating up lunch – the kitchen has many high contact points to look out for.

Ensure you or a member of your team cleans fridge handles, coffee maker handles and buttons, and microwave handles and buttons daily.

Door Handles

Cleaners should sanitize door handles regularly. This includes washroom doors and stalls, building entrances, and individual office and meeting room doors.

Visitors to your office from customers to delivery people will also touch door handles. These visitors extend the spread of germs beyond your Edmonton office – which makes office cleaning essential to do your part within the community.

Armrests

When the hands aren’t typing away at a keyboard, they relax on a comfortable armrest. Armrests are an oft-forgot high-touch area.

Wipe the top and undersides of armrests at desk chairs, meeting room chairs, and lunchroom seating within the office.

High Volume Surface Cleaning Plan:

To help mitigate the spread of germs, here are a few tips recommended for the office:

Keep disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer handy throughout the office for quick use.
Use Lysol wipes 1 to 2 times a day to quickly disinfect the high-touch areas listed above.
Encourage everyone to cough and sneeze into a tissue or their arm rather than their hands.
Keep doors open during office hours to minimize touching door handles.
Install automatic faucets, soap dispensers, toilets, and hand dryers.
Encourage employees to eat in the lunch space rather than at their desks.
Hire an office cleaner to take care of the heavy lifting!

Contact the Edmonton Office Cleaning Experts at Alliance Building Maintenance Today!

Keeping your office clean and safe for employees is easy for the team at Alliance Building Maintenance. We offer quick, seamless onboarding for all our commercial cleaning customers.