Though working from home has become a matter of course for some, offices will still be open, even if they adopt a hybrid model of office and home-based working as the pandemic moves towards becoming endemic throughout society.
As such, in the business landscape of the future, business owners will need to instil a sense of workplace safety for employees, many of whom have considerable concerns about office returns.
A recent study by the Cleaning Coalition of America (CCA) shows that almost half of workers are still uncomfortable about returning to the office.
As this is likely have an impact on employee engagement and subsequent productivity, how can employers mitigate this?
Pre-covid, office cleaning probably did not feature highly on an employee’s priority of concerns.
It does now.
According to the study, for 62% of employees, simply seeing professional cleaners regularly at their workplace would make them feel safer as employees stressed the importance of adequate cleaning and disinfecting practices. Conversely, almost 40% would consider leaving if they considered workplace cleanliness to be inadequate.
This means that there is a growing trend for night-time cleaning to switch to daytime cleaning so that employees have the reassurance of actually seeing it take place.
In particular and understandably, employees want to see restrooms, doorknobs, lift buttons and other high-traffic, high-touch areas being cleaned frequently. Visibility is key.
Despite transmissibility of covid through touch being low, mask wearing, social-distancing, proper ventilation and hand hygiene feature highly on workers’ list of concerns. The onset of coronavirus appears to have thoroughly focused the minds of workers on general office health and hygiene in a way that was not the case pre-covid. Moving forward, this attitude is likely to become only more entrenched.
Not only does actually seeing the physical presence of cleaners going about their work reassure office workers regarding their physical health and the attitude of their company towards them, it may even help relieve anxiety.
So, seeing professional cleaners in the workplace may have as much of a mental health benefit on staff as a physical one and a specialist, professional cleaning company will understand this. They have an important role to play in the office cleaning protocols of the future.
