It has always been common practice for offices to have facilities enabling employees to take breaks away from their desks, cook and eat lunch, and enjoy tea and coffee.
As workplaces across England continue to open and welcome employees, it is important that new hygiene measures
are implemented to keep staff safe.
Although a dirty office kitchen has been a constant battle for many workplaces, the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of maintaining a clean and sanitised environment, particularly in shared areas such as office kitchens.
Read on for top tips on how to keep your office kitchen clean and safely disinfected.
Implement basic staff guidelines
Ask your staff to follow basic guidelines to minimise the transmission of germs across touchpoints (read about touchpoints below).
These guidelines can include asking staff to wash up any bowls or cups after themselves before placing them into the dishwasher, or using hand sanitiser prior to opening shared fridges or cupboards.
You could also ask staff to not leave any food in fridges overnight and to take home any dirty food containers rather than washing them in the office kitchen.
These small changes should minimise the amount of surfaces that employees will come into contact with every day, therefore reducing the risk of germ transmission.
Focus on touchpoints
Whether you hire a professional cleaning company or do office cleaning using an in-house team, it is vital that your cleaning staff focus on touchpoint.
A touchpoint is a high-traffic area that a person can come into contact with regularly throughout the day.
Poor cleaning practice and lack of regular hand washing can provide the means for harmful germs to spread across surfaces, particularly through touchpoints.
Examples of touchpoints in an office kitchen include fridge doors and handles, kettle handles, cupboard handles, cutlery, dishwasher buttons and coffee machines.
Keep on Top of Supplies
It will be difficult for staff members to clean up after themselves if they are not provided with the correct cleaning equipment.
Consider replacing towels with blue roll (to reduce the transmission of germs) and keeping enough blue roll in stock to ensure that it never runs out.
You could also delegate a member of staff to inform the facilities team if certain cleaning supplies such as washing up liquid, sponges, antibacterial wipes or antibacterial gel are also running low.
Disinfect Throughout the Day
You can help to keep your office kitchen a safe, disinfected environment with the help of Airburst.
Airburst is the ultimate disinfection system which can be activated via remote control or app to keep your property disinfected at the touch of a button.
Kind to people, pets and the planet, the system kills 99.9999% of harmful pathogens
in seconds and deodorises the air, removing dust and pollen.
Take a look at our Airburst products
here.