The door handle, the elevator button, and even your own computer – your office is one place where you are most likely to encounter cold and flu viruses which easily spread from person to person due to close contact. The workplace is a communal area, and although you may be washing your hands, keeping your stationery to yourself, and covering your mouth when you sneeze, it doesn’t mean that your coworkers are doing the same.
When it comes to keeping yourself healthy while at the office, there are various places that you should try an avoid, or at least sterilise your hands after visiting. A great idea is to keep hand sanitiser in your bag or laptop bag when trying to stay healthy at the office.
Five places in the office that can be considered germ hotspots
Handles
Everyone and their visitors touch the door handles in the office, and nobody knows when last they washed their hands, or what they last touched. These can be handles on the entrance door, an office door, the kitchen cabinet, the refrigerator, and even a desk drawer. Wash your hands regularly throughout the day to stop spreading germs.
Desks and equipment
With remote working becoming a common arrangement in most businesses, you may not have your own desk and share one with other colleagues. Not only have they touched the desk and the stationery but the mouse and the keyboard as well.
Not knowing their hygiene practices, you can’t assume that this desk is hygienic and germ-free. When you get to the office, use Milton’s Sterilising Spray to eliminate germs and keep you healthy. Milton kills 99% of germs and therefore lessens the chances of spreading illnesses.
Elevator buttons
Again, this is used by not only your colleagues but by everyone in the building. Germs make their way to your hands through sneezing and coughing, and although we’re taught to cover our mouths when either happens instead of spreading the germs into the air, you now have them on your hands. Sanitise your hands after you sneeze or cough into them, or better, use your elbow to cover up instead.
Kitchen and Break Rooms
The office kitchen, including the microwave, refrigerator handles, and coffee pot handles, can be breeding grounds for bacteria. Additionally, communal snack areas with shared bowls or containers can cause germ transmission.
Meeting rooms
A meeting room is shared by everyone in the office, and almost every surface will be touched – the table, the chair arms, and the presentation equipment. Another germ spreader is the confined space of the employees in the meeting room. This is one area in the office where coworkers sit closely together for long periods of time.
We warn our children about germs when they go to school and teach them how to protect themselves, but those rules still apply when we go to work. Just like them, we need to be considerate of our colleagues, and be cautious of what we touch.
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