Essential Cleaning Tips for Essential Businesses

There is no denying the profound effect the COVID-19 virus has had on businesses. Whether your company is closed to prevent the slow of transmission, or open because you’re operating an essential business – it’s meant big changes for everyone. If you have been open during these last few months, it’s been both a time of great uncertainty, as well as extra responsibility when it comes to prioritizing the health and well-being of your employees, your customers, as well as yourself. It’s important to feel confident in the business environment you are providing others, so here are some essential cleaning tips when it comes to running essential businesses.

Disinfect often

Any object that is consistently touched by more than one person should be sanitized very often – between every use, if possible. Common items on this list might include credit card machines, door handles, pens, condiments, and more. Perform an audit of what everyone is touching in your business, both on the operations side, as well as the consumer experience. Then, ensure you are disinfecting these items frequently – as well as instructing your staff to do the same.

Enforce masks

Your employees should absolutely be wearing masks, but enforcing masks amongst consumers is also very important. Non-medical masks prevent others more than they do the wearer, so for your employees’ sake, ask consumers to cover their nose and mouth before interacting with your staff. If all parties wear masks, it significantly reduces the rate of transmission as compared to only one mask, or none.

Maintain social distancing

Keep social distancing practices in place for both your employees, as well as your customers. Place markers on the ground at common stopping points, like the register, to indicate the minimum distance individuals should be maintaining from one another. To the best of your ability, have employees also keep distance from one another, and sanitize any commonly used equipment between uses.

Limit headcount

Assess the size of your facility, and determine a reasonable maximum occupancy that provides everyone the space they need to maintain distance from one another, and keep operations manageable for your staff. Keep this figure publicly posted, and don’t hesitate to ask customers to form a line outside to keep everyone safe.

Hire a commercial cleaning service

Even if you don’t regularly use one, now is an intelligent time to implement the use of a professional service. One characteristic of the coronavirus is to live on surfaces for an extended period of time, even days, which can delay and increase transmissions. Your staff may do their best to clean, but without professional experience, it’s incredibly unlikely they will properly sanitize every surface. A professional cleaning service can offer you the peace of mind that at the close of business each day, you have a safe, fresh slate for the next day’s work.