When it comes to winter, your staff doesn’t take the season off – and neither should janitorial cleaning services. In fact, not only should you maintain regular visits from commercial janitorial services during the colder months, you might even want to consider increasing them.
Why? Well, if you’re familiar with Canadian winters, then you’ll know that they can create a mess from snow, ice, and dirt. Mix them together and they get stuck onto shoes and boots, which then tracks into the office. While this can make flooring slippery, becoming a liability, the salt and grime can also eat away at flooring and make its way deep into carpeting, potentially causing damage.
There’s another big reason to step up your cleaning and janitorial services schedule in winter. Most people will be wearing gloves during the winter months, and on the surface that may seem like they’re protected from picking up viruses and germs onto their hands. But the opposite is true – the gloves can become a magnet for them, and then get spread onto doorknobs and other surfaces when a staff or client enters the building. Those same surfaces can be touched by others, potentially causing illnesses.
It has also been shown that viruses are more transmissible in winter compared to summer, partly due to less humidity. This can allow germs to stay in the air longer, increasing risk of inhalation. Meanwhile, when heaters are turned on indoors, they further dry the air as well as nasal passages, making the latter less effective at picking up invaders. It’s also possible staff may be spending more time indoors to stay warm, which further increases the risk.
Also consider that because it’s cold outside, staff will likely opt to have the office windows closed more often, which can lead to an accumulation of dust that can circulate through vents and trigger allergies. Speaking of windows, natural light is important for mood and productivity, and thus cleaning windows regularly is also important to allow more of it inside.
With this in mind, it makes sense to use janitorial cleaning services that are experienced in sanitizing and disinfecting surfaces to eliminate the threat of germs – even those that are airborne using techniques such as fogging. The same commercial janitorial services have the right equipment to properly clean floors, as well as get deep into carpets to remove dirt and germs lingering below the surface.
Learn more about the reasons to hire cleaning and janitorial services during winter months from Arelli Cleaning.