Are Your Toilets Sanitised?
In our previous blog post we discussed the germs in the office and what can be done to minimise risk. In this post we would like to discuss the germs in the toilets and washrooms at your workplace.
I think everyone enter a public toilet or workplace toilet with a little trepidation, after all they are used by many people. So it's perfectly natural to be extra careful with what you touch while in there. However if your contracted cleaning company are doing their job properly you have nothing to worry about. Sadly not all cleaning contractors are the same.
When ICU Clean takes on new staff, often they will have worked as a cleaner in the past with another company, so we ask them about their experience and also their working practises. The number of cleaning contractors that simply do not know what they are doing or just don't care is astounding. As discussed in the previous blog HERE there are companies that give the cleaners a handful of cloths and let them carry on, using dirty germ riddled cloths for weeks on end sometimes unbelievably for months. But we also ask what cleaning chemicals they used, so often we would hear the same thing "lemon gel" now lemon gel has a place in this world but it's a cheap lemon scented soap type chemical. It has no sanitising use at all, it's just a cheap and cheerful liquid.
Using cheap and cheerful liquids may help the cleaning contractor to minimise costs on chemicals, but it doesn't help the customer or the staff who are not having their surroundings cleaned properly. In toilets and washrooms it is absolutely critical that they are not only cleaned but cleaned and sanitised properly. We at ICU Clean use a variety of different cleaning chemicals for the toilets as can be found HERE in our online shop such as the wonderful sweet smelling CANDY DISINFECTANT or we use a lovely apple scented bactericidal cleaner. Both of these products will keep your toilets not only clean and smelling nice, but crucially they will be sanitised too.
Do your taps look as good as the one pictured below? if not then they are simply not being cleaned properly, so if not being cleaned then they are certainly not being sanitised. It doesn't need spelling out about what people do when they visit the toilets. Once they've finished their business they hopefully wash their hands and dry them with paper towels. So the taps are the first thing that get touched after someone uses the toilet or in other words with "dirty" hands. So you really want your taps to be sanitised. so if they are not looking like mirrors then obviously they are not being cleaned properly. You can clearly see the reflection of the phone used to take the picture, that's how your taps should look.
As well as using the correct cleaning chemicals it's also important that your cleaning staff use cloths in the correct way too. Now some of you maybe thinking how can you use a cloth wrong. Well easy, by using the same cloth in different zones. for example you wouldn't want the cloth that has just been used to clean the toilet seat then being used to clean the worktop in the kitchen would you? The way to ensure that is to have clearly marked cloths that indicate their use. The best way is to have different colour cloths, that way there is no chance of a cloth being used to clean the toilets by one cleaner only to be reused by a different cleaner to wipe your telephone handset. Your cleaners should have at least 4 different colour cloths as standard. 1. Toilets 2. basins etc 3. kitchens 4. general areas We actually use more than 4 for the various areas but 4 is a minimum. So don't be afraid to ask your cleaners to see their equipment or go look for yourself in the cleaners cupboard what their set up is. Ask them how they get clean cloths and how often. Your company is paying for a service, it's up to the office manager or facilities manager to ensure that service is being delivered. Thank you for reading this post we hope you have gained something from it. If so please give our FACEBOOK and TWITTER pages a like and follow.
