As the seasons change, everything from people’s mental state to the indoor air quality shifts. For your cleaning practices and maintenance procedures, it’s important to prioritize the staff and visitors in your building. There are steps you can take to improve the environment and look out for your employees, keeping everyone safe, happy, and healthy this season.
It’s cold and flu season, so a healthy staff with high attendance is important for your business and for your teams. Reminding people of regular handwashing, setting up sanitizing stations, paying attention to high traffic areas, and staying home when sick is a start to keeping a virus from spreading through your facility and staff. Here are some of the things you can do to maximize the health of your staff and visitors this season:
- Look at your schedule to ensure that you have backup labour available, should someone call in sick.
- Check your HVAC, change the filters, and conduct any seasonal maintenance to optimize the air quality in your building. Conducting an air quality assessment will also let you know if there is a build up of contaminants that may be affecting your staff and visitors.
- Similarly, if weather permits, leave windows or bay doors open to allow fresh air flow into the building.
- Adjust outdoor lighting to allow a safe and easy path from the parking lot to the entrance as it gets darker earlier.
- Prepare early for the arrival of snow with ice melter and equipment needed so you are ready to clear pathways and provide safe entry into the building when winter comes.
Work-related stress is at an all-time high across all industries, with 20 per cent of Canadians reporting high or very high levels of stress at work. Here are some of the things you can do for your facility or cleaning team to help prioritize mental health and show you care:
- Provide opportunities for your team to connect with common areas, break rooms, or lunch gatherings to get people together.
- Offer services to help struggling employees. There are several free support sites in Ontario that you can recommend and make available to your team.
- Review your employee workloads, consider flexible hours, and distribute work as much as you can to allow your team a work-life balance. Even during a labour shortage, ensure that your team knows that you value their time and their efforts.
- Rotate shifts for people like cleaners working overnight so they can enjoy a life outside their place of work.
From their physical safety to their mental health, your staff and visitors need to know they are protected as much as possible. Whether you are a maintenance manager, commercial cleaner, or staff member, take precautions to keep all employees and guests happy and healthy this season.
