5 Best Practices for Reopening Your Facility/After COVID-19: Long-Term Investments Facility Managers Can Make for Health and Hygiene

5 Best Practices for Reopening Your Facility

W orkers Apprehensive to Return to Germy Offices

5 Best Practices for Reopening Your Facility

Assure building occupants that their health and well-being is top priority

As several U.S. states allow businesses shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic to resume operations, facility managers must plan a smooth reopening process. Customers will scrutinize the visual appearance of these facilities and question the processes and procedures in place to maintain cleanliness, and in turn, health and safety. Facility managers can help assure building occupants—whether employees or visitors—they are welcome and safe, even as the threat of coronavirus lingers in their minds.

Set reopening requirements

When preparing to open a facility, it is imperative to not rush the process. Consider abiding by the following five best practices before and after allowing occupants back inside.

1. Conduct a top-to-bottom cleaning and reassess standards and procedures

Follow the CDC guidelines for cleaning/disinfecting.

2. Eliminate foul odors; create fresh scents

Facilities should look and smell clean. Odors may be the result of mold and mildew, urine and feces; a malodor-neutralizing agent eliminates rather than masks these smells.

3. Make it easy for customers to sanitize hands and disinfect surfaces

Since contaminated hands can spread pathogens, it is also important that facilities make hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes readily available. The CDC recommends using a hand sanitizer containing at least 60% alcohol to kill germs effectively.

4. Elevate the visibility of cleaning and those who execute it

During and post-pandemic, facilities need to regularly address germ and odor hotspots, like restrooms and entrances, to assure customers of the facility’s dedication to cleanliness. Cleaning while customers are present is a great strategy for demonstrating that the organization prioritizes occupant well-being.

5. Implement crowd-control measures

As COVID-19 spread, essential businesses, like supermarkets, implemented measures to keep people physically separated. Facility managers should make an informed decision about the crowd-control strategies best suited for their facility and then be diligent in enforcing these strategies.

Demonstrate care for building occupants

Workers returning to offices, fitness enthusiasts going back to the gym, and families getting much-needed haircuts will be on high alert for infection control risks. They will notice if an indoor environment is not clean, contains no hand sanitizer, and is too crowded. Following these five best practices will show building occupants that their health and well-being is a facility’s primary concern.

CDC - Reopening Guidance for Cleaning and Disinfecting Public Spaces, Workplaces, Businesses

Guidelines for opening up America again - Whitehouse.gov

Workers Apprehensive About Returning to Germy Offices Post-Pandemic

Survey finds employees fear high-touch surfaces such as restroom door handles - April 29, 2020

As states end their shelter-at-home orders and employees return to their offices, they most likely will be concerned about the cleanliness of their workplaces. Georgia-Pacific Professional released the results of a survey detailing office workers’ heightened concerns related to workplace hygiene after the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a survey of more than 500 employees who worked in an office prior to the pandemic, 73% said they will be somewhat or very concerned about illnesses spreading in their workplaces. Almost half (47%) were somewhat or very concerned that their workplace would not take adequate steps to ensure a hygienic building.

Amid survey respondent concerns about high-touch surfaces:

64% stated that post COVID-19, they are more concerned about touching restroom door handles than they were before the outbreak

51% stated that post-COVID-19, they are more worried about touching restroom soap dispensers than they were before the outbreak.

When asked what would make them feel their workplaces were more committed to hygiene:

88% of survey respondents said they would feel safer if there were hand sanitizer near the main entrance, yet only 59% said their offices offered it prior to the pandemic.

72% said they would feel safer if there were facial tissue at each desk, yet only 40% said their offices offered it prior to the pandemic.

After COVID-19: Long-Term Investments Facility Managers Can Make for Health and Hygiene

A long-term commitment to health starts in your facility's high-use restrooms and breakrooms

With the rapid spread of COVID-19 throughout China, Europe, and now the United States, public health officials, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have been urging individuals to take a number of immediate protective measures to help slow or stop the spread of the virus. We are all well-versed in these measures, which, to name a few, include washing our hands frequently, covering our noses and mouths with an elbow or tissue when we cough or sneeze, practicing social distancing, and staying home if we are sick. And it seems there is now growing consensus that these measures are critically important to reversing the trajectory of this virus.

Ideally, once the coronavirus pandemic has passed, each of us will continue to implement some if not all of these personal measures in an effort to protect our health and the health of those around us on an ongoing basis. While these are all important short-term solutions to improving hygiene during the COVID-19 pandemic, following are recommendations for two of the most frequently used areas of a facility that demonstrate a longer-term commitment to the health and well-being of building occupants.

Create a responsible restroom

A responsible restroom is one that prioritizes hygiene and helps advance the health and safety of its users.

· Install touchless fixtures: According to the CDC, viruses, bacteria, and germs can survive on hard surfaces from hours to days to weeks. Let restroom users keep their hands to themselves and avoid the potential for transmission by touch by installing motion sensor light switches and sensor-operated touchless flush valves, faucets, soap dispensers, and paper towel dispensers.

· Go with paper over air: Studies have consistently shown that paper towels are a more hygienic means of drying hands than jet air. Among them, a study by the University of Westminster in 2010 found that jet air dryers increase the microbiological counts on hands by 42% on finger pads and 15% on palms. It also found that paper towels decrease the microbiological counts on hands by 76% on finger pads and 77% on palms.

· Provide toilet seat covers: Flushable toilet seat covers help keep toilet seats cleaner and provide users with both a layer of protection against germs and an indication of a facility’s attention to hygiene.

Elevate the breakroom

Too often, the employee breakroom boasts little more than a refrigerator, microwave and sink, an open stack of paper towels, and a counter strewn with disposable cutlery. While this may be sufficient, it is far from hygienic.

· Offer dispensed cutlery: Disposable cutlery dispensers help improve hygiene through one-at-a-time, fully enclosed dispensing, in which users only touch the utensils they need. Options in cutlery dispensers even include those that dispense wrapped cutlery, in which the eating end of the cutlery is protected, further helping to reduce the potential for contamination.

· Provide dispensed napkins: Much like cutlery dispensers, some napkin dispensers help improve hygiene by ensuring napkins are fully enclosed and automatically dispensed as needed. This helps eliminate the issue of users touching more napkins than they need and further helps to reduce the potential for contamination.

· Offer wipers: In addition to offering surface sanitizing wipes to effectively sanitize your breakroom surfaces, there are many disposable wiper choices that are sturdier than paper towels and more hygienic than reusable cloths for wiping up food spills and cleaning sticky handles and knobs. Many are available in one-at-a-time dispensing boxes or buckets.

Restrooms and breakrooms are among the highest traffic areas of nearly every building. Yes, let’s get past this immediate coronavirus crisis, but then consider making long-term investments that could improve hygiene in these core spaces and improve the health and well-being of building occupants.