Battle Back Against Flu Season with a Winter Deep Clean

Few people would disagree that it’s important to be clean, and if you own a business, you probably don’t need much persuading. After all, if you run an enterprise that looks like a dump, you know very well that your customers (or soon-to-be ex-customers) will give you an earful.

But keeping your business clean is especially vital during the winter. We’re in the midst of flu season, and that’s nothing to sneeze over. In fact, the flu is said to cost the country 7 billion a year in sick days and productivity.

This is also a time when the people your business serves, whether children at a daycare or customers at a restaurant, aren’t just bringing in germs into your establishment – they’re tracking in snow, ice and mud. That’s why a winter deep clean is so important.

Over the holidays, when your employees and customers are often taking time off, is the perfect time to execute a winter deep clean at the office. That is, take the time that you don’t always have to lavish extra TLC to all the surfaces that may not get regular attention.

Some of the potential problem areas that your business should pay particular attention to include:

The floors. You hopefully have your floors cleaned regularly, anyway, but during the winter, it’s especially important. Road salt can be tracked in on shoes, smearing onto your floor.  Sure, it’s just salt, you might think, but it has toxic chemicals in it that can be unhealthy for humans. Still, you might figure, so what? These are chemicals that will remain on the floor. True, but think about all the times you’ve, say, dropped a potato chip or a cookie on the floor, and you’ve adhered to the five second rule. Well, scientists have done studies that show that bacteria contaminates food within one second.

Regardless of who your business serves, a clean floor is imperative. Sneakers and boots aren’t just tracking in road salt but slush, snow and mud. Those shoes have also probably stepped on animal feces, chewed up gum, sewer grates and who knows what else. The holiday break is a good chance to catch up by giving your floors a serious scrubbing.

The bathroom. Yes, you always have your restrooms cleaned regularly (boy, we hope so), but are you thinking about the little extras? For instance: the soap dispenser. The soap inside the dispenser is clean as, well, soap, but that little handle is a hotbed of germ activity. So are the door knobs. If everybody’s washing their hands, the door knob on the inside of the bathroom should theoretically be clean, or somewhat clean, but the door knob leading into the bathroom is especially germy.

Your company’s unique challenge areas. Different businesses have their own special types of sanitation concerns. If you’re the principal of a school, you may be worried about the students’ lockers that are rarely cleaned and filled with who knows what. A holiday break could be the perfect time to sanitize everybody’s lockers.

A gym – before the onslaught of New Year’s customers – may want to take this time to do the same thing…while also getting all those barbells and dumbbells cleaned up for the post New Years insanity.

If you work in a government building, a bank or any general office building where everybody’s gone for the holidays, this may be the time to deep clean the telephones, photo copiers and computer keyboards – a lot of bacteria-riddled fingerprints wind up on both.

You’ll want to think about any areas in your business that may not be cleaned often – because the business is always humming – and take the holidays as an opportunity to do your deep winter cleaning.

Now, obviously, we’re not suggesting that you and your employees do the deep winter cleaning. You’ve all been working hard, and you deserve a break. But unlike many businesses, Stratus Building Solutions does clean during off hours and times when most people are away from their businesses, like those quiet holiday weeks.

And don’t worry about us. We take the time to catch up on our rest and relaxation, too. But your down time is often our time to shine.  And there’s perhaps never a more important time than the holiday season to make sure that your business receives an extreme, green clean (that is, with non-toxic, eco-friendly cleaning solutions). After all, it isn’t just the holiday season, but the flu season. Sneezing and coughing employees and customers isn’t going to help anybody. A clean business is a healthy and profitable business, which means that you, without lifting a broom or mop, can really clean up.

If you want to get your office space in order before the New Year with a winter deep clean, consider hiring a professional cleaning service. A janitorial service can come in your space, make sure it is germ-free, and get your office on track for a hyper productive 2019!