The whole point of a commercial cleaning service is to make your facility clean and visibly appealing, not to make it dirtier, right? Yet all too often we see janitorial companies through poor methods and a lack of standards, simply spreading bacteria around your facility. One of the leading causes of illness in the workplace is cross-contamination, and if your cleaning service is not using a color-coded cleaning cloth system to prevent it, they are ignoring industry best practices. Your employees are going to all be touching the same surfaces such as computer mice, door handles and phones, so when you commercial cleaning company comes and uses a rag to clean one of those surfaces and then somewhere else, they are spreading the hotspot of bacteria around your building. We all know that touching a commonly touched surface can be a one way ticket to getting sick, so imagine what a filthy towel or rag can do. It only takes one rag being used in the restroom and then somewhere else to start a pandemic in your office. The last thing you need is lower productivity, higher absenteeism, and even the risk of higher turnover rates. Your commercial cleaning company choosing not to protect you and your employees health by ignoring the best janitorial practices is a major red flag and it might be time to start looking for a new cleaning company if this is the case.
It so easy to pick up the office phone or use the mouse at your desk without thinking what might be lingering on it. Help reduce the risk that these simple actions get your employees sick by having your cleaning service invest in a colored rag system to reduce cross-contamination. Not only is it an easy and affordable solution to implement, designating tools like rags and mop heads for specific jobs is a great way to prevent cross-contamination in your facility. It is a relatively simple concept, you assign a color like red to rags used in high risk areas, yellow to lower risk areas like sinks and mirrors, blue for general cleaning such as dusting and green for anything food related. Of course you don’t have to pick these colors but by having a clear visual indication of what should be used where you help drastically reduce cross-contamination in your facility to prevent the flu and other illness all throughout your facility.
Color coded tools aren’t some secret technique, they have long been a staple of proper janitorial cleaning and if you cleaning company is choosing to ignore it you aren’t getting the quality of service you deserve. It's easy to use and costs almost nothing so there is no excuse not too. Cross-contamination is a real problem and contributes to reduced productivity and absenteeism as well as employee turnover. So, make sure that your cleaning company has a clear visual coding system to protect you from said cross-contamination. It will help keep your facility cleaner and provide for a much healthier workplace without affecting your budget.
Often it is the case the implementing a new system requires time to train employees with. This isn’t the case for the color-coded towel system. It simplifies the cleaning process and can make it much easier to know what to use where. It does, however, require some reinforcement and supervision. It may be a good idea to provide a chart for which color goes where so that it can be easily checked and there is no room for error. Most office building cleaning companies want to protect the health of your facility and this strategy is a clear and simple way to do it. Color coded towels and cloths can even offer employees a sense of responsibility and engagement by enlisting them in the fight to safeguard the health of your facility’s occupants.
The color coded rag system can help reduce work for your cleaning staff as well as provide a powerful tool for management. Having brightly colored rags and other tools allow you to quickly get a sense of if individual teams are cleaning as you expect. By simply looking at laundry, you can see how much of each area is getting cleaned and get a general sense of what takes the longest and what isn’t as time consuming. For instance, if you notice a drop off in the number of red mop heads you’ll know that something happened with bathroom cleaning and can follow up to make sure that there are no issues that need to be corrected. While this isn’t the only quality assurance system that should be in place, it can be a powerful tool to keep your cleaning teams on track.
Using a color-coded cleaning system may be a new way of doing things for your commercial cleaning company, but it is a strict improvement to your cleaning system. Not only is it an easy to learn system, it should be relatively inexpensive while safeguarding the health of your building. There is no facility that would not benefit from having a color coded rag system. Everything from medical cleaning to school cleaning to office cleaning are exposed to the risk of cross-contamination and therefore need a way to reduce it. Help control illness in your facility and get the level of service you deserve from your janitorial cleaning company and implement a color coded cleaning system. Stathakis, we use the color-coded cloth system company wide in an effort to further reduce the risk of cross contamination and systemize efficient, health conscious cleaning practices.