Why a Hands-Free Environment?
With the Covid-19 Pandemic, the value of a Hands-free workspace has risen exponentially. Truthfully, we’ve been heading towards hands free work options for a while now. But with the global health climate the way it is, the progress we’re making is coming from a place of necessity, rather than traditional innovations.
The number of touch points in a shared workspace probably doesn’t sound like a big problem, until you look at just how many there are. It’s not surprising that the new focus in office products is to diminish the number of touch points and, therefor, the spread of germs. Whether the goal is to make more products antimicrobial or function with fewer opportunities for contact, they all share the common goal of keeping our workspaces healthy and productive.
Common Workspace Touch Points
- Coffee Maker: As many of us can agree, coffee is what makes the world go round. Especially in the mornings! The coffee pot can be a hot spot for germs. Traditional coffee makers tend to have multiple touch points and can easily spread germs from one person to the next. When handling your food and drinks, the last thing you want is to be ingesting someone else’s germs. Keeping this area clean is a must!
- Refrigerator Door: As the home base for all things lunch or snack related, the refrigerator is a highly trafficked area. People touch it in the morning to put their food in and again at lunchtime to pull their food out. Add an additional couple of touches if there are leftovers that need put back in and then again at quitting time. The number of times just one person touches the Refrigerator door is fairly high. Multiply that by how many people share that office space and you have a lunch date with germs.
- Door Handle: This one probably makes the most sense as far a busy, highly used touch point. Depending on the setup of your shared workspaces, door handles may present themselves as a germ infested hurdle. There are definitely work arounds for this problem, but the easiest solution is to keep as many internal doors open as possible. Open floor plans work best for avoiding the door handle debacle, but wiping down the most used doors as often as possible throughout the day works well.
- Microwave Door: Much like the Coffee Pot and the Refrigerator, the microwave can be marked as one of the most touched appliances in a work building. It is essential to the flow and productivity of the work day, but can easily be a germy point of contact. Wiping it down as often as you can is super easy to do and can keep you feeling healthier as we enter Flu season.
Office Gear to Keep You Safe
- Keurig Products: Coffee Makers with only one button are an excellent solution to a cross-contaminating catastrophe. With most Keurig products, all you have to do is lift the tab to put your K-Cup in, close it, and push start. Thats only 3 touches. All of the surfaces are made for an easy and fast clean. Its a great improvement to any office for a happy and healthy environment.
- Disinfecting Wipe Kits: A really interesting product to come out of the Pandemic comes from Canberra. They have put together a DIY Wipe Kit that can be put combined with ease. Not only that, but the chemicals they use has a 1-3 minute kill time depending on the kit you choose. It can really make a difference in the safety of your space.
- Touchless Opener Key: Customizable Touchless Opener Keys have really turned into a hot item this year and they’re available on the FriendsOffice Print and Promotion site. They’re used for pushing buttons, opening doors, and more. Some even have a stylus option that can be used for touch screens! Its an all in one germ avoiding gadget!
- Hand Sanitizer: We all know that hand sanitizer works, but the high quality stuff can be hard to find. Unless you know where to look! FriendsOffice has both Purell and Blue Cedar hand sanitizers in stock!
- Face Masks: We’re all starting to get used to wearing our masks and doing out part to keep shared spaces clean and safe. Face masks keep our breath vapors to ourselves and additionally keep from spreading our germs to others. They’re great for keeping yourself and those around you protected. Because in this case, care is not sharing!
Extras!
This post was strongly inspired by Forbes article “Minimizing Touch Points Can Save You Time And Reduce Expenses.”