Then and Now: What does clean mean?
What does clean mean to you? Everyone has their own variation of what clean could be, but now more than ever, keeping clean is an important facet of work. In many ways, COVID-19 has changed the definition of clean for everyone. Keeping clean is not just about tidying or disinfecting. It’s become about washing your hands, cancelling plans to travel, wearing a mask, quarantining, limiting contact, etc.
During any normal time, keeping clean would be singularly beneficial in the way of staying organized and feeling more relaxed in your workspace. The ensuing pandemic has everyone’s health and safety being reexamined as a whole. We’d venture to state that the #1 goal of work is employee health and safety. So, how do we cope?
COVID Clean
For many people, dealing with COVID-19 has been hard. Not knowing which rules to follow and the uncertainty of everything can make you wonder if you’re doing all you can to stay safe and to maintain clean working conditions. We have a few simple, friendly examples we’ve been following in our offices!
No one likes it, but wear a mask. The mask may seem like a hassle and an inconvenience, but they act as a barrier to a virus that is still airborne and increasing in numbers on a global scale. It can be hard for those with breathing problems or anxiety to keep the masks on long term. Visually normalizing the practice and coming up with a game plan to integrating masks into your team’s every day will benefit everyone. Plan ahead, be quick, and promote enjoying the fresh air once you’re done working in collaboration will help!
Our Human Resource Administrator, Peg Schroeder, assures our team, “And, just remember, you don’t know who is asymptomatic so it is beneficial to everyone to wear a mask when working outside of your safe zones.”
Frequently disinfecting the spaces you share with others can be helpful too. You don’t have to clean your desk a million times a day. Wipe down your desk when you leave for lunch, before you leave work for the day, or whenever anyone’s spent time there for an extended period. Working in clean, safe-zones might even have cathartic and morale-boosting benefits for your team!
Practicing social distancing is also encouraged. At our office, we’ve taped-off safe-zones and we display signage to promote safely distanced work. One of the benefits we’ve experienced is increased respect amongst our team members through clear boundaries and expectations while at the office.
Understanding Others
Although these new operating procedures can be inconvenient, keeping each other safe is reason enough to take the extra steps of precaution. Being able to come back to work, after what felt like a long quarantine, is surprisingly uplifting in a time where so much is left unknown. It has allowed us to appreciate the little things in life. Here at FriendsOffice, we are practicing these tactics to ensure that our employees and customers remain safe and healthy. We care about our friends and that’s why we go the extra mile.
Extras!
For more information about COVID-19 and what you can do to help, click the link to read “Know the Difference to Fight the Spread of Viruses”
This post was strongly inspired by the DOH article “COVID-19: How to Clean and Disinfect”