What are some tips for sanitizing conference rooms?
- Draft a safety plan
- Throw out trash
- Disinfect high-touch surfaces
- Clean dusty surfaces
- Promote proper hygiene
- Wipe glass surfaces and mirrors
- Have cleaning essentials at the ready
Under the implementation of the General Community Quarantine, many office establishments and workspaces have reverted away from a work-from-home setup. There has been a sharp increase in the number of people going to and from work. Office buildings have likely implemented safety guidelines for the return to work scenario. It’s crucial that these spaces don’t forget the importance of sanitizing conference rooms, especially now that face-to-face interactions has begun transpiring.
Maintaining the health and safety of all employees and preventing the spread of the virus should both be at the forefront of companies’ priorities. Continue reading for some of the most effective conference room sanitation practices.
Draft A Safety Plan
Before your pool of employees can begin using the conference room in your building, it’s important for you to draft a comprehensive safety plan. Your employees will be coming into close and more frequent contact with other individuals. You need to be able to prepare for this by creating a safety checklist before meetings are held at conference rooms.
This safety plan should contain information on wearing face masks and even gloves before entering the space. Furthermore, it should contain guidelines on how far apart they should sit once inside the area.
Throw Out Trash
Throwing out trash should be applicable to any area inside an office building, but this is especially important in sanitizing your conference room.
Leaving trash like food wrappers and empty water bottles can become a breeding ground for all kinds of disease-carrying pests such as rats, cockroaches, and mosquitos.
Keeping your employees safe from anything that may complicate their health and safety should be your main priority. This is why it’s important that the conference room is kept spick-and-span. Always ensure that proper waste disposal is practiced.
Disinfect High-Touch Surfaces
Though your office’s conference room may not have been used for a long time, this does not mean that no attention should be given when it comes to cleaning high-touch surfaces.
The most effective cleaning tools for these surfaces are disinfectants like ethyl alcohol with a 70% solution or solutions with 5,000ppm available chlorine. Thoroughly wipe surfaces such as tabletops, light switches, water dispensers, doorknobs, and the like.
In cleaning conference room devices such as headsets, whiteboard markers, projectors, keyboards, and phones, make sure that you use multiple wipes to avoid contamination and transmission of potential pathogens.
Clean Dusty Surfaces
As the conference room has not been used for a long time, it’s common to spot a large build-up of dust on surfaces such as windowpanes, wall corners, overhead projectors, and areas under the table.
Though there is little evidence to suggest that COVID-19 is airborne — as the transmission is mainly conducted through droplets coming from a person’s mouth as they sneeze — dusting these surfaces in the conference room is still a good practice.
In dusting these surfaces, use a damp microfiber cloth or a microfiber duster. Feather dusters are largely ineffective and instead might end up spreading the dust in the room. Make sure to conduct this practice as often as you can in order to avoid any of your employees potentially getting an allergy.
Promote Proper Hygiene
Your conference room is only as good as the people using them. In conjunction with the health measures that your company has drafted for your employees, make sure that you include ways of promoting proper hygiene.
Always advise your employees to use their face masks before entering the conference room. Aside from this, it’s important that you also advise them to bring their own hygiene products such as wet wipes, hand sanitizers, or ethyl alcohol. This is a way to keep not only themselves safe, but also everyone around them as they’re utilizing the space of the conference room.
Wipe Glass Surfaces And Mirrors
If there are mirrors in your conference room, then you may want to pay more attention to them. Though they’re not necessarily high-touch surfaces like doorknobs or light switches, it’s still important to pay attention to them.
Before wiping off any streaks on glass surfaces or mirrors, make sure any dirt, dust, and grime are removed. After which, spray them with a vinegar solution and thoroughly wipe with a microfiber cloth.
Have Cleaning Essentials At The Ready
Finally, you want to make sure that the cleaning materials to be used for the conference room are easily accessible. Cleaning essentials is an umbrella term that may refer to products such as disinfectants, air purifiers, hand sanitizers, tissues, and other wipes.
Though your employees will likely be bringing these with them before they step into a conference room, the extra supply will always come handy. This also makes sure that the tools can easily be retrieved for usage after each meeting has been conducted.
Key Takeaway
Conference rooms house some of the most high-touch areas in an office space. These surfaces are not limited to simply door handles, window latches, headsets, and the like. The best piece of advice is to maintain a regular cleaning schedule for the safety of the people who will be utilizing it for meetings.
With the following tips above, sanitizing conference rooms won’t become a challenge. It’s essential that these practices are conducted to prevent any possibility of anyone compromising their health.