Is your workplace ready for the “new normal”?

As the pandemic spread around the world, expressions such as “business as usual” were quickly replaced with “the new normal”, as it became increasingly clear that the return of ‘life as we knew it’, was an empty illusion.

As the virus spread so did the size of the challenges. For governments, businesses and individuals, across all aspects of our lives. Today, as the whole world continues to fight the immediate threat – the war against the ‘silent killer’ – many people are beginning to think about how certain public spaces are ever going to be considered ‘safe’ again.

It’s clear that fundamental steps must be taken to ensure that people feel safe and protected in their typical work and public environments. In this blog, we will be highlighting what actions businesses should take to offer a safe workplace for their staff and customers and contribute to the efforts of minimising the spread of germs going forward.

Similar to the way that someone contracts flu, COVID-19 is mainly carried by fluid droplets released into the air when an infected person exhales, coughs or sneezes. Those droplets can be inhaled by others who happen to be near the infected person, or they can land on nearby surfaces such as keyboards, phones, coffee machines, door handles… (the list is endless), where the virus can survive for long periods of time. Touching those contaminated surfaces poses a risk, especially if the person then touches their eyes, nose or mouth.

In March 2020 The World Health Organisation issued a guideline on how business owners can prepare their workplaces for COVID-19.

Similar to any policy on health & safety, the WHO has documented that there is an element of shared responsibility between the employer and the employee. For example, every individual has a responsibility to maintain their own personal hygiene, but it falls to the company to provide clean workplaces and equipment for their staff, customers and visitors.

Here are some of the main points WHO (The World Health Organisation) has recommended:

• Put sanitizing hand rub dispensers in prominent places around the workplace. Make sure these dispensers are regularly refilled.
• Display posters promoting hand-washing – ask your local public health authority for these or look on www.WHO.int.
• Combine this with other communication measures such as offering guidance from occupational health and safety officers, briefings at meetings and information on the intranet to promote hand-washing.
• Make sure that staff, contractors and customers have access to places where they can wash their hands with soap and water

OrcaGel developed the sanitiser station specifically to protect your staff and customers and by that allow your business to provide a safer and cleaner work environment.  We are especially working with brands that are seen as thought leaders in their industries – they want to be at the cutting edge of the ‘new normal’ for personal hygiene and be acknowledged as an organisation that is taking their responsibility of care towards their employees and customers seriously.

We’re advising organisations to place the stations in obvious positions in key touchpoints of your workplace.

I hear you asking, what is a “key touchpoint”?

Our workspace planning experts describe a key touchpoint as areas where people are entering or leaving your premises, in areas where people group or in areas where contamination risk is high such as kitchens or bathrooms.

The stations provide clear, eye-catching instructions helping you to promote regular and thorough hand sanitisation. Our hand sanitiser gel is a high-quality formula which kills 99.9% of germs while being kind to the skin, thanks to aloe vera extract.

In the short-term, stations will provide your workplace with highly effective protection for your staff from the spread of COVID-19, and indeed, other viruses.

In the long-term, the change in personal hygiene habits will mean that hand sanitiser will become part of everyone’s daily hygiene routine. This is as a result of people being much more aware of how viruses spread and it will cause people to think about their colleagues and surroundings differently, including regular sanitisation to protect themselves as well as others.

More About Hand Sanitising Stations