One of the dirtiest places in an office is the pantry simply because it’s a high-traffic area. What’s more, the presence of food and food waste can foster a breeding ground for pests, germs, mould, and other disease-causing organisms.
This isn’t an ideal situation because, again, there are any number of people congregating in an office’s pantry, kitchen, and mess hall at any time. Thus, the risk of acquiring and spreading illnesses is high. A dirty communal space can also have an effect on a person’s mood and mental health.
As part of your obligation as an employer to provide a health and safe working environment for your employees, you need to ensure that your office pantry is clean and hygienic. While it can be challenging to do so, due to the reasons stated above, it’s not entirely impossible.
Here are some best practices and tips to maintain the cleanliness in your office pantry:
Hire Professional Cleaners
One of the biggest factors that makes it difficult to keep offices clean is that different people have different habits with regard to cleaning up. Some might be more mindful, while some can be a little careless. In addition, cleaning and tidying up the pantry aren’t among the core duties of your employees.
This is why it’s best to leave the task of keeping your office pantry (your entire office, really) to office cleaning service providers like Crewcare. With properly trained personnel and the right equipment, you can count on professionals to keep things neat, clean, and hygienic at all times.
Enforce a “CLAYGO” Policy
While hiring professional cleaners is the best way to keep your office pantry clean, keep in mind that the overall cleanliness of the workplace is a shared responsibility. Simply put, everyone has a stake and should do their part to keep things in order.
For this, it can be helpful to implement a CLAYGO or clean as you go policy. This is essentially the practice of picking up after yourself, whether that’s putting food wrappers into the trash bin or placing used dining utensils in the sink.
A CLAYGO policy is especially important in a workplace where there’s no in-house janitorial crew that conducts hourly cleaning tasks.
