Picture this. You wake up, get ready for your day, send your kids off to school, and drive to work. You’re appreciating the crisp autumn air and changing fall leaves as you drive. Then, you arrive at work to flu season mayhem. Half the accounting team is MIA, and Susan has been throwing up all morning yet refuses to leave because she “has things to do.” There’s a layer of dust, debris, and bacteria on every surface because last month the office manager said they were “wasting money on cleaners” when he could easily manage it himself. Everyone has been calling out to work sick and you’re starting to develop a stomach bug yourself. Could this be it? Do you have the flu too? Full stop.

When MSNW manages your janitorial facility care, it’s a game changer for flu season at the office. We clean and sanitize surfaces with the best team, products, and methods in the business. We’re here to share how we level up with the best cleaning services.

1. Before we do any kind of sanitation, our team always properly cleans surfaces to remove physical grime, dirt, and dust. Cleaning is an essential part of caring for the people in your facility, because the fewer physical dirt particles on surfaces, the better chance people have to not get sick. Disease-causing bacteria and germs can develop on all kinds of surfaces, and you could get sick just because your office space was not cleaned regularly or properly.
2. We use cleaning products made for specific surfaces along with color-coded microfiber cloths. Color-coding prevents cross-contamination and infection by differentiating what cloth color should be used on what surface. For example, one cloth color may be used to clean toilets, while another cloth color is used to clean desks. We don’t want one cloth to be used for both of those tasks, so we have a color-coded system in place to prevent that dangerous mistake. Microfiber cloths are incredible cleaning tools for environmental care because they use over 90% less water and cleaning product liquids than their cotton alternatives, yet pick up more dust, residue, and bacteria. 
3. Not only does vacuuming help prevent disease by cleaning up surfaces, but it also extends the life of your carpet or hard floor. Our janitorial team at MSNW uses backpack vacuums to first prevent user injury, but also to increase productivity. Since our team has better ergonomic posture when vacuuming, they are more comfortable with moving more quickly than with upright vacuums. In addition, if your office has not been vacuumed in quite some time, dust mites can appear and potentially cause allergic reactions and asthma attacks. 
4. For a final defense against flu season, our team has brought on long-lasting disinfection, by using a sanitation material that is water-based and bacteria-preventing. To top this off, we use foggers and electrostatic sprayers to disperse the sanitizing liquid into tiny droplets to almost completely coat surfaces. This allows for hard-to-reach surfaces and corners to be effectively sanitized. The long-lasting disinfecting agent we use stays on surfaces for several days and even when surfaces are touched the disinfectant is still actively preventing bacteria by destroying many different microbes upon contact. We have done many emergency nighttime disinfection sprays for businesses with disease outbreaks so their workers can return to work in the morning knowing their company cares about their continued health.
5. It’s all about consistency. We are cleaning for almost every company we serve multiple days a week in order to provide the most consistent and effective cleaning care possible. Flu season is no joke when we have to show up to work and the environment does not feel safe. This is also why we recommend day porters and daytime cleaning for many of our customers’ buildings. Workers often feel more comfortable knowing someone is cleaning and disinfecting desks, floors, and high-touch surfaces on a regular basis than not knowing they exist at all because the janitorial team only clocks in after-hours. 

In conclusion, your facility should be a comfortable place for day-to-day work. This means employing professional janitorial care throughout the year and adding periodic disinfection services for added protection during flu season or obvious bouts of office-wide sicknesses. You and your team’s health are worth the investment.