Flu season is starting again, so what can you do for your workplace?

27 Jul 2018

Preventing contagion is not just for the benefit of those who might fall ill but also those who are left to pick up the extra workload. In cases where the absent person is the only one who can do their job, work is delayed, and the employee may be tempted to return to work while they are still contagious.

Thousands of working hours are lost every winter due to preventable illness. Many companies will lose revenue as a result, so flu is not only a health issue.

Educate colleagues

Eight out of ten infections are spread through hands. You can pass on the flu virus before you even know you’ve been infected. This means your colleagues can do so to each other.

Suggest enhanced hygiene measures at your workplace until the flu season has passed. These measures can be as simple as having a big bottle of hand sanitiser for the office or behind the service counter, as well as plenty of tissue within easy reach at every work station. Washing your hands is the best option for preventing contagion, but hand sanitiser is can be used if frequent washing is not possible. Hand sanitisers kill most viruses, and almost all bacteria.

Public spaces and public transport are especially risky for picking up contagion outside of the workplace. It is a good idea to wash your hands after coming indoors during the flu season, to rid yourself of the bacteria and viruses you’ve come in contact while out and about.

You could encourage people to regularly sanitise their keyboards and any other frequently touched objects.

Only a third of people fail to wash their hands after visiting the toilet, which is terrifying to know at a time such as this. Boosting awareness could already result in a major improvement.

You can download free hand hygiene posters for your toilets from https://www.debgroup.com/uk/education-support/skin-care-work. Browse through to find one you find suitable in topic and style, as they vary from fact-focused adult ones to more fun children’s ones.

Drying hands is more important than you think

Bacteria and viruses are spread more easily through wet, sticky hands. Germs also multiply faster on wet skin, so it is essential to provide good hand drying options. A communal towel is not hygienic and while it may be suitable for your family at home, your workplace is a very different environment. If a towel is even slightly damp, it harbours bacteria and undoes the work you did washing your hands. Modern, efficient air dryers and hand tissue are the best options from a hygiene perspective.

It is important to use air dryers for a long enough period of time. If you are tempted to give up on your dryer after a while and wipe your hands on your clothes, don’t. Your clothes will already have viruses and bacteria just from your everyday life, so you put the contagion right back onto your hands by drying on your clothes. In the short term, it is better to replace the inefficient dryer with tissues, and in the long term to update it to a modern one.

If you do catch something

If you do find yourself having caught something, only cough and sneeze into a tissue which you then dispose of. Wash hands immediately and, again, dry thoroughly. If you need to blow your nose a few times an hour and it is not convenient to keep going to the sink, keep hand sanitiser nearby at all times, so you can use it after each time you blow your nose.

Do not go back to work too early after the flu or you’ll spread the contagion, causing more damage to your team despite your good intentions. Flu tends to be contagious for days, even over a week, depending on how your body handles the infection. Sneezing, couching and blowing your nose during that time are all excellent for spreading the infection to colleagues who may fall more seriously ill than you.

If you are not careful with hygiene even after returning, bacterial infections can take over because the virus has weakened your immunity, resulting in more absence or low energy levels.

If you manage a team of employees who are sniffling with the common cold but can’t repeatedly wander off to wash their hands, provide them with small bottles of hand sanitiser they can carry in their pockets.