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Flu season is in full swing and the worst is yet to come. Reports are showing this year is already one of the worst flu seasons on record and will likely worsen, which could mean bad news for your workplace.

In a typical year, the flu causes about 70 million missed workdays and an estimated $10 billion in lost office productivity. But there are ways to keep employees healthy and productive. Staples recently conducted a flu survey to show an office's points of weakness during flu season. It revealed that the nation's workforce is undereducated when it comes to flu prevention, with nearly 80 percent of office workers saying they go to work sick and more than half not cleaning their workspaces often enough to disinfect germs that live on surfaces for up to three days.

While the first step toward prevention is to get a flu shot, there are additional steps you can take to help prevent the spread of germs — particularly in the workplace:

• Clean and disinfect commonly touched and personal surfaces. Think of how many people touch those door handles, copiers, conference room phones and water coolers, to name a few. Sanitizing surfaces frequently is critical to keeping germs at bay. Even if a surface appears to be clean, it could be harboring germs, so it's important to establish regular cleaning routines.
Don't forget about items at your desk. Studies show that one-third of employees believe their keyboards and phones are the dirtiest items in the office — but less than 10 percent say they clean them often. Equip the office with disinfecting wipes so employees can take action.

• Take advantage of technology and encourage telecommuting. For those times when pressing projects make it difficult to take a sick day, technology can enable employees to still work without leaving a trail of infection behind. It's easy and often economical for companies to provide the technology tools and know-how that contribute to a healthy work-at-home environment.

• Keep healthy snacks around to boost immunity. A healthy diet is an important first step toward a strong immune system. As such, encouraging healthy eating habits is another way to promote wellness in the workplace. Restock the breakroom with healthy snacks like fruit and vegetables and other smart snack options to help boost immune systems.

• Educate your staff. Consider formal education campaigns, including newsletters and informative posters, that encourage employees to "cover your cough" and "sneeze in your sleeve" (not hands!) when a tissue is unavailable, while also highlighting the importance of handwashing.



http://www.cleanlink.com/news/...n-And-Healthy--15116
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... and there is always an opposing viewpoint

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-...flu-germs-what-works

in the end, "If you want to, you can spray your telephones with disinfectant and scrub your keyboards with bleach-soaked cotton swabs every day of flu season. But don’t get so focused on disinfecting surfaces that you neglect the three most important things you can do to keep flu germs out of your life.

Regularly wash your hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitizer.
Cover your mouth when you cough, preferably with something other than your hand.
Get the flu vaccine every year.

Everything else is optional, flu experts say."
Or how about the door handle when going into the building?

Hey, I'm all for wearing those funky masks like the japanese, can you imagine if we had to get one for the copiers too? Big Grin

My main concern for getting sick is the handling of money. Driving I see it all, sneezers, coughers, and nosepickers, just think that next dollar could have come from the gal or guy picking their nose in the car. Plastic and EXPASS is the way to go.
Interesting response from another website:

We have a new guy in sales. He was a technician before he came to work here and never got sick. After working here and being exposed to sick people in the office he got sick. He wondered how it was possible all those years as a tech not getting sick, then one week here and he gets sick.

I asked him if he washed his hands after every service call. Answer: Yes
Then I asked him if he did the same here. Answer: No

He asked me why I thought of that. I told him this:

I used to work at a company that produced plants for nurseries. Their facility was 4 one acre greenhouses that were connected by offices in the middle. We washed our hands with Betadyne solution before entering the greenhouses to prevent plant diseases from traveling from greenhouse 1 to greenhouse 3. A great side effect of washing our hands was that in over 7 years no one got sick.

The answer then, is not to disinfect the machine, but wash your hands frequently and you won't get sick. Touching things and putting your hands in your face is a worse way of transmitting germs than airborne transmission of germs."
I asked one of my tennis buddies this weekend who is a high ranking local doctor about copiers and the flu virus. Viruses really cannot exist on plastic/glass more than a few minutes but germs and bacteria can linger for days.

Although cleaning copier keyboards on a regular basis during flu season is helpful, placing spray pump bottles of hand sanitizer nearby the copier is ideal and very helpful towards maintaining a healthy office.

As the copier is a shared office device which all employees utilize during the day, it makes sense to focus an office manager's attention on making this area as proactively healthy as possible.
Last edited by SalesServiceGuy

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