Industrial hygiene beyond the shop floor

WORKPLACE HYGIENE in an industrial context tends to mean the shop floor. But every manufacturing operation also runs an office environment, and the health, safety and productivity arguments for keeping it clean are just as compelling.

Employers have a legal obligation to provide a safe and hygienic working environment, and this applies as much to the office as to the production floor. Beyond compliance, the business case is straightforward: a healthy workforce is both more productive and engaged.

The most visible element of this is regular cleaning, such as surfaces, floors, equipment and bathrooms, but air quality deserves equal attention. Poor indoor air quality can cause headaches, fatigue and respiratory problems, and has been shown to affect cognitive function. Fortunately, not all improvements require significant investment or disruption.

A different kind of industrial plant

Office plants can help regulate air humidity while significantly reducing dust and improving office respiratory comfort. Densely leafed plants can effectively absorb background noise in open-plan offices. This is particularly useful for industrial offices in smaller businesses which may be situated close to the shop floor. 

There are a variety of plants which are ideally suited for an industrial office environment. Here are three of the standout recommendations based on their air quality benefits and contribution to employee wellbeing, together with their hardiness:

• Snake Plant: One of the few plants that releases oxygen at night, and laboratory studies indicate it may be effective at filtering benzene and formaldehyde from the air.
• ZZ Plant: Studies suggest it filters volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including benzene and toluene from indoor air. It also thrives under fluorescent lighting.
• Spider Plant: A highly effective air purifier, removing toxins such as formaldehyde and xylene, and shown to absorb carbon monoxide, making it particularly well-suited to offices in industrial settings.

When to call in the professionals

Small environmental improvements like these sit alongside, rather than replace, the regular cleaning that every office requires. While employees can contribute to day-to-day tidiness, it makes sense to entrust routine and specialist cleaning to professional cleaning companies. Beyond the routine tasks of vacuuming, mopping and surface cleaning, professional services cover specialist requirements such as deep cleans, carpet cleaning and disinfection, tasks that are neither efficient nor practical to ask of office staff.

For manufacturing businesses focused on what happens on the shop floor, the office environment can sometimes seem like an afterthought. But the combination of professional cleaning and small environmental improvements, such as introducing plants, can make a real difference to staff wellbeing and productivity without significant cost or disruption.

Jade Collazo is HR director at Cleanology

For more information: 

cleanology.com/services/office-cleaning

Tel: 020 7582 8111