Are you sure your employee's are washing their hands?
You’ve heard it over and over again...“wash your hands to prevent the spread of germs.” What you don’t hear is how often people still aren’t washing their hands! It is estimated that approximately 30% of people aren’t washing their hands after using the restroom or during food preparation. This number grows to 75% when it comes to people failing to wash their hands after sneezing or when dealing with money.
Ensuring employee's are washing their hands can save you both time and money, while significantly reducing the transmission of disease and germs. An employee not washing their hands can have several negative effects on your business:
- Time off work recovering from illness
- Spread of germs to fellow employee’s
- Reduction in customer service due to staff shortage
- Ill guests, resulting in early departures and bad reviews
- In some cases, guests contracting serious illness can leave you open to a liability claim.
Having the proper risk management procedures in place (which involve hand washing), can prevent all of these scenarios! As an employer, it is important in the workplace to ensure the following risk management protocols are in place:
- Soap is provided at all washing areas
- Signs are posted in washing area’s showing the steps to hand washing; using both photos and written instructions
- Employees are reminded of the importance of hand washing
- Hand washing is performed correctly; washing your hands should take approximately 20 seconds (singing the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) as you rub your hands with soap.
For more risk management advice on training new employees, download our free white paper on 4 easy steps to effective staff training.