Bank Cleaning Contractors & Flu Prevention

Posted on January 29, 2019

Flu season’s a busy time of year for janitorial companies and for bank cleaning contractors in particular. As public spaces that deal in hand-to-hand cash transactions, financial institutions are vulnerable to flu outbreaks, which can lead to heavy HR costs and erode customer confidence.

To reduce the risk of influenza outbreaks, bank cleaning contractors are tasked with keeping banks as clean and hygienic as possible throughout the winter months. At JAN-PRO®, our bank cleaning contractors work closely with financial institutions to protect their employees and customers at this time of year.

If you manage a bank or another type of financial institution, there are several proven strategies that you can use to protect your facility against influenza. Some of these strategies can be implemented on your own. Others should be undertaken with help from professional bank cleaning contractors.

Below, we’ll take a closer look at what banks can do to prevent the spread of the flu this winter, including insider tips from our bank cleaning specialists.

What Banks Can Do to Prevent Influenza Outbreaks

There are a few things that put banks at higher risk of influenza outbreaks compared to other businesses.

Banking involves face-to-face interactions between clients and tellers, which give the flu virus an easy way to spread. Additionally, banks include a number of high-touch surfaces which can spread the flu virus from customer to customer, customer to employee, or employee to employee. These include door handles, computer keyboards, and the keypads on banking terminals and ATMs.

While there’s little you can do about the hygiene and behavior of your clients, you can encourage your employees to protect themselves against the flu. Remind employees to get the flu shot, make it easy for them to stay home if they’re sick, and suggest that they cover their mouth with the inside of their arm if they need to cough or sneeze.

Hand hygiene is also crucial during flu season, so it’s also a good idea to post reminders in the restrooms encouraging proper handwashing techniques. Another effective step is to provide easy access to an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. You can provide employees with travel-sized bottles of hand sanitizer for personal use, place pump-bottles at teller stations, and post larger dispensers in customer areas.

Flu Prevention Tips from Bank Cleaning Contractors

In addition to the steps outlined above, it’s a good idea to revisit your facility cleaning and hygiene protocols with your bank cleaning contractors. You’ll want to pay special attention to surface disinfection and air quality.

If you’re based in a snowy area, your winter cleaning protocols will already be different from how you clean your facility during the spring, summer, and fall. Given this, it’s a relatively simple step to request that your bank cleaning contractors step up their disinfection efforts during cold and flu season.

At JAN-PRO®, we make extensive use of our EnviroShield® system during flu season, which allows our owner-operators to easily disinfect high-touch surfaces — even those with crevices and hard-to-reach areas like keyboards and keypads.

At the same time, you’ll want to make sure that your facility has healthy, breathable air. Studies have linked air pollution with an increased risk of contracting influenza, as well as worsened symptoms in cases of infection.

Bank customers can track in snow and slush which melts and evaporates leaving dried out particles of dust, dirt, and salt behind. To prevent air quality concerns, bank cleaning contractors need equipment and materials that will trap these particles before they become airborne.

At JAN-PRO, our owner-operators use ProTeam® commercial vacuums, which come with four HEPA filters apiece. This way, we’re literally cleaning the air in your bank as we vacuum floor mats and carpeting. When cleaning hard floors, we use dampened microfiber mop pads, which trap more than 99.9% of all dust particles.

Speak with your local JAN-PRO bank cleaning owner-operators about steps you can take to prevent flu outbreaks this winter. Call 866-355-1064 today to connect with your local office and request a consultation.