Coronavirus | Office hygiene: the shocking truth

It probably comes as no surprise when perusing your gunge-infested work sink, the poorly washed communal coffee mugs or the state of the office toilets, that the workplace is a hive of germs and potential illness.

With workers generally spending the vast majority of their waking hours packed into busy offices, sharing phones, computers and handshakes, it’s inevitable that when one person gets an illness, it spreads like wildfire.

Whilst this is an issue even in the best of times; there are infinite chances every day to pick up a pathogen or succumb to a bug, yet the current cold weather and the imminent threat of the coronavirus make ensuring that you uphold a greater level of both personal and communal hygiene even more essential than ever.

According to research conducted by Staples, 10% to 12% of illness-related absenteeism in the EU is a result of the flu virus – with the workplace being the number one environment in which the bug proliferates. Research shows that the average transmission rates of the flu virus in the workplace are 16.2%; this virus alone costs business an average of £1465million per year in the EU alone.