National Clean Your Desk Day, celebrated the second Monday of every January in the United States, encourages workers and students to increase productivity and improve their overall health by decluttering and cleaning off their desks.
Celebrating National Clean Your Desk Day, Everyday
A messy, disorganized workspace is an open invitation for chaos and illness.
By itself, paper clutter results in the loss of more than four work hours per week for the average employee.
A study by the National Association of Professional Organizers shows that paper clutter is the number one problem for most businesses.
In fact, the average person wastes 4.3 hours per week searching for papers.
National Clean Up Your Desk Day: A (Surprisingly) Big Opportunity to Modernize Business
And the challenges of paper clutter extend to the vast majority of office workers.
Turns out, not only is 54 percent of America overwhelmed by the amount of clutter they have, but 78 percent have no idea what to do with it or find it too complicated to deal with so they let it build up, taking over their homes and offices.
Survey Finds 54 Percent of Americans are Overwhelmed with Clutter and Don't Know What to Do With It
Unfortunately, paper clutter conceals the real problem--unhygienic desktops and workspaces that are rarely, if ever, cleaned.
A recent survey of the public sector workforce in the U.K. conducted by GCC Facilities Management reported that;
- Although 35% of workers stated their desk was cleaned every day, and 28% did so on a weekly basis, individual desk items seem to be neglected when it comes to hygiene.
- The research also found that 9% cleaned their desk monthly while 11% didn’t clean it at all.
- 37% declared their computer mouse was not cleaned at all.
- 31% of keyboards are never cleaned, and 28% of telephones are also ignored.
- 32% of staff members avoid communal kitchenware and bring their own due to fear of cleanliness of shared items, and 23% have used their own personal funds to supply items for the office to maintain cleanliness.
Source:
The lack of cleanliness and hygiene in the workplace has had a profound impact on the health of the workforce, as reported by CMM Online;
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom found employee sick days for minor and preventable illnesses, such as colds, have increased by 12.5 million since 2011.
How to Participate
In observance of National Clean Your Desk Day, celebrate by doing the following:
- Clear off all the paper, clutter, and garbage from your desk.
- Recycle and repurpose what you can, and throw away the rest.
- Safely relocate all computer equipment and other items from your desk and clean it with an all-purpose cleaner-disinfectant spray and a microfiber cloth.
- Wipe down all your equipment as you return it to the desktop, especially your mouse, keyboard, and telephone.
Additional steps that you can take which will make a huge impact include:
- Adopting a reduce, reuse, and recycle program in your office.
- Switching to a paperless office solution which scans all current paper work into an electronic filing system and eliminates future paper clutter, and;
- Implementing a weekly habit of wiping down your desk and clearing it of clutter before the janitorial service provider comes in to perform a regular deep cleaning service.
References & Resources
- National Clean Your Desk Day - January 13th, 2020
- It’s National Clean Your Desk Day
- Fun Holiday – Clean Off Your Desk Day
Takeaway
Messy, cluttered desks distract office workers from focusing on mentally challenging tasks, which has been shown to result in high levels of stress, poor sleeping habits, dissatisfaction in the workplace, reduced productivity, and an increase in health problems.
Further, cluttered desks result in poor document organization, which further increases operational costs while decreasing productivity.
Additionally, the paper clutter is likely hiding a greater danger to your office workers--infectious germs and bacteria which can spread quickly through the workplace resulting in millions of dollars in lost productivity increased healthcare costs, missed workdays, and a disengaged workforce.
A clean office is a happy and productive office, and the best way to ensure your office is cleaned to the highest of standards with a focus on the health and safety of your office staff is by outsourcing to an experienced and dedicated service provider.
Contact us today and discover why Vanguard Cleaning Systems® is the Standard of Clean® for businesses throughout Northwest Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
In Oklahoma, dial 918-960-4450
In Arkansas, dial 479-717-2410
In Missouri, dial 417-812-9777
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