Though today’s facility manager must be comfortable wearing many hats, the fact of the matter is that keeping one’s occupants healthy is just about the most important responsibility a facility manager has. After all, the healthier your occupants are both physically and mentally, the happier, more productive, and more eager to stay in your facility they will be.
Sanitize
There are many steps facility managers can take in order to protect the health of their facilities’ occupants. The first step is, to me, the most obvious. Facility managers must keep their facilities clean. In health care facilities, schools, and places where populations are especially dense or less-than hygienic, sanitation is even more important. However, through the proper use of work order management tools, keeping your facilities sanitized can be relatively easy. Using this software, facility managers need to schedule regular multiple levels of cleaning so that all surfaces are cleaned to include the lower half of walls and the undersides of tables, chairs, and railings. Also, you need to set up reminders to check and refill hand sanitizer stations.
Noise Level
Controlling noise levels is also important to the health of your occupants. If you have not done so yet, have an acoustic evaluation of your facility done. You may discover that installing noise reducing ceiling tiles and wall coverings will drastically damper the ability of sound to bounce around your facility. Another effective fighter of sound is ambient sound such as that which is provided by soothing background music or Muzak.
Plants
Since we are also dealing with the mental well being of our occupants, we also need to deal with items, such as living plants, that bring happiness and tranquility to people. However, living plants must look vibrant and healthy in order to produce the desired result. When they are worn down, dying, or even dead, no one gets any positive feelings from them.
Also, if your facility has fake plants, consider replacing them. There have been studies that have found that artificial plants increase the levels of harmful chemicals in the air instead of reducing them as real plants do. If you end up keeping some artificial plants onsite, you must remember to take care of them and sanitize them on a regular basis.
Ergonomics
Finally, as we have touched upon in other postings, all facility managers need to ensure that the work stations within their facilities are ergonomically friendly. If need be, have ergonomic assessments done.
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