Effective housekeeping can help control or eliminate workplace hazards. Poor housekeeping practices frequently contribute to incidents. Housekeeping is not just cleanliness. It includes keeping work areas neat and orderly, maintaining halls and floors free of slip and trip hazards, and removing waste materials (e.g., paper, cardboard) and other fire hazards from work areas. It also requires paying attention to important details such as the layout of the whole workplace, aisle marking, the adequacy of storage facilities, and maintenance. Good housekeeping service in Kolkata is the basic part of incident and fire prevention.
Effective housekeeping is an ongoing operation: it is not a one-time or hit-and-miss clean-up done occasionally. Periodic \”panic\” clean-ups are costly and ineffective in reducing incidents.
Poor housekeeping can be a cause of incidents, such as:
- tripping over loose objects on floors, stairs, and platforms
- being hit by falling objects
- slipping on greasy, wet, or dirty surfaces
- striking against projecting, poorly stacked items, or misplaced material
- cutting, puncturing or tearing the skin of hands or other parts of the body on projecting nails, wire, or steel strapping
To avoid these hazards, a workplace must \”maintain\” order throughout a workday. Although this effort requires a great deal of management and planning, the benefits are many as per any housekeeping service near me.
Effective housekeeping results in:
- reduced handling to ease the flow of materials
- fewer tripping and slipping incidents in clutter-free and spill-free work areas
- decreased fire hazards
- lower worker exposures to hazardous products (e.g. dust, vapours)
- better control of tools and materials, including inventory and supplies
- more efficient equipment clean up and maintenance
- better hygienic conditions leading to improved health
- more effective use of space
- reduced property damage by improving preventive maintenance
- less janitorial work
- improved morale
- improved productivity (tools and materials will be easy to find)
A good program by a good housekeeping service provider in Kolkata plans and manages the orderly storage and movement of materials from point of entry to exit. It includes a material flow plan to ensure minimal handling. The plan also makes sure that work areas are not used as storage areas by having workers move materials to and from work areas as needed. Part of the plan could include investing in extra bins and more frequent disposal.
The costs of this investment could be offset by the elimination of repeated handling of the same material and more effective use of the workers\’ time. Often, ineffective or insufficient storage planning results in materials being handled many times and being stored in hazardous ways. Knowing the workplace layout and the movement of materials throughout it will help when planning work procedures.
Worker training is an essential part of any good housekeeping program. Workers need to know how to work safely with the products they use. They also need to know how to protect other workers such as by posting signs (e.g., \”Wet – Slippery Floor\”) and reporting any unusual conditions.
Housekeeping order is \”maintained\” not \”achieved.\” Cleaning and organization must be done regularly, not just at the end of the shift. Integrating this into jobs by housekeeping service near you can help ensure this is done. A good housekeeping program identifies and assigns responsibilities for the following:
- clean up during the shift
- day-to-day clean up
- waste disposal
- removal of unused materials
- inspection to ensure the clean-up is complete
Do not forget out-of-the-way places such as shelves, basements, sheds, and boiler rooms that would otherwise be overlooked.
The final step to any housekeeping program is inspection. It is the only way to check for deficiencies in the program so that changes can be made.
