Preventative Strategies

To address the health hazards of shared desking, most companies manually clean all common areas and shared work environments daily.

“However, an Ohio State University research study demonstrated that cleaning crews can miss up to 50% of the surface area.”⁴

Many companies will place disinfecting wipes on the desks for the employees to wipe down prior to starting their day, though this is also unreliable. First, employees may simply forget as the muscle memory of sitting down with a cup of coffee and getting right to work returns. They also often neglect to disinfect the monitor, which is touched when adjusted. Additionally, the keyboard is difficult to properly sanitize with wipes or a cloth.

But the biggest problem with wipes is that it is easy to just spread the germs across the desk if not done correctly. Disinfection, as detailed on the instruction labels, calls for applying the disinfectant and leaving it wet and untouched for anywhere from 4 to 10-minutes, depending on the brand. This is very rarely done. The typical 15-second swish could actually do more harm than good.

Clearly, a virus mitigation strategy that relies solely on manual cleaning or employees wiping down the desk themselves is likely ineffective.

4 https://news.osu.edu/study-shows-how-diligent-we-have-to-be-to-keep-surfaces-germ-free/