Those doing office cleaning in Bristol need to be aware of the risks posed by repetitive strain injuries; these kinds of injuries are not only often painful and severe in nature, they also take a very long time to recover from, severely impacting a person’s quality of life. Due to the physically strenuous nature of the cleaning industry, such injuries are much more common among janitors and other cleaning staff than they are among people working in many other industries today.
People who are engaged in office cleaning in Bristol frequently have to use mops, and unbeknownst to many, using the wrong kind of mops or mopping the wrong way is a common source of injury for those who work doing office cleaning in Bristol and elsewhere. In fact, mopping floors is one of the most injurious of all duties among janitorial workers, second only to hauling garbage. At first this may seem surprising, but when you consider that mopping involves heavy lifting, followed by having to exert pressure downward, and repetitive actions, the strain mopping puts on the lower back, hands, wrists, and arms starts to make more sense.
The Importance of Switching to Ergonomic Mops
In those who do not use ergonomic mops, the possibility for injury on the job is many times higher. This is largely due to the fact that mops are not a “one size fits all” cleaning tool; mops were originally developed in the early days of the sanitation business, when the average user of them was likely to be a tall white male. This resulted in commercial mops being designed exclusively to match this kind of stature and build.
Today, many kinds of people are janitors—short and tall, male and female, with a variety of body shapes and types—making the need for ergonomic mops an urgent priority in the cleaning industry. Ensuring that people can work pain-free is not merely a matter of workplace comfort, after all, but a matter of workplace safety, which affects businesses as well as workers (in the form of worker absence and compensation claims).
A study conducted by the University of California in 2011, “Ergonomic Risk Factors”, verified that the majority of ergonomic risk factors were a direct result of “awkward poses and repetitive tasks,” leading to high instances of muscular skeletal pain and injury in the cleaning industry.
The study found that in addition to the issues born of traditional commercial mops, poor training protocols and cuts to cleaning staff in many office buildings and other institutions were placing added pressure on those who frequently use mops.
Those conducting the study found that mop-related injury could be greatly reduced by switching to micro-fibre mops, which the researchers found to be lighter and easier to handle. The study also indicated there is a need to move over to using “smart-handle” ergonomic mops, which are specially designed to adjust to the height of the person using them. The study further suggested that those engaged in mopping should wear slip-resistant shoes, which effectively cut the risk of falls due to damp floors.