When desks and work surfaces are left unclean, viruses can linger on the likes of telephones and keyboards for 24 hours. The infographic claims an unhygienic office to be the cause of at least some of the nine working days the average employee loses due to being sick every year.
The infographic quotes an interesting study by Harvard University, involving the productivity of students tasked with working in environments of varying levels of clutter. The study found students who worked in a clutter-free workspace were able to work steadily for 7.5 minutes longer than the students attempting the task in a cluttered workspace. The study concluded that an untidy workspace can “undermine people’s persistence in completing tasks.”
Working in a clean and tidy working environment means you are less likely to be distracted by objects cluttering up a workspace, hence clean offices can lead to increased focus, notes the infographic.
Common sense suggests with less time wasted searching for important documents, a tidy, well-organized office leads to a more productive day. In fact, searching for lost documents equates to businesses losing around $2.5 million in lack of productivity, according to data by the International Data Corporation.