We sat down for an interview with Jo Rogers, who serves Cubix, Inc. clients out of our Jacksonville office as a Business Development Representative. At Cubix, Inc., she works to expand the current client base, maintain a strong relationship with clients, and always look for new opportunities. Jo has over twenty years of experience providing hygiene and cleanliness solutions to businesses. She offers her insights into workplace hygiene for 2021 and beyond.
Why Is Hygiene Important in the Workplace?
Jo: All workplace environments need to be hygienic and safe for both employees and visitors. This applies to all, not just workplaces involved in handling food and personal products. A solid workplace hygiene policy is the best way to ensure employees maintain a clean workplace. Each workplace will present different hygiene requirements. Certain tasks or industries may also create risks that require additional protection.
What’s a common question you get from customers?
Jo: I am often asked: “What’s the difference between a wet extraction and a low moisture extraction?” Our low-moisture extraction method uses a minimal amount of water and liquid. When you’re cleaning the carpet, it helps to prevent delamination of the glue underneath the carpet or tile itself. It also helps to prevent any odors as a result of cleaning.
The way that I would explain it to somebody is, when you take your clothes and throw them in the washing machine, that’s wet extraction. At Cubix, Inc. we use the dry-cleaning method, so it’s like taking your clothes to a dry cleaner. It’s going to be less aggressive. It’s a chemically based process that involves multiple steps, and each step is designed for the particular carpet that you’re cleaning. If you’ve got a carpet that has a lot of grease in it, you will use a different product to clean it than a carpet that has a lot of food in it. We have different products for different services when we’re doing a clean.
What types of surfaces does Cubix, Inc. clean and maintain?
Jo: If you can walk on it, sit on it, or it’s a fabric that surrounds you, like a cubicle, a chair, or any type of flooring surface, we can clean and maintain it.
How often do you recommend offices clean things like cubicles and carpets?
Jo: I would recommend at least once a year. For carpets, it depends on the amount of traffic. It all depends on a client’s expectation, their needs, and the amount of traffic that goes through our facility.
How does carpet cleaning impact office safety?
Jo: Safety comes into play in a few different avenues. The first one is when you do a wet extraction to clean a carpet, that carpet still has a residue of moisture after cleaning. When you have a transition between a carpet and a hard surface if that carpet is not totally dry and somebody steps on that wet surface, you could potentially have a slip and fall accident. At Cubix, Inc. we provide walk-off mats so that people can dry off their feet and prevent a slip and fall accident. The second thing is if you’ve cleaned your carpet over and over and over again with the wet extraction method, it can actually delaminate the carpet. That means that the glue comes off the backing of the carpet, and the carpet actually bubbles and can become a trip hazard. This is why you don’t want to do wet extractions too often; it can reduce the lifespan of your carpet and impacts safety as well.
Why would you say that hygiene is important in the workplace?
Jo: A well work environment is a clean work environment. When you’re in a confined area, and you breathe, cough, sneeze or speak, particles are emitted from our bodies, and they’re naturally going to land on your chair, on your cubicle, and in your carpet. Those are your filters. And what happens over a period of time is these filters catch everything.
If these filters are dirty, they can help spread germs and spread illness. And frankly, when you walk into a workspace, and it’s dirty and dusty and smells not quite right, that’s not really conducive to working. Especially in 2021, businesses want to provide people with the cleanest working environments as they possibly can. You do that through a proper maintenance program with your flooring and textiles. You want to keep a clean work surface to provide the best possible work environment for your internal clients.
How does flooring contribute to workplace hygiene?
Flooring is a filter, and it also acts as a noise damper. It helps to reduce the sound in the working environment. When it comes to flooring choices, you don’t want high pile carpeting that captures everything. The texture is important because carpeting can capture dirt and contaminants that get on people’s shoes. If you don’t have carpet in a workspace, then all that dirt, dust, and everything else stays on your shoes, and it ends up building up on the hard surfaces.
Why is hygiene important in the office kitchen?
Have you ever walked into an office cafeteria, and all you can smell is dirty grease or old food smells? Do you really want to eat in that environment? By cleaning the kitchen or cafeteria, you’re reducing the odors, and you’re reducing the ability for contaminants and microbes to build on a floor. It’s vital to provide a healthy work environment.
How does workspace cleanliness impact customers who visit a business?
Cleanliness provides a first impression and shapes customers’ perception of how much that service or provider cares about their reputation, their clients, and their employees. For example, I visited an oil change business recently. When I walked in, they have VCT, which is a hard surface floor of vinyl squares. I could tell it had not been cleaned in a month of Sundays, and I looked at them and said, “We can take care of this.”
There is a difference between an interim clean, which is just a surface or visual cleaning, versus a deep clean, which is what we do at Cubix, Inc.. We work all the way to the base of the carbon fiber. We’re actually having things attract and absorb into our polymer to get the dirt out, but it’s deep, it’s not a surface clean. Sometimes accounting folks will look at pricing, and they’ll compare a surface clean with a deep clean without knowing the whole scope and the difference. You want your employees to be safe, and it’s got to be within budget criteria. I feel very strongly about the science, and I believe in educating clients about what we do. Here at Cubix, Inc. our workplace cleaning solutions make people safer and healthier every day, and I’m proud to be a part of the team.
Travis Owens, the President of Cubix, Inc., has dedicated over 18 years to refining and leading the premier leader for commercial flooring services in Florida. Before taking the helm as President, Travis excelled as the Director of Operations, solidifying his reputation as an industry trailblazer in commercial flooring consulting and solutions. A proud veteran, Travis honorably served 8 years in the Marines, exemplifying his commitment and discipline in all endeavors. Residing in Orlando with his family, he also indulges in his passion for culinary spices.
