What is the single most important thing you can do to prevent becoming infected or spreading a virus to someone else? Answer: wash your hands. You know it and your workers probably know it. But given the current state of affairs, health and safety supervisors would be wise to repeat the message and ensure it sinks in. The challenge: How do you present a safety talk on something so basic as hand washing without coming off looking like some kind of mother hen to your workers? Here are a few suggestions.

Before the Meeting

As with any other safety talk, the first step in delivering training on hand washing and infection control is preparation.

1. Tailor the talk to your own workplace. Walk through your workplace and identify the specific infection hazards in each area of your facility. Make a list of the hazards in each area and make sure your meeting specifically addresses these hazards when you talk to the workers who work in the area.
2. Be sure everyone knows that the subject of the meeting will be infection control. Providing advance notification of the topic is important because you want to give workers a chance to think about and be prepared to express their concerns at the meeting.
3. Post hand washing instructions and infection control posters at wash stations and in lavatories before the meeting to set the tone.
4. Make sure you’re up-to-date on the current health topic. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control are two reliable resources for current information.
5. Invite a community healthcare nurse or other guest speaker from outside to talk to your workers about infection control.

During the Meeting

Once the meeting begins, there are certain things you can do to bring it to life.

1. Involve Trainees. One effective device is to stage a little play. Invite one of your workers to the front and have her pretend to sneeze and cough. Demonstrate the sanitary and unsanitary methods of nose-wiping, hand washing and coughing.
2. Ask workers if they’re concerned about swine flu, tuberculosis, staph and other infectious diseases. Chances are that at least some of your workers are uninformed and/or have received misinformation about such illnesses. The safety talk is the perfect time to set the record straight.
3. Demonstrate proper hand washing technique. This is particularly important if your workers handle food, care for patients, work with chemicals or perform other functions that call for the use of specific hand hygiene procedures.
4. Talk to your workers about your company’s sick time policies. Seeing a doctor and getting enough rest are often important to recovery.

After the Meeting

Let workers know that the topic of proper and frequent hand washing is important to the company, too and consider making waterless disinfectants and alcohol wipes available for frequent cleaning of hands, doorknobs and shared keyboards and telephones.

Conclusion

The idea that adult workers need to be taught how to wash their hands may seem absurd. But if infection control researchers are right, it’s true. So make sure your training agenda includes infection control and the importance of proper hand washing in safeguarding against risks.

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