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BUSINESS ENGLISH · BUSINESS ISSUES · UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2-C1)

OFFICE
HYGIENE
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1 Warm up

In pairs, discuss the following questions.

1. Do you consider yourself to be a clean person? Why/ why not?

2. Would you say that your current work environment is a particularly clean place?
3. How often do you think that an office should be cleaned?
4. Whose responsibility is it to make sure a workspace doesn’t get dirty?
5. Today’s lesson talks about the link that might exist between office cleanliness and productivity;
do you think such a link exists?

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2 Focus on key expressions

Match the expressions in bold to the definitions below.

1. When I was a kid my bedroom was always spick and span because I took such good care of it.

2. I never go into my son’s bedroom because it is such a pigsty.

3. He had been mopping the floor for four hours and it was finally looking squeaky clean.

4. Bob had used hot water and alcohol, but still, he could not remove the stubborn stains.

5. She had to clean out the dog’s kennel every week and it took a lot of elbow grease to get the job
done.

6. I bought a second-hand television that looked as good as new.

a. very clean and tidy

b. dirty spots that are hard to remove

c. extremely clean

d. hard physical effort needed to clean something

e. a dirty or messy place

f. in excellent condition

3 Listening for predictions

Listen to someone talking about how to clean your keyboard. Before you listen try to predict which
order the steps are in, then listen and check.

Grab your cotton buds and alcohol

Get the brush out

Blast some air

Collect your supplies

4 Listening for details

Listen one more time and try to answer the following questions.

1. How many different things do you need to clean your keyboard?

2. What should you do before you start cleaning?

3. What might your toothbrush not be good enough for?

4. What do you need your keycap removal tool for?

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5 Discussion

Read through the questions below and discuss them with your partner.

1. How effective do you think the guide you listened to would be for cleaning your own keyboard?
2. How often do you clean your keyboard? Do you think you should clean it more?
3. How would you feel if you found a dead spider on your keyboard?
4. Do you think it’s possible to get sick from touching a dirty keyboard? What kind of illnesses could
you catch?

6 Focus on vocabulary

Part A: Match the following vocabulary to the definitions.

contribute (v) morale (n) mundane (adj.) prolonged (adj.)

guises (n) pristine (adj.) spotless (adj.) subsequently (adv.)

1. something appears in ways that are different than usual

2. dull, boring or not interesting

3. be one of the causes of something

4. very clean

5. the level of confidence or positive feeling a group has at a particular time

6. fresh and clean, like new

7. continuing for a long time

8. later, after something else has happened

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Part B: Put the vocabulary from Part A into the correct gaps in the following sentences. You may need
to change the form of the word.

1. The grass outside the castle has to be kept in a condition.

2. My job is so , I feel like I don’t have to use my brain at all.

3. A period of rain was forecast on the news last night.

4. The of the class was particularly low in the winter.

5. I think that eating too many biscuits can definitely to a person’s poor health.

6. My mum used to clean her car almost every day, it was .

7. She got promoted to head of department.

8. The character appears in different across the world.

7 Skimming for general understanding

Read the following paragraph titles for the article and match them to the correct paragraph.

• Cleanliness promotes positive thoughts

• Looking clean to the outside
• A boring way to improve productivity
• Quality staff = higher productivity
• Looking for a different toilet
• Spreading disease
• Finding essentials
• Lingering stress

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Office hygiene
Is there a link between cleanliness and productivity?
A.

An increase in productivity is one of the primary goals for any company, and strategies to help with this come in
many guises, from team building away days to pizza Fridays. However, there is one other solution that might seem
a little more mundane but has been proven to be just as effective, and that is to do with cleanliness. It has been
shown that how clean an office is can contribute significantly to the efficiency of a group of employees.

B.

The obvious link between a spotless space and the production of staff is related to the number of sick days
employees take. A 2014 study showed that a virus placed on tabletops in an office could spread to 60% of
workers in just two hours. Another report which analysed office furniture discovered that the average desk has
around 800 bacteria per square inch, which quite unbelievably is almost 14 times the amount you would find on
a toilet seat. Regularly timed cleaning performed throughout the day with effective sanitation products can limit
the spread of viruses thus reducing the chances of bacteria and therefore sickness being spread around.

C.

An untidy or messy office can also have a direct impact on office morale. This becomes an issue because if morale
remains high then people feel more connected to their job and are able to work more effectively. It has been
shown that if a member of staff walks into a pristine, well-organised office then they receive a boost in relation to
their work ethic.

D.

However, the good impression must also stretch to the company bathrooms as well. If an office toilet doesn’t live
up to the standards of which a member of staff expects then that member of staff may go out of their way to search
out cleaner facilities. This means they’re away from their desk for a prolonged period of time and subsequently
their productivity goes down.

E.

While it is blatantly clear that a workspace should be close to immaculate, it should also be tidy and well-organised.
The ability to quickly reach or find the tools that staff use regularly can have a positive effect on how they work.
While this might not seem immediately significant, figures show that on average, people spend more than four
hours a week looking for misplaced paperwork.

F.

It is serious enough that it can contribute both directly and indirectly to someone’s productivity level. For example,
while it might just take them five minutes to find what they need, it can also have a lasting impact on a person’s
overall stress level. If a person becomes annoyed about not being able to find something, then it can take a while
for that person to calm down, and doing their job effectively becomes more difficult.

G.

While the way a workplace looks is critically important internally it can also be used to show the outside world
how productive or well-functioning a company is. This can have an influence on how well a company is able to
hire talented members of staff which is of course linked to productivity.

H.

Each company has to fight with its competitors to try to hire the best workers, and if they are wellknown in the
job market for taking extra care of their working environment, then they are much more likely to attract better
qualified and more efficient workers. With a high calibre of person on board then surely there is only one direction
in which their productivity is heading. - sources: bissellcommercial.com, openworksweb.com, vanguardsv.com

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8 Reading comprehension

Read the sentences and decide if they are true, false or not given. Give reasons for your answers.

1. Providing pizza is suggested as one way that companies try to improve productivity.

2. A study said that it takes 120 minutes for a virus to spread to 16% of workers.

3. The amount employees want to work is not affected by how clean their office is.

4. If a toilet is thought to be unclean by a member of staff, then they are going to be away from their
desk for longer.

5. People spend a lot of time looking for files and pieces of paper they can’t find.

6. The article suggests that if people get annoyed they can calm themselves down really quickly.

7. Having a clean office has no effect on the ability to hire skilful new members of staff.

8. Most companies don’t need to worry about their rivals when hiring new employees.

9 Talking point

Look at the questions and discuss them with your partner.

1. What did you think of the article? Did you find anything surprising in that article?
2. Was everything in the article believable or do you question some of the connections between
cleanliness and productivity?
3. Do you think that all companies should have to follow legal guidelines in relation to cleanliness?
4. Will this article make you think about how clean your office is?

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OFFICE HYGIENE

10 Vocabulary - natural phrases

Look at the examples of natural phrases below and with your partner, match the phrases together.

1. primary a. goals
2. team b. products
3. sick c. impact
4. sanitation d. building
5. office e. days
6. misplaced f. paperwork
7. lasting g. morale
Then write five sentences using these new phrases.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

11 Optional extension / homework

With your classmate(s), make a poster to promote cleanliness in the workplace. In the table below,
make notes on six steps that will help keep a workplace clean and tidy, then transfer them to poster
form for your classmates.

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