Coming clean about dirt

Top brass at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and strategy consultancy Teneo have again reminded us that cleanliness in the workplace is not always up to scratch. Such revelations ensure an iterative article will appear every year or so. Its theme: offices are unhealthy, dirty places. Supporting statistics often come from academics sponsored by hygiene and cleaning businesses. Most do not pass a sniff test.

The humble loo seat is often used as a benchmark. According to one study, keyboards are five times filthier. Another says desks are 400 times dirtier. Both claims are unlikely to be true.

Most studies base their estimates on broad measures of bacterial mass. Toilet seats are a bad benchmark because they are surprisingly clean. In most offices they are regularly disinfected with products that, as the advertising slogan puts it, “kill all known germs dead”. A total 99% of bacteria are harmless. They are omnipresent, too. The bacteria in the human body may actually outnumber its cells. We would die without them.

At work, you should wash your hands before eating and after going to the loo. The US Center for Disease Control thinks that alone reduces the chance of colds and upset stomachs by about a quarter. But places where there are few bacteria are not necessarily healthier. There is evidence to suggest children raised in ultraclean homes are more susceptible to infections and allergies.

Even in a modern office, humans are part of a complex web of organisms dependent on one another for survival. The second miracle is the Sisyphean nightly feat accomplished by armies of low-paid cleaners.

If your job makes you ill, blame your long commute, long hours and micromanaging boss. Such stress will make you liable to infection. Workplace bacteria alone are unlikely to be the culprit. /London, December 9

© The Financial Times 2019