What is an SOP and how do you use them?

Stan­dard Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dures are also known as SOPs and can assist in imple­ment­ing effi­cient and effec­tive pro­ce­dures. Effec­tive clean­ing pro­ce­dures are impor­tant as it can have a direct impact on the health and safe­ty of the occu­pants. Poor clean­ing efforts can leave behind harm­ful bac­te­ria that can cause sick­ness. 

SOPs can ensure that a clean­ing busi­ness and their employ­ees are fol­low­ing proven clean­ing pro­to­cols. It pro­vides clear and sim­ple instruc­tions for employ­ees to com­plete par­tic­u­lar tasks. They can be a sim­ple num­bered or bul­let­ed list of steps that need to be tak­en for the giv­en task to be com­plet­ed effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly. 

There are many ben­e­fits to imple­ment­ing SOPs with­in a busi­ness includ­ing:

• Sav­ing time by giv­ing employ­ees the infor­ma­tion they need to com­plete tasks with­out need­ing to ask man­agers.
• Allow­ing a busi­ness to stream­line their tasks.
• Cre­at­ing long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty
•  Achiev­ing con­sis­ten­cy through­out the busi­ness

ATP meters can be used to devel­op SOPs for clean­ing pro­ce­dures and give con­fi­dence in clean­ing for health. It is a fast and sim­ple way to test a sur­face that has been cleaned by mea­sur­ing the ATP left behind. ATP is an ener­gy giv­ing chem­i­cal that is found in all liv­ing organ­isms and is often found in residues left on sur­faces.

A swab is used to gath­er a sam­ple and then placed with­in the ATP meter. This device will then give a read­ing that is mea­sured by Rel­a­tive Light Units (RLU). This test does not test for virus­es, but instead tests for bio­log­i­cal load. These test­ing meth­ods can be used to ver­i­fy pro­to­cols through test­ing and can indi­cate:

• Dif­fer­ent chem­i­cals may be required
• The chem­i­cal has not been agi­tat­ed enough
• The chem­i­cal requires more dwell time
• Addi­tion­al tools may be required
• And more

There are a vari­ety of devices on the mar­ket that can be used. CARSI has devel­oped a course for busi­ness­es to use when devel­op­ing pro­to­cols. This course con­tent cov­ers terms and def­i­n­i­tions, an intro­duc­tion to hygiene mon­i­tor­ing includ­ing what an ATP device is and how it works, WHS and PPE require­ments when using chem­i­cals, step by step instruc­tions on how to test your pro­to­cols, and video exam­ples of test­ing pro­to­cols to ensure your clean­ing is effec­tive and effi­cient.