Why South Jersey workplaces can’t afford to “ride out” cold and flu season anymore
Every fall, the same script plays out. Someone comes in “a little under the weather.” A few days later, half the building is sniffling and you’re scrambling to cover shifts. We treat cold and flu season like bad luck. It isn’t. It’s math. And if you manage a school, office, medical space, or any busy facility in South Jersey, that math is quietly draining your budget.
This isn’t about scare tactics. It’s about how many workdays—and how much money—you lose every year to preventable illness, and how a serious nightly cleaning program can help you claw some of that back.
Cold & flu season is a staffing problem
Absenteeism is not just a health issue; it’s a staffing and operations problem. For flu and flu-like illness alone, workers commonly lose around three days per episode. In a 50-person operation, that can easily add up to 150 lost workdays a year. At roughly $250 per day once you factor in wages, benefits, coverage, and lost productivity, you’re looking at about $37,500 a year burned on “just colds.”
That doesn’t include the half-sick people who still show up, work at 50%, and spread germs to everyone else. You can’t control which viruses walk through your front door. You can control how easy it is for them to move through your building.
Where illness actually spreads (beyond the restrooms)
Most advice stops at “clean the restrooms and remind people to wash their hands.” That’s baseline, not strategy. Cold and flu viruses can survive on hard surfaces for up to 24–48 hours, especially stainless steel and plastic. One sick person touching the main entrance, time clock, breakroom fridge, and copier keypad can set up the next wave of call-outs.
In the real world, the worst “germ highways” are your entrances and vestibules, shared equipment (copiers, touchscreens, time clocks, card readers), breakrooms and kitchens, and desks, keyboards, chair backs, and phones in classrooms or open offices. Restrooms matter, but if your cleaning plan is driven by what looks dirty instead of where hands constantly go, you’re spending cleaning dollars without buying real protection against illness.
Nightly cleaning that actually cuts risk
A lot of “disinfecting” is for show: a quick spray, fast wipe, and move on. Most disinfectants only work if the surface stays visibly wet for a set dwell time. If that doesn’t happen, the label might say “kills 99.9% of germs,” but you haven’t actually solved the problem.
A cold and flu strategy built around nightly services should do three things well. First, map the real high-touch points in your specific building—actual doors, rails, buttons, counters, and shared surfaces. Second, use the night shift to perform true high-touch resets: systematically hitting entrances, restrooms, breakrooms, and shared work areas when the building is finally still, so it starts the next day in the best possible condition. Third, use disinfectants correctly and consistently, with trained staff who understand dwell times, coverage, and basic air-quality foundations like dusting vents and vacuuming properly.
That’s the difference between “we have a cleaning company” and “our nightly program is part of our cold and flu defense.”
What this looks like with South Jersey Building Services, Inc.
When South Jersey Building Services, Inc. comes into a facility, we don’t sell a gimmick package. We start with your reality: when call-outs hurt you most, which areas are mission-critical, and how people actually move through your building during the day. From there, we build a nightly program around a site-specific high-touch map, seasonal adjustments during peak cold and flu months, focused nightly disinfection where it actually matters, and restroom/breakroom standards that support real hand hygiene the next day. You get clear communication about what’s being done and why, so you’re not guessing.
We’re not promising no one will ever get sick. We’re saying your building doesn’t have to make it easy.
Ready to see what this looks like in your building?
Cold and flu season is here whether you plan for it or not. You’ll pay for it in sick days and chaos, or in a cleaning strategy that quietly reduces that pain.
If you manage a facility in South Jersey, this is the time to tighten your plan—not after you’ve already lost weeks of productivity. Contact South Jersey Building Services, Inc. to schedule a walkthrough and a no-pressure proposal. We’ll walk the space with you after hours, look at your real pain points, and outline a cold and flu season strategy that fits your operation and your budget.
Then you decide whether you want basic nightly cleaning—or a program that actually helps keep your people at work.
