Unilever Professional

You've got a cleaning schedule. The floors get mopped, the bins get emptied, the bathrooms get a once-over. Job done, right?

Not quite. Some of the highest-risk touchpoints in any commercial building aren't the obvious ones. They're the spots that get touched dozens of times a day but rarely make it onto the cleaning checklist. And in a facility setting, those overlooked areas can undo all the work your team is putting in everywhere else.

Here's a straight-up look at the high-touch areas most facilities miss and how to actually clean them properly.

Why "Looks Clean" Isn't Good Enough

Bacteria and viruses don't leave visible marks. A surface can look spotless and still harbour pathogens that increase the risk of illness spreading through a workplace. That's why cleaning supervisors and health and safety officers need to go beyond what's visually dirty and think about what gets touched constantly, without ever being wiped down.

The difference between a hygienic facility and one that just looks tidy often comes down to these eleven areas.

The 11 High-Touch Areas You're Probably Missing

1. Light Switches

Every person who walks into a room touches the light switch. Most cleaning schedules don't include them. Use a disinfectant spray or wipe suited to plastic switch plates and hit both the plate and the surrounding wall area, because hands don't always land in the same spot.

2. Door handles and push plates

These get wiped down in bathrooms, but what about every other door in the building? Entry doors, stairwell doors, kitchen doors. If it swings open, it needs to be on the rotation. Check your product is appropriate for the handle material, as some disinfectants can corrode or stain metal surfaces over time.

3. Lift buttons

High traffic, small surface, touched by everyone. Internal buttons, external call buttons, and the door-open/close buttons all count. A daily disinfectant wipe takes seconds and makes a real difference in a busy building.

4. Communal keyboards and mice

Hot-desking environments are a nightmare for hygiene if shared tech isn't included in the cleaning protocol. Shared keyboards and mice can carry surprisingly high levels of bacteria, especially when multiple users are touching the same equipment throughout the day. Use a disinfectant wipe designed for electronics and make it part of the end-of-shift routine, not a weekly afterthought.

5. Desk phones and handsets

Often wiped around but rarely wiped down properly. The mouthpiece, earpiece, and handset all need attention, not just a quick pass with a general cloth. These are face-contact surfaces. Treat them accordingly.

6. Meeting room remotes and AV equipment

Projector remotes, TV remotes, video conferencing panels. These travel between hands all day during meetings and almost never get cleaned. Add them to your end-of-day checklist. A fast wipe before the room gets reset takes less than a minute.

7. Kettle handles, microwave doors, and kitchen appliances

The kitchen is on the list, but the handles and buttons of appliances are often an afterthought. In heavy-duty tradie breakrooms, a kettle handle can be touched 50 or more times a day covered in grease and grime that a quick cloth won't shift. In high-volume school cafeterias, commercial microwaves and benchtops take punishment across hundreds of meal sittings daily.

Product tip: For stainless steel surfaces like sinks, benchtops, and stovetops in these commercial environments, Jif is built for the job. It instantly dissolves trades-level grease without scratching, formulated for hard and durable surfaces including stainless steel, ceramic, and enamel. For plastic handles and buttons, use a standard disinfectant wipe instead.

Avoid using cream cleansers on screens, electronics, linoleum, leather, textiles, aluminium, painted wood, or delicate/coated surfaces unless the surface care instructions confirm it is safe. Always test first and rinse thoroughly.

8. Vending machine buttons and touchscreens

If your facility has vending machines or self-service kiosks, these surfaces see constant contact from a rotating cast of users. They need daily disinfecting, not weekly. High-traffic touchscreens are easy to miss because they often sit outside the standard bathroom, kitchen, and desk-cleaning routine.

9. Handrails on stairs and ramps

Bathrooms get the attention. Stairwell handrails often don't. These are gripped firmly and repeatedly, making them a prime transfer point for pathogens. Include them in your daily disinfecting run, and make sure the product you're using is safe for the handrail material, whether that's stainless steel, timber, or powder-coated metal.

10. Reception desk surfaces and sign-in screens

The front desk is the first thing visitors touch when they arrive. Pens, sign-in tablets, the counter surface. All of it needs to be part of the daily protocol, not just a wipe down when it looks smudged. First impressions matter, and a clean reception area sends a clear message about the standards your facility holds.

11. The cleaners themselves and the tools they use

It's easy to focus entirely on surfaces and forget that the people doing the cleaning and the tools they use can also become vectors for cross-contamination. Every wipe-down of a greasy appliance, every mop of a soiled floor, every pass of a cloth over a high-touch surface transfers grime directly onto cleaning cloths, microfibre pads, uniforms, and workwear. If those aren't laundered properly between uses, you're not eliminating contamination, you're just moving it around.

Product tip: Persil handles heavy-duty staining and soiling with its advanced stain-fighting technology, ideal for workwear, cleaning cloths, and microfibre pads that pick up heavy commercial soiling. For everyday bulk linen and uniforms across a larger team, Surf combines effective stain removal with long-lasting fragrance. And for fabrics that take a beating through repeated industrial washing, Comfort helps extend the life of commercial microfibre cloths and workwear, keeping them in better condition between uses.

Build It Into the Protocol, Not Just the Habit

The best way to make sure these areas don't get missed is to make them impossible to skip. That means adding them explicitly to your cleaning checklist, not relying on staff to remember.

Print out this Hidden Germ Checklist and post it in your cleaning station. Assign each area to a shift. When it's written down and accountable, it gets done.

A facility that looks clean and is clean are two different things. The gap between them usually comes down to these eleven spots.

You'll find most of the Unilever Professional range at Bunnings, making it easy to restock Jif, Persil Professional, Surf, and Comfort without a lengthy procurement process. For full product details and safety information, visit the Unilever Professional NZ website or check the official safety data sheets.