Hand Washing Poster

Whether the aim is to stop a global pandemic in communities or to prevent the spread of germs in a food establishment, hand washing is one of the best ways to get the job done. Pathogens such as bacteria and viruses that can cause foodborne illnesses and other health threats can easily be spread through contact. A food handler can unknowingly hold a contaminated object and spread the contaminant all over other areas.

One of the best ways to prevent the spread of foodborne illnesses and the risk of infection by bacteria is through proper handwashing as part of hygiene standards. Proper execution means doing it long enough and covering all important areas. You would be surprised by the number of people who get hygiene in health care wrong. Use a hand washing poster to ensure that any pathogen is removed from your hands.

Hand washing, when properly done, can control the most significant foodborne disease-causing pathogens. This means doing the process correctly without skipping any practical steps is important. The Center for Disease Control stated that proper hand washing with soapy and warm running water could significantly reduce the occurrence of deaths from gastrointestinal diseases by 50%.

Use a hand washing poster for hygiene compliance and to ensure that you can maximise the benefit of the process by doing it correctly.

What is a hand washing poster?

A hand washing poster is a visual safety sign containing a step-by-step process to properly wash your hands. Although a very common hygiene action, you'd be surprised at how easy you could get it wrong. Correct hand washing procedures must be thorough as part of your everyday healthy habits and bathroom rules. It would not be enough to just rinse your hands with water and then dry it to remove harmful germs such as bacteria and viruses. A hand washing poster is a step guide to show which areas need to be covered properly when washing.

Hand washing is part of the many important food safety practices in the food industry. It is one of the most effective preventive measures against the spread of food poisoning due to cross-contamination with contaminated hands. A hand washing poster with guidance highlights important details of the process, such as the following:

Wash hands for at least 20 seconds to ensure that all pathogens on your hand are killed. You can use the "Happy Birthday" song to reference how long to wash your hands.
Use clean, running tap water with liquid soap to prevent recontamination of hands.
Dry hands after washing. Wet hands are more likely to become contaminated during food operations.

To further understand the importance of proper hand washing procedures and the hand washing steps display poster, here are a few top-ranking questions related to the topic:

WHO hand hygiene 7 Steps?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has established 7 effective hand washing steps similar to health care facility level to prevent any spread of infection:

Wet hands and cover your hands in soap
Rub right and left palms together
Rub the back of hands while interlacing fingers
Rub hands while interlacing fingers
Rub back of fingers
Rub thumbs
Rub the tips of fingers

These simple steps for proper hand washing technique are basic, and steps 2 to 7 can be interchanged as everything is done. Additional essential steps such as rinsing afterwards and drying hands with a dry, disposable paper towel can also be added to your hand washing awareness poster. Every step is essential to prevent the spread of viruses and other pathogens.

What are the materials used in hand washing?

The most important material in regular hand sanitizing for proper hygiene is a source of clean and warm water. Your tap water must be free from contaminants and have passed the minimum requirements to be considered potable.

Additionally, the following hygiene materials must be present to accomplish basic hand washing techniques:

Anti-bacterial hand wash, bar soap, or detergent
Paper towels
Alcohol or alcohol-based hand sanitisers (optional)
Fingernail brush (optional)

What is the most important factor in hand washing?

Perhaps the most important factor in hand washing is the length of time you spend on the process. The most effective recommended hand washing time based on studies is 20 seconds. This helps ensure that all pathogens are soaked with soap to prevent the spread of bacteria.

Who needs a hand washing poster?

All food establishments, manufacturing, retail shops, groceries, and other food-related businesses would benefit from a simple poster for hand washing. Routine hand hygiene is a basic food hygiene practice that must be practised by all food handlers for infection prevention and control.

Basic homeowners, health-care workers, and schools can even use a hand washing poster as an approach to safety. Practically, any industry with hygiene facilities can use a hand washing poster to help keep their hands clean.

Health authorities from food agencies suggest washing hands with plain soap before and after food preparation and on other occasions such as the following for effective infection prevention:

After going to the bathroom.
In between handling raw foods and ready-to-eat products.
After throwing garbage.
After handling live animals.
When hands are soiled.

Frequent and effective hand hygiene significantly reduces the levels of bacteria and other infectious germs on food handlers' hands.

Who needs a hand washing poster?

Health authorities from food agencies suggest washing hands with plain soap before and after food preparation and on other occasions such as the following for effective infection prevention:

After going to the bathroom.
In between handling raw foods and ready-to-eat products.
After throwing garbage.
After handling live animals.
When hands are soiled.

Frequent and effective hand hygiene significantly reduces the levels of bacteria and other infectious germs on food handlers' hands.

How can I help my team to wash their hands on time and properly?

Proper hand washing as part of control programmes can save lives. Similar to the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, pathogens such as viruses and bacteria can easily be transmitted through human contact with foods and food contact surfaces.

Food handlers must always know when and how to properly wash their hands to keep their food operations safe at all times and prevent the spread of infectious diseases. The best way for you to help employees remember when and how is to provide them with an informational poster, washing signs, hygiene guidance posters and mandatory kitchens signs and place it in a prominent location such as the kitchen restroom, sanitiser stations, or hand washing sink. Use our Hand washing poster to help your employees.

In addition to being a step guide on how to properly wash hands, a washing hands poster also offers the following benefits:

Reminder for staff guidance. To become effective, handwashing has to cover specific areas, be performed for at least 20 seconds, and be done regularly. A hand washing technique poster is a proper guideline for people handling foods and a reminder to wash hands frequently and correctly. Bacteria and pathogens can hide beneath the nails and between the fingers. As such, you have to wash these areas thoroughly. The proper and simple steps to washing hands consist of the following:
- Rinse hands
- Lather soap
- Rub hands palm to palm
- Rub back of hands
- Rub fingers interlaced
- Base of thumbs
- Rub fingernails
- Wash wrists
- Rinse hand well
- Dry with a clean towel or tissue

With a hand washing informative poster, you can be sure that cross-contamination can be kept at a minimal level. It can also help increase consumer confidence in your food business.

Increase awareness. Not everyone knows that the duration of hand washing plays a great role in its effectiveness. In addition, some people think washing your hands with water alone would suffice. With a Hand washing poster, you can help increase awareness for effective hand hygiene improvement regarding this matter and teach everyone in the food industry and common households how to properly wash their hands. It also serves as a poster for health care for promoting healthy living and practising hygienic activities daily.
Training for food handlers. This visual aid can also serve as a training guide and educational tool for food handlers and improve the food safety culture. Employees with dirty hands are one of the leading sources of contamination in the food industry. Improper food safety practices can lead to many different food safety hazards. Frequent association with this teaching tool can help train food employees to properly wash their hands with soap all the time.

At FoodDocs, we've listed all the necessary food safety posters, checklists, and charts important for every food business operation, including this downloadable hand washing poster. There is no need to make a poster from scratch. What makes these printable posters and other documents so good is that we've considered all the key elements in making them, and we do the task of regularly updating them for you in case new information from food agencies comes up.

Oh, and did we mention that they are free? Because they are! Download and print these tools for your whole team from our Food safety posters hub. Visit our free HACCP plan template hub for more. Make FoodDocs your main resource for the most important food hygiene poster templates, charts, and food safety checklist templates.

How can I help my team keep in mind all needed sanitation rules?

A food business's performance is only as good as how employees know proper food handling practices. The problem is that training a food handler is not an easy job in addition to managing a whole food business. Not to mention that food handlers must always be reminded of proper food safety tasks.

Hand washing is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to practising food safety tasks. To help your team, you can use our effective Hand washing poster as a reminder and guide on how and when to wash their hands. Although, many other sanitation operations are needed to maintain food safety and ensure that your food business is operating by the standards.

Other food safety practices include personal hygiene and sanitation matters such as keeping nails regularly cut, wearing clean clothes, regularly cleaning areas, cooking to the correct internal temperature, and properly storing food. All of these practices need to be regularly monitored all the time. They must be performed correctly, and alerts must be raised in case of noncompliance.

At FoodDocs, we offer a smart digital solution to help you fulfil all sanitation and hygiene operations:

We automatically generate customizable digital monitoring forms and checklists fit for your food business and your daily operations. Among these monitoring forms is a sanitation checklist with all the most important sanitation operations to keep your premises clean. These checklists and forms feature detailed instructions on how to perform each task to help facility managers train their employees.

Monitoring forms can be set to be automatically filled in based on your previous data entries. This feature helps your food employees save time while always remembering tasks like proper hand hygiene.
Using our mobile application, our digital FSMS sends out automatic notifications to alert all food handlers of their tasks due to be performed. This way, no one will forget the most important daily tasks. Additionally, this feature can also be used to remind everyone of important dates, such as audits.

In addition to helping food handlers learn and remember food safety operations, our digital solution can also help food managers improve the overall operation. When you use our digital Food Safety Management System, you can get the following benefits:

Our automated setup can be completed in an average of 15 minutes. Powered by artificial intelligence, our system can automatically generate a comprehensive digital FSMS for you.
We also feature a real-time dashboard to see all food safety operations progress and if all tasks are performed on time. It also shows any non-compliant operations, and you can view any justifications for them or if they have been properly resolved.
Store all your documents such as monitoring forms, checklists, certificates, and audit reports in a single space by getting access to cloud storage. Save space and become more sustainable by switching to a completely digital FSMS.

This digital FSMS was designed by food safety experts to cover all food safety monitoring tasks for every food business in the food industry. It was made to help food businesses maintain compliance with international and local food safety laws and regulations. We base all monitoring procedures on your operations and the location of your food business.

Switching to a digital FSMS won't even take too much time. The whole process would only need an average of 15 minutes to finish! You can switch to a digital FSMS while on your couch or while waiting for a meeting to begin. Start running your digital FSMS with us. Try our free 14-day trial and join more than 20,000 satisfied customers.