Words: Emerson Vogel

Commercial bathrooms can be a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. But more than just the germs, it’s a customer’s perception of a less-than-clean bathroom that can turn them away from a business. The state of a public bathroom can have a particular impact on some customers, including the elderly and people with children — according to the The Tork 2024 Insights Survey, nearly 50 percent of parents who need to bring a baby carrier or carry a child in their arms have avoided eating or drinking to avoid using a public toilet.

Baby changing stations built into bathroom sinks are an innovation that can improve user experience and boost your facility’s image. However, it’s crucial for facility managers to keep their bathroom sink stations well-maintained to keep patrons returning to a hygiene-friendly space.

It starts with the surface

The trend to include baby changing stations in bathrooms has become more popular due to the growing societal recognition of the need for family-friendly spaces. Now more than ever, it’s important that parents and caregivers have the necessary facilities to tend to infants and children comfortably in a public setting.

As a result, commercial bathroom manufacturers are providing customisable sink options to ensure everyone feels comfortable in the bathroom. When it comes time to customise sinks for baby changing stations, the right surface can make all the difference.

Nonporous materials such as quartz support both the longevity and overall hygiene of sinks and built-in baby changing stations. Quartz sinks with rounded edges feature a seamless and smooth surface that can be easily cleaned and disinfected, providing a sanitary environment for parents and infants.

Solid surface materials like quartz are also highly durable and resistant to stains and scratching. This makes them ideal for high-traffic areas like commercial bathrooms, where baby changing stations need to withstand frequent use and potential abuse over time without showing significant wear and tear. Durable surfaces streamline maintenance and give cleaning crews time back to tend to other parts of the building.

Customising your clean

Cleaning and maintenance teams can benefit from the wide range of sink customisation options—beyond just surface materials—to help them do their job more efficiently. Slips and falls in the bathroom are typically a direct result of guests dripping water on the floor as they go from the sink to paper towel dispensers or hand dryers to dry their hands. This problem is eliminated with the introduction of integrated sink systems with a tap, soap dispenser, and hand dryer, all within arm’s reach in the sink basin. Not only does this design help to keep bathrooms safer for patrons, but it saves maintenance teams from tending to wet floors.

Other customisable sink options include top-fill soap dispensers. Maintenance professionals typically need to go underneath the sink to refill soap reservoirs, but top-fill dispensers eliminate this. Built-in rubbish chutes and paper towel holders help to keep sinks clean and rubbish-free as well.

Countertops and fixtures alike are now customisable in a wide range of colours and finishes, allowing facilities to match the baby changing station with the overall aesthetic of the bathroom. This flexibility creates a cohesive and visually appealing environment that provides guests with a positive impression of the bathroom and the venue as a whole. As one of the most visited rooms in any commercial building, the bathroom goes a long way toward leaving a positive lasting impression.

Going touch-free with fixtures

Nothing makes cleaning taps, soap dispensers and hand dryers easier than making them touch-free. Preference for touch-free bathroom products has greatly increased in recent years, with consumer behaviour driving the change as society becomes more conscious of hand hygiene.

During this year’s Easter long weekend, Sydney Airport recorded one of its busiest-ever periods, with more than 2.4 million travellers passing through its gates, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. With this amount of foot traffic, cleaning manual sink stations and tap handles to maintain adequate hygiene would place an overwhelming strain on maintenance teams.

Not only do touch-free taps provide less surface area for cleaning crews to maintain, they also provide parents with a sense of comfort knowing that their hands will be sanitary as they attend to their infant.

About the author:

Emerson Vogel is a Sloan associate product line manager for sink systems. Sloan has been providing innovation in water-saving fixtures for 118 years.

A version of this article was published on CMM Online.

Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash.