Does Air Conditioning In The Workplace Affect Employees' Productivity?

Have you seen your colleagues at your workplace all bundled up in cardigans or shawls or an excessively oversized sweatshirt is always stored in their personal drawer at the office? This should not be an unusual phenomenon. While some people choose to take frequent breaks to get out of the cold temperatures maintained at their workplaces, few others choose to stick by the hot coffee machine in order to keep themselves warm.

All of this frequently happens at chilled workplaces and is also an ignored concern, since most of the times the air-conditioning temperatures at offices are fixed at an all-time high for cold air to circulate across the entire workstation thus making people uncomfortable and leading to a higher risk of decreased productivity at work.

However, this situation varies among men and women. Not all are blessed with warmer bodies. Women are more prone to freezing at workplaces as compared to their counterparts belonging to the opposite gender. This phenomenon consequently results in ill health, thus resulting in poor productivity at the office.

"Women do register temperature a little more sensitively than men," said Susan Mazur-Stommen of Indicia Consulting, which is a company that studies human behavior and sustainability. "However, what you also see is gendered clothing differences, particularly seasonal. We have norms that say it’s more acceptable for women to show more skin," the Washington Post reported.

In an article published in the journal of Nature Climate Change in 2015, it said, "Most office buildings set temperatures based on a decades-old formula that uses the metabolic rates of men." If this still holds true then workplaces should not be gender discriminatory and consider the thermal comfort standards. Also, a slightly warmer level at workplaces could help curb global warming.

Cornell University findings since 2004 discovered that when temperatures at a workplace were raised to 77 degrees from 68, typing errors among employees fell by 44 percent and the overall output increased by about 150 percent.

A University study in 2004 stated that "at 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the workers were keyboarding 100 percent of the time with a 10 percent error rate, but at 68 degrees, their keying rate went down to 54 percent of the time with a 25 percent error rate."

Alan Hedge, professor of design and environmental analysis and director of Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory suggested that "Raising the temperature to a more comfortable thermal zone saves employers about $2 per worker, per hour. Temperature is certainly a key variable that can impact performance."

Why Do Frigid Temperatures Matter?

Temperature impacts Pace- As people are made in a such a way that they tend to seek warmth, they will be in a hurry to reach a warmer place, which might result in spending less time in meaningful conversations thus hindering the development of relationships.

Cold temperatures impact Movement- frigid temperatures affect our movement as they cause our muscles to tense and hurt concentration. This gets even worse and increases after you walk into a frigid office immediately coming in from the heat outside.

Temperature impacts Mood- According to Fox Business, our brains are made to associate temperatures with feelings- the warmer you are, the more friends you will likely be. The biological and psychological research has found through the years that cold is more likely to be associated with feelings of isolation whereas warmth tends to be associated with a desire for connection.

Is There An Ideal Temperature For Workplaces?

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) suggests that employers maintain workplace temperatures at a range of 68 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit and keep the humidity in the range of 20 to 6 percent. Most workplaces consider 70 to 73 degrees ideal for the office, however, the Cornell study found that temperatures as high as 77 degrees were more favorable at offices.