An office space should always be shaped with performance in mind. Thinking about certain things like layout and design of a workplace is vital in order to meet employee standards and encourage productivity. However, there are other factors to take into consideration such as temperature.
Environmental factors can in some cases cause major issues to certain workers. But, this is most probably a very rare circumstance and this is why more often than not, issues like these are not addressed correctly.
There are a few factors that affect thermal comfort in the workplace:
- Air temperature
- Radiant temperature
- Air velocity and humidity
- Personal factors e.g. clothing insulation and metabolic heat.
Although temperature is closely related to physical working environments such as bakeries, office managers should be aware of the effect that temperature has.
If the temperature of an office is not regulated often then workers will begin to suffer from heat stress and as a result, the productivity within the office will begin to decline.
An artificially heated room still needs to be properly ventilated as the office space can become stuffy and of course if left unregulated this can result in bad odour and a significant drop in the productivity of employees.
It’s not only the rise in temperature that can affect a workplace. During the colder months, the optimum temperature for workers who spend the majority of the day in the office should be between 21 and 22 ºc. If the temperature goes above or below this optimum temperature then productivity and concentration is said to drop.
Of course it’s important to note that everyone is different, people perform differently depending on environmental factors. It’s a good idea to experiment and find the optimum working temperatures that works best for you and your employees.
