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Warm Offices Boost Productivity

Posted by michael on from the turn-down-the-frigging-air-conditioning dept.

bluelip writes "It looks like the real reason for offshoring is corporations looking for warmer weather. Instead of paying the energy bills to crank up the heat in the office to a more productive temperature, the offices are moving to warmer areas. This article shows a 44% error reduction and 150% increase in productivity for those working in warmer offices. Will this increase in output be enough to convince my boss to pay for us to vacation-commute from a tropical island?"

9 of 520 comments (clear)

  1. The Suits by dykofone · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I always assumed offices were so cold to keep all of the "suits" comfortable as they went about their corporate level day. I know I'd certainly be sweating having to wear a coat inside while showing some Japanese investors around.

    Which is why I doubt the AC is gonna be lowered anytime soon. It would be a battle between HR and upper management, and while certainly a glorious battle it would be, uppper management usually wins.

  2. 100% by slimak · · Score: 4, Interesting
    At 77 degrees Fahrenheit, the workers were keyboarding 100 percent of the time...

    100% of the time? Does this seem a little high to anyone else? Don't people take breaks for bathroom, /., etc?

  3. Since it's under science... by Pi_0's+don't+shower · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's worth pointing out that perhaps the most productive university in the entire world in the field of astronomy is the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

    It is just a coincidence? Astronomers/Astrophysicists always seem to know where to build the best ground-based telescopes (Hawaii, Chile, the Canary Islands...)

  4. Really? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Then why do I have a bloody fan on my desk that's on all year?

    I don't know about anyone else, but a warm office really hurts my productivity. Heck, when the A/C goes out, I think more about the temperature than the job at hand. It's also unpleasant coming into the office after doing a little bit of exercise, and spending the next 20 minutes wiping all the sweat off. Plus, warm offices feel somewhat stuffy.

    Personally, I know some offices are nice and chilly, and it can hurt productivity, but too warm is probably a lot worse than too cold. (Too warm - get a fan - if you're still hot, tough. Too cold - a heater, sweater, anything - when you're warm enough (or feeling hot), take it off.

    Then again, maybe I'm weird to prefer cooler weather. Me, like airplanes, like cold air... not hot (and possibly humid) air.

  5. Conclusion unwarranted by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When the office temperature in a month-long study increased from 68 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit, typing errors fell by 44 percent and typing output jumped 150 percent.

    Those data don't warrant the conclusion "Warm Offices Boost Productivity."

    The improvement could simply be a result of the change. The gains might not be sustained over time. Lowering the temperature another 3 degrees six weeks later could also yield an improvement.

    A change is as good as a holiday.

    Warmth may seem great when you lack it but then the same can be said for coolness.

  6. Snooze by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had an astrophysics prof in college from India who said in class, I kid you not, "It is very warm in here. It puts you to sleep. Maybe that is why the cooler northern countries have been historically more advanced industrially." Dunno if there is any truth to that but it certainly woke me up.

    --
    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    1. Re:Snooze by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Whether the root cause is food or not, I don't know, but in Britain, labour was relatively expensive, wheras in India, labour was cheap.

      So, if you're running a textile business, and you need to power a fabric loom, you have India do all the work with their manual looms and skilled workforce.

      Domestic work would of course be more profitable, but there aren't nearly as many skilled people working the looms in Britain.

      Slavery inhibited this need in the Roman empire, but in Britian, it was nowhere near as prevalent... not enough slaves.

      ...so somebody figured out that you could get more work out of people if you began using water-powered looms, then steam powered looms, then you used British government to restrict the sales of cheaper and superior Indian textiles, finally forcing Indians to buy more expensive, inferior textiles from Britain...

      Slavery might have inhibitied this need in the Americas, but one thing came with the American conquerors that the Romans never had... guns. The development, sale and distribution of firearms was a technological boon for the Americas. Then came the railway... this covered the creation of a coal-engine-fine machinery industry across the country which could be tapped for both skills and resources to create new technologies like the wireless and so forth.

      When the British machinery was used in the U.S., the need for slavery or slave-wages was reduced and eventually eliminated, only the most unscrupulous designer labels practicing slavery or wage-slavery today.

      But food probably does play a part in dictating why there was so much cheap labour in India v.s. Britain, it's tough to say... it's just as remarkable to look at why Rome didn't develop modern technology as why Britain and the Americas did.

  7. Strike caused by temperature! by SysKoll · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of my uncles was a union negociator. He was called whenever the discussions between management and unions went south and his job was to mend things.

    Once, he was called in a machine shop where workers had gone on strike after fighting with management over apparently irrelevant issues.

    After peeling the various layers of gripes, it became clear that tempers had flared for no real discernable reason. And then, my uncle noticed something: It was really warm in the floor (this was in the winter).

    It turned out that the temperature for both the machine floor and the offices were controlled by a thermostat that was in the office of the boss' secretary, an older woman who liked it warm.

    The thermostat was moved to the floor, the boss got a space heater for her secretary, and the work relationships improved markedly.

    So maybe this study is relevant for nine female underactive office clerks. But put machine shop workers wearing their full security attire in a 77F environment, and they will mill your butt off!

    --

    --
    Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

  8. The staff were yanking the management's chain by OutOfMyTree · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Oh, come on, read the article. Who ever spends 100% of their time working if they can get away with working only 54% of the time? It looks like the workers in the experiment were trying to get their heating turned up, so they deliberately varied what they did to give the "results" that would get mangement to keep the place warmer.

    "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,"

    The workstations had monitoring equipment fitted, the people knew what was going on (well, you wouldn't miss the temperature varying from 68 to 77, would you) and they worked out an appropriate response. Well, nearly appropriate -- that 100% could only be believed by someone with a very pointy head or by someone in a very high ivory tower.