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Germans Increase Office Efficiency With "Cloud Ceiling"

Posted by samzenpus on from the little-fluffy-clouds dept.

Griller_GT writes "According to the top researchers of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organization (IAO) in Stuttgart, the human mind is set up to work at its best under the open sky, with changing illumination caused by clouds passing overhead. The unvarying glare of office lighting is sub-optimal, therefore, and in order to wring the last ounce of efficiency from German workers whose productivity has already been pushed to unprecedented heights they have decided to rectify this with a LED cloud ceiling."

9 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. I approve! by snowgirl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A lot of what injures productivity is boredom. Having a non-constant light source could definitely keep things more interesting, even when you don't particularly notice it.

    Keep workers happy == keep workers productive.

    --
    WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
    1. Re:I approve! by Synerg1y · · Score: 5, Funny

      FTW,

      when they see workers dozing off they should be able to initiate thunder and lightning. A bucket rain shower in an extreme case.

  2. unprecedented heights of productivity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Can we PLEASE stop with this hyperbolic "productivity" nonsense? If people were SO productive, what are they producing? Why does it take 25 years to pay a house that can be built in 6 weeks? Why are we still working 40 hour weeks? The average work week went from 100 to 50 hours in the 19th century, with 19th century technology!

    What are we producing, why, and for who?

    1. Re:unprecedented heights of productivity by egomaniac · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not fair to say that the house is built in six weeks. Yes, a house can be assembled from finished materials in six weeks, but you're not counting the effort to cut down the trees, transport them to a lumber mill, turn them into boards, mine the gypsum, turn it into drywall, mine the iron, convert the iron into steel wire, turn the steel wire into nails, refine oil into the raw plastic for pipes, mold the plastic into pipes and pipe fittings, transport all of these products all of the way from the factory to the building site, and on and on and on.

      You can only build a house in six weeks because an army of people is busily creating all of these finished materials for you, and if you add up all of the labor, it probably does come to somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty man-years of work to create a house.

      --
      ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
  3. Consistent? by zandeez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this proven to be consistent and will it continue to have this effect on the workers? I'd like to reference the Hawthorne Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect which basically states that any change to the working environment will increase productivity temporarily. So how long until it gets old and productivity slumps again?

  4. CEO is a genius! by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Funny

    His "researchers" also discovered that humans respond better when working at ambient temperatures and when exposed to the elements. They also like to be beaten with whips when they're insubordinate.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  5. Re:I dunno. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I may be at my best, coding in a Zeppelin, cruising silently above it all.

    So a LED Zeppelin then?

  6. I live in the Seattle Area and I'm wondering... by ravenscar · · Score: 5, Funny

    What are the blue LEDs for?

  7. alternative by Khashishi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or, you know, they could just install windows. (lowercase w)