Next to parking issues, office temperature is the second most contentious topic that property and facilities managers have to deal with. While Sheila (name changed to protect the cold-blooded) is sitting there in a cardigan with a fan heater under her desk, her adjacent neighbour is adjusting her USB fan and complaining it is too hot to think! So in this week of supreme temperatures, how are those of us wedded to hybrid working coping in our sun-drenched homes?
I believe we all know that there is legislation to protect us from offices which are too cold, but no such control exists for when the temperature rises. Why is that?? I, for one, find it harder to think rationally or even reasonably when I am too hot.
A recent study by Loughborough University found that productivity could be reduced by as much as 76% at extreme temperatures. Admittedly, the study focussed on physical work, but it is not much of a leap to extrapolate the findings to brain power. Yale School of Medicine found even small rises in temperature affect the firing of neurons in the brain, and can cause them to go silent, only “waking up” when they cool down again.
Maybe I can attribute any stupid decisions to my current working environment, or maybe I should just decamp to a lovely air-conditioned office and give those neurons a wake-up call.