[Bruno Budrovic / Images.com] Click here to see full sized version.

Tempers often rise as air conditioning works overtime to cool law firms across the country. Finding the right temperature, a key element of what experts call “thermal comfort,” is central to employee satisfaction — and the bottom line.

“Temperature is one of the most common problems in terms of indoor air quality,” said Sandy Bellow, technical specialist with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety in Hamilton.

Indeed, said Alan Hedge, a professor of ergonomics at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., “this is the major complaint in American offices.

“It is a serious issue,” he added. “It affects the performance of people and how they feel about the environment.”

Success depends on understanding the issues and the effects of thermal discomfort. And having realistic goals.
“It’s difficult to satisfy everybody,” noted Bellow. “You should be striving to [satisfy] 80 per cent of the people in the workforce. That is generally achievable.”

Still, most offices fall far short of attaining this goal, according to a study conducted by the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California in Berkeley, Calif. that included respondents in Canada, the U.S. and Finland. The researchers found that only 11 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with their thermal comfort in the 215 buildings surveyed.

In summer, interestingly, satisfaction usually registers on the warmer end of the Celsius scale.

“Temperatures in summer were shown to be usually too cold, below the comfort range, surprisingly, and these low temperatures were associated with increases in a number of symptoms among the occupants,” said Mark Mendell, a researcher with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

Mendell and his co-researcher, Anna Mirer, analyzed data collected from 95 air-conditioned office buildings across the U.S. The data, gathered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a study called BASE (Building Assessment Survey and Evaluation), focused on “building-related symptoms.” Symptoms included problems with upper and lower respiratory tracts, eyes, and skin as well as headache, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating.

“These findings suggest that cooling offices less in summer, so that temperatures are in the comfort range and not too cold, would increase thermal comfort and also decrease symptoms in office workers,” said Mendell.

“Some people develop sensitivities to components in the air,” noted Bellow. “Age, activity level within the job, health conditions, and clothing all affect a person’s sensitivity to preferences for temperature.”

Quite simply, when the air gets too chilly, productivity declines. “The research shows that when people experience temperatures they feel comfortable with — usually warmer rather than cooler — they do more work and spend more time at their desks,” said Hedge, who has measured the relationship between temperature and computer keystrokes among employees.

In his article, IAQ [indoor air quality] Effects on Office Productivity, he concluded that, “Air temperature affected the quantity of computer work and this was not confounded by employee’s gender, job, time-of-day, day-of-week or the sequential day of the study.”
There is also little relief to be easily found when individuals in a firm are chilled. “In a cool environment, even with a sweater or jacket, the extremities tend to get cold,” noted Hedge. “That reduces dexterity.”

It also raises the level of dissatisfaction. The hottest spots for disagreement are probably shared areas. “Issues are mainly experienced in common spaces.  The residents of that area will adjust the thermostat to suit their specific comfort levels without considering others sharing the space,” said Deborah Davids, manager of office services with Miller Thomson LLP in Toronto.

“When an issue arises in shared spaces,” she added, “the building is able to adjust temperature in the air vents above the specific workstation.”

The best option is not one thermostat fits all. A common problem, explained William Fisk a senior staff scientist and department head of the Indoor Environment Department at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “is use of a single thermostat and hardware system to control the temperature in a large and diverse region of a building. The temperature at the thermostat location may be controlled well, but elsewhere temperatures are substantially different and uncomfortable.”

Placement is also an issue, noted Bellow, “The location of the thermostat can be problematic. For example, if it is on a south-facing wall that gets a lot of heat during the early part of the day.”

More thermostats, where practical, help solve the problem. “Installation of thermostats in individual offices contributed greatly to the comfort of the occupants,” said Davids.

“Occasionally,” she added, “a humidifier will be provided to enhance comfort.”

Davids also recommended that firms have a policy for temperature in common areas, which would be set to industry standards.

In his research, Mendell found that a variety of building-related symptoms such as headache, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating were increased by over 50 per cent in the buildings kept below 23°C. These buildings, kept too cold for comfort in summer, included almost half the buildings measured during the warmer months.

Turning the air conditioning down also has important implications for the environment. When the A/C is running flat out, noted Hedge, “you’re wasting a huge amount of energy.”

One reason the air conditioning proves too chilling for lawyers and other staff: the cooling system is set based on the assumption that the building is full. It’s a false assumption. “It’s seldom the case,” noted Hedge. “Research indicates only 40 to 50 percent of [employees] are usually there.”

Of course, individual lawyers can take steps to help enhance their own comfort. “Dress appropriately,” said Bellow. “Wear long sleeves or go sleeveless if you tend to overheat.”

The firm should also monitor temperature woes, she added. “Every workplace should have a health and safety committee. They can be gathering information and determining problem areas.”

Once determined, of course, action is required. “It’s important that people running the firm listen to their employees,”  stressed Hedge.
When those employees are neither shivering nor sweating, they’ll be working at peak performance — and they will think more positively about the firm. In the end, said Hedge, “you’ll have happier employees.”

Many of the problems with law firms that are too hot or too cold for the comfort of staff are directly tied to the buildings themselves.
Old age, and the best of intentions, can be an issue. “Many problems can stem from the design of the building and maintenance of the heating and ventilation system,” noted Sandy Bellow, technical specialist with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety in Hamilton.

For example, she pointed out, “buildings constructed in the ’70s during the energy crisis are ‘tight.’ Some of the designs strove to have as little fresh air coming in as possible.”

The flip side of keeping fresh air out, of course, is keeping colder (or hotter) air in.

“To improve temperature control we need better building design, improved hardware, and improved operation and maintenance practices,“ said William Fisk, senior staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  “We know how to do a better job, but there are costs that are probably the main constraint. 

“However,” he added, “the economic benefits of even very small improvements in productivity would far exceed the costs.” 

80 %
You can’t satisfy everyone, but aim to satisfy 80 per cent of employees with your office temperatures, say experts.

11 %
A recent study found that only 11 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with their thermal comfort in the 215 buildings surveyed.
 
23°C
Research has found that a variety of building-related symptoms such as headache, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating were increased by over 50 per cent in buildings kept below 23°C.