Cold Comfort

Keeping office temperatures low could be costing governments and companies more than it saves, according to the results of a recent study of the effect of temperature on productivity by Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University. Hedge set up sensors in cubicles last January and February at the headquarters of Insurance Office of America in Orlando, Fla. He used data already gathered by the company on processing clerks' typing speed and proficiency. He found that typing mistakes increased 74 percent and typing output dropped 46 percent when office temperatures fell from 77 degrees to 69 degrees.

Hedge's conclusion probably will strike a chord with government office workers. He found that employers should keep offices at a steady temperature of 75 degrees for best results. Buildings often are cooled too much in warmer months, wasting energy and making employees uncomfortable, according to Hedge. "It's a potential win-win situation" for employers, Hedge says. "You can reduce cooling loads in the buildings while improving performance." Air conditioning systems are expensive and consume as much as a third of the total energy used in most office buildings. Of course, offices in colder regions will be more expensive to heat if they follow Hedge's theory, but they might make up the cost in improved results.

The October temperature report is the first of several Hedge plans. He will spend the next two years studying the impact of office conditions on worker productivity. Among other issues, he will look at the impact of different types of lighting and air quality. The Environmental Protection Agency will fund the studies.

English by birth, Hedge spent several years working in British government before getting into academia in the mid-1970s. It was his time in government, he says, that inspired his future research in ergonomics and design. He joined Cornell's faculty in 1987.

"In the 1970s, the big change in the U.K. [was to move] people who worked in enclosed private offices to large open spaces with the idea that this would vastly improve communication between individuals," he recalls. But there were drawbacks, according to Hedge. Employees no longer could control noise, temperature or cleanliness in their own workspace. "When you lose all that, your work performance doesn't go through the roof," he says.

Conditions in the offices of the U.S. federal government are lacking as well. "I've been in buildings in Washington. You have water-stained ceiling tiles with fungus growing on them," he says. "It looks like it's out of the 1940s. Desks are 30 years old. This doesn't give the impression of a department on the leading edge."

Still, Hedge admits that the research he and others have done hasn't convinced most organizations-public or private sector-to make office conditions a primary consideration in selecting and designing workspace. "It's rare that trying to build the very best space you can is the main driver," he says. "It's how do we go to the low bid every time."

Hedge has learned that agencies balk at spending money to improve the office environment. In the early 1990s, he conducted air quality research at a Canadian government building. The agency had specially designed air purifiers installed on one floor. When Hedge surveyed workers on that floor and those who did not work there, employees overwhelmingly preferred the floor with the purifiers. But the agency was unconvinced.

"The government said the results are positive, but it's really just people's opinions," Hedge says. "They said there was no economic data to support the argument that people were doing a better job there." As yet, only the one floor has purifiers and it remains the most popular floor in the building.

"Nobody has figured out what [it costs] to put people in a bad building rather than a better environment," Hedge says. "That's what we are aiming at."