The air in your office could be affecting your wellbeing

Employers could increase worker performance by 20% simply by increasing the fresh air supply in offices and meeting rooms, according to a new report from Sharp.

The new report, developed by Sharp and workplace psychologist Dr Nigel Oseland, highlights the importance of creating the right conditions for meetings in order to boost productivity.

The report identifies temperature as a key environmental factor that has an impact on memory recall, attention span, and creativity, which all affect performance.

With the ideal meeting temperature recorded anywhere between 20°C to 25°C, gradually decreasing the temperature to 18°C one hour before the end of the working day was found to boost productivity and increase employee performance by 4.1%.

Office and meeting room lighting was also found to have a significant impact on concentration and productivity, with the latest research revealing good lighting can improve performance by 15%. Good lighting and daylight are essential to employee’s wellness and mood, with findings showing that workers in offices with windows had 46 minutes more sleep a night compared to workers without them[.

“Studies have repeatedly shown that uncomfortable environmental conditions can negatively affect performance in the general office space and meeting rooms. This provides a strong business case to control and adapt these conditions in order to boost productivity and worker performance in meetings”, said Dr. Nigel Oseland, Environmental Psychologist.

Chris Parker, Senior Product Manager at Sharp, added: “Advancements in collaboration technologies, together with the capabilities offered by IoT and cloud platforms mean it’s now easier than ever for businesses to get better value from their meetings. When you know the temperature of a meeting room and you can send that data to the cloud, and from the cloud, communicate this to your heating and cooling system to take an action, you have a system that adapts to how your meeting spaces are used. We believe this is the start of a revolution in smart spaces.”

The Windows collaboration display from Sharp, which will launch in the UK later this year, means it is now possible to monitor meeting environments quickly and easily. As well as including a host of features to improve team work, the collaboration display is the first to include smart sensors that measure temperature and humidity, ambient light, air quality levels and even potentially the number of occupants in a meeting.

The report, titled “Creating the perfect meeting environment” can be downloaded from http://www.sharp.co.uk/windows-collaboration-display

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay