Why The Temperature Of Your Office Space Is So Important
Anyone who has worked in an office knows how unproductive you can be when the thermostat is set below freezing. Even with extra layers on, typing and thinking while you're cold is a special kind of difficulty. Indeed, experts explain that the temperature of the room you're in can impact your productivity more than you realize — especially for women.
Mindbodygreen spoke with Elizabeth Ricker, author of "Smarter Tomorrow," about how the thermostat can make or break your productivity. It turns out, men and women generally have very different optimal temperatures when it comes to getting things done. While men tend to appreciate a cooler atmosphere during working hours, women generally work more efficiently between 75 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit. However, the outlet notes, a study found that the temperature of the room impacted the female participants more than the male participants. Essentially, the outlet notes, women excel when they're in warmer temperatures while men's increase in productivity isn't quite as pronounced.
Temperatures and productivity
Finding the right temperature for your office is a bigger deal than you may realize. Entrepreneur reports that a study found a 4% decrease in productivity levels among those doing manual labor when the thermostat was set higher than 80 degrees. Yet another study underpinned the findings as well, noting that they also changed along gender lines.
"As the temp went up, women did better on math and verbal tasks, and men did worse," Tom Chang, associate professor of finance and business economics at the University of Southern California, told NPR of his study. "And the increase for women in math and verbal tasks was much larger and more pronounced than the decrease in performance of men."
So, if you've been chilled to the bone at work and have noticed a decline in productivity because of it, make sure to turn up the heat. Luckily, men may not feel as big of a difference in their efficiency.