Office Air Conditioner Wars and How to Solve Them!

In the modern office it’s commonplace to see workers at one end shivering and at the other sweltering. People working at these two extremes see their work suffer: it’s hard to work a keyboard when wearing gloves, and just as hard to concentrate when there’s sweat pouring from your brow.

Even worse are the air conditioner wars that regularly break out between employees. One minute the thermostat is set high, the next it has been turned all the way down. In the worst cases an employee may take and hide the AC remote control.

Arguments at the water cooler are not unheard of.

What do you do to solve the office air conditioner wars?

Continually turning the air conditioner on and off or setting and resetting temperature does little more than increase individual agitation and the office energy bill. Here are five possible solutions to this age-old problem. Which is your preferred route?

1. Tell your workers to wear less or more as needed
2. Send the offenders into the naughty corner with a verbal warning
3. Tell the worst afflicted to have a cup of tea. That always makes things better – and  while they have the kettle boiling they can make you a cup, too
4. Provide a bunch of expensive-to-run desk fans
5. Call in the experts and design a fit-for-purpose solution

Prevention is better than cure

In many offices, the short term solution is to provide everyone with a fan. The air conditioning gets switched off, and the office is full of noisy motors. Papers fly around like confetti. Yet still the temperature question is not solved.

There are several solutions that can be designed and customised for the office. An expert will be able to design the perfect office air conditioning system, taking into account the size and shape of office space, individual workstations, and number of staff working there.

The position of diffusers, air outflows, and the size and energy efficiency of your air conditioning unit will all need to be taken into account as part of your overall office air conditioning design. Just as no two workers are the same, no two offices are the same.

By taking action to prevent office temperature becoming an issue, you’ll find employees work better and take less time off work. Not only does productivity improve, but energy bills won’t shoot through the roof.

Or you could continue to rely on those expensive desk fans.