Workplace temperatures are based on an old formula

A study has revealed that the office air condition temperatures are designed in such a way that they keep men at just the right temperature and enough for the women to bring a cardigan to the office. The study suggests that reason behind this is that all offices around the world use a law to regulate temperatures. The temperatures are regulated based on the needs of the men who require lower levels of temperatures than women. The paper was published in the journal, Nature Climate Change and it included the data that was taken by observing the women sitting in different office temperatures and measuring their body’s thermal response. The study found that all the women had a metabolic rate that was lower than deemed to be standard worldwide guidelines used for controlling the office temperatures.If the actual temperatures were to be considered then, it was stated that women needed the temperature in the office to be around 25 degree Celsius and the men preferred 22 degrees Celsius.

Image Source: takepart.com

The reason why the temperatures are kept according to the men is because they were the ones who designed the original systems. Another reason is that the metabolic rates of men are higher when compared to the females, which is why men require cooler surroundings than them. Boris Knigma, from the Maastricht University said,” we looked into the literature. The standard tables are based on the average male. If you’re an engineer or an architect designing a building, this is important to consider. This means if you have a building with 100 workers, 50 males and 50 females, you’re making it too much cool for 50 per cent of them.”

Chief operating officer of Facebook, also states that she dislikes the habit of Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, to cool the conference room to 15 degrees which is why she had to keep a jacket with her to cope with the temperature. The solution could be to either lower or increase the temperature but that would mean the bosses will have to upset either the male or the female employees. However, it is best left to the companies what they decide to do as studies like this are only meant to make the workplace better to work for the both the female and the male employees.