Break from the Grind May 29, 2018

Office Temperature Can Be a Bone of Contention in the Workplace

Fifteen percent of workers say they have argued with a coworker about office temperature.

Reported by

Office temperature is causing workers to turn on each other and is also having an impact on productivity, according to a CareerBuilder survey.

Nearly half of workers (46%) say their office is either too hot or too cold. Fifty-one percent say sitting in an office that is too cold impacts their productivity, and 67% say sitting in an office that is too warm does the same.

Fifteen percent of workers say they have argued with a coworker about office temperature (7% of men vs. 22% of women), and nearly one in five (19%) have secretly changed the office temperature during the summer—13% to make it cooler, 6% to make it warmer.

The survey findings indicate women may feel temperature differently in workplaces from men. Eighteen percent of men say they are too cold, 17% too hot, while 36% of women are too cold, and 19 are too hot.

To stay at a comfortable temperature at work during the summer, workers say they:

Drink cool beverages: 42%;
Dress in layers: 27%;
Use a personal fan: 26%;
Drink hot beverages: 20%;
Wear a jacket all day: 19%;
Use a space heater: 13%; and
Use a blanket: 6%.

The survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from April 4 to May 1, 2018, and included a representative sample of 1,012 full-time workers in the private sector across industries and company sizes.