I’m too hot! I’m too cold! Your employees aren’t comfortable in a fixed desk system office

 

You will never solve aircon wars so rethink your office instead, says furniture chief

Offices should be redesigned as a series of temperate zones so office workers can be comfortable, says an office furniture supremo.

Jim Keane, chief executive of Steelcase, the office furniture giant that proposed redesigning offices so both introverted and extroverted staff can be happy, now wants bosses to divide their offices by temperature range.

“The number one complaint from office staff is that they are either too hot or too cold,” Keane told the Drucker Forum in Vienna last week. “And the person who is too hot and the person who is too cold are often sat right next to each other, so they both stay there all day and are both miserable.”

Offices should have “cold” rooms and “warm” rooms, he said, and allow staff to sit I the area in which the temperature suits them, he added.