If you find yourself griping about having to wear a coat in your office, you can comfort yourself with the fact that you’re far from alone. A recent survey by Blumberg Capital Partners asked workers how office conditions affected their productivity and their feelings about their employer, and nearly half (47%) of respondents cited temperature extremes as the biggest offender. Other peeves in the office environment include uninspiring décor, less-than-tidy restrooms, uninvited visitors in the form of rodents and insects, and even leaky ceilings.
The most important numbers in the survey to managers are the 80 percent of respondents that say these conditions affect their view of their employer and the 69 percent who cite their office environment as a factor in their productivity. Today, the Los Angeles Times gets some insights on the survey from Blumberg CEO Johnny Winton and offers a few examples of their own.
This reminds me of a particularly low point in my employment history when I took a low-paying, but remarkably available job conducting surveys over the phone for a research firm. I arrived for my first day of work and found the office agreeable enough, that is, until I was shown to my station, elbow-to-elbow with two other poor saps sweating away in the unmitigated heat of summer with only a small and weak floor fan in the middle of the room battling in vain against the clammy heat.
Windows, there were none. Décor? Nonexistent. It was as if the employee was a piece of office furniture, not to mention the only thing that distinguished one workstation from the next. Most companies keep their servers in better conditions than this. This, paired with the repetitive nature of the task, and I lasted five hours before tendering my resignation. I got the feeling that this came as little surprise to the managers there.
I imagine that my story will elicit scoffing from those of you who have dealt with much worse. So before you scoff, let’s hear what you got.
(Picture of Rayburn Thermometer via Flickr user Bobby8, CC 2.0)
