The days are becoming longer, more sunny and warmer in the western hemisphere. Those brilliant summer days have a greater impact on the workforce and the physical office of what you think. The obvious are longer lunches and less people in the office due to the holidays. However, when everyone is in the office, there is a common human habit that occurs the summer that is overlooked. One that undermines employee productivity and increases carbon emissions from a building.
The productivity murderer? Sunshine. It is not that no one is against it, but when the sun is at its highest and most hot glow of the sun and heat that penetrate glass panels in office buildings, employees to leave their desks. They spill in another area of the office, interrupting colleagues, or leave. Meanwhile, the air conditioning continues to exploit, cooling uncooked areas, wasting energy, increasing operating costs and raising the CO2 emissions of the building.
Office knowledge reduces carbon emissions
Since buildings represent almost 40% of carbon emissions in the world, with heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems among the largest taxpayers, having an idea of human behavior in the office can help reduce those emissions. This problem is not new, but the data to prove its impact on the workforce and the planet have only been discovered recently.
For example, a global and known company by Silicon Valley Tech Tok tok more closely about how its workforce is using the office. Its objectives were to improve collaboration, productivity and energy efficiency.
The company installed sensors that combine the heat detection technology of AI and the body to understand the anonymous human movements in the office. In the large technology company, they added office data of 3 months and patterns of human occupation attacked. The analysis led to specific recommendations to improve the energy efficiency of the company’s office.
The real recommendations of the report are presented below:
- Monday to early morning in the morning and nights: Reduce HVAC adjustment points before 8:00 am and after 6:00 pm, when saturation rates are consistently low.
- Diurnal control in the middle of the week: Reduce the air flow to the capacity of 50% outside the following periods of high demand: Monday at 11:00 am, Tuesday and Wednesday between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm, and Thursday between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm and 12:00
These data can also be used to make decisions about window tones, isolation and lighting.
Office design impacts productivity
Going beyond an understanding of how employees move around the office, the technology company could also infer actions and interactions between employees.
Being able to represent visa in unidentified human movements provides genuine data in corporate culture and employee participation. The actions are much more insightful than any comment than an employee survey could sacrifice.
For example, the frequency of improvised meetings based on chair reversions. In addition, seeing a group of humans who congregate in the hall for a short period of time, so special when the meeting is not a hero at the top of the hour or in half an hour.
From a workforce perspective, office designs also affect productivity and energy efficiency. This reality is not lost in employers and property administrators as reveals the last cost guide of JLL Global OUT 2025. The report cites a greater focus on office assistance, employee experience and the performance of sustainability in investment in high quality work spaces. This explains why the average adjustment cost of the global office is increasing.
Understand the needs of the workforce
However, the latest design trends may not align with the needs of the workforce and/or reflect the corporate culture. For example, another idea that the technology company obtained from the sensors was that people were reserve conferences rooms for themselves. This links the space to meet others and puts unnecessary demands in the HVAC system that is established to accommodate large groups. It is also an indicator that the open office design increases noise levels and is not conducive to supporting focused work.
You can get a better understanding of how the workforce uses the office without compromising privacy. Added data on occupation, pedestrian traffic, human interactions and their impact on energy consumption can lead to more comfortable, productive and energy efficiency offices. And having that knowledge before making a expensive renewal of the office can make a big difference to ensure that construction is aligned with the needs of the workforce instead of making employees adapt to the office limits.