Workers shiver daily in cold offices

Two long-sleeved shirts, a sweater, a fleece jacket, two scarves and two pairs of socks.

This has been Iowan Karen Ericson's go-to outfit for work in recent weeks.

"I am still shivering," the 39-year-old Iowa graphic designer said last week, estimating the temperature in the office was about 15C while outside, the city hit -28C at one point.

"Living in the Midwest, I'm well-trained to dress warmly and in layers, but this deep freeze has been difficult to endure, especially when I expect to be comfortable — or at least not shivering — inside."

New Zealand does not suffer temperatures quite as extreme as those in the US, but complaints about workplace temperature are also common.

Whether in New Zealand or in the US, workers have little choice but to dress for the occasion.

Many rely on winter parkas, gloves, blankets and space heaters just to keep working.

"Today I've got two sweaters, a scarf, ear coverings, gloves and a blanket over my lap," Rebecca Miller, a 27-year-old academic adviser at Tennessee State University in Nashville, said last week.

Temperatures barely ticked above 10C in her office while outside it was -6C or lower in the daytime. "But I'm still having a hard time working. I'm shaking cold, and it's hard to focus. The gloves make it hard to type, and the bulky layers make it difficult to move around."

Like thousands of other chilly workers, Miller snapped selfies at her desk in attire usually reserved for the ski slopes and shared them on social media.

Office developments are built with centralised heating systems that make the buildings suitable for a range of uses over many years. The downside is that they provide little climate control to individual tenants — sometimes purposely, said Khee Poh Lam, architecture professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Thermostats are often tucked into hard-to-reach spaces like false ceilings and air ducts so office tenants can't mess with them, Lam said. Other buildings have dummy units in the open that don't do anything except give desperate workers the illusion of control.

Finding the right temperature to please everyone has been an elusive goal for office designers and builders, said Stefano Schiavon, architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-wrote a 2012 study that found roughly 40 per cent of US workers were satisfied with their office's temperature. Design standards call for an acceptability rate closer to 80 per cent, he said.

The challenge isn't just confined to the winter, of course. Chilly offices have long been the bane of women who complain air conditioning is cranked up in summer to appease their male, suit-wearing counterparts. And certainly many offices have overzealous furnaces that prompt workers to crack open windows even on the coldest days.

Optimal temperature for office work is 22C to 26C — or nearly 10C more than what many buildings typically set their thermostats, said Alan Hedge, a design professor at Cornell University in New York who has researched how temperature affects productivity.

Schiavon suggested that companies, even those based in the draftiest old offices, can invest in safe, relatively inexpensive technology to keep workers warm and productive, like heated chairs, electric blankets and heated floor mats.

"The bottom line is that central heating won't work for everyone, even if designed right," he said. "We're very different people and need some sort of personalisation of our environment."

Ericson, the Iowa resident, said the key to getting through the work day has been reminding herself the cold is only temporary.

"Every day that passes," she said, "is a day closer to spring [in the US]."

- Associated Press