All year round, heating an office seems to be a constant battle. With staff too hot, or staff too cold, it can be difficult to find a happy medium – especially with conditions changing through out the day. If the heating has been turned off the night before, the mornings can feel baltic and the afternoons’ roasting, with an unbearable haze of static filling the confined air. Keeping the office a reasonable temperature doesn’t just contribute towards a happy workforce, but it is also the law! With our weather becoming more extreme, in this post we look at some tips for keeping your work environment warm as the mercury starts to drop:
Insulate Effectively
During the darker mornings, it may take some time for some real daylight to want to shine through. Until this happens, keeping any blinds/curtains closed will help to retain any heat. If you are to leave your office heating on overnight, ensure that any radiators are not being covered, leading to heat escaping up and out of the windows. Once the sun has began to make an appearance, open those blinds/curtains to let that light in! Not only will it naturally start to warm the space, it will actually kill the bacteria that lives in dust – this can help to decrease the likelihood of respiratory problems for those in the office. Be sure to deal with any drafts by using excluders on doors and windows, and where possible, think about re-sealing any of these windows and installing quality insulation.
A Personal Touch
Try to encourage your staff to dress with layers, so that as the afternoons begin to feel warmer, they can remove any outerwear – highlight the benefit on the environment that this is having, through minimising energy use. If you operate a more casual office space – support them in this by purchasing some blankets, the small cost incurred initially will more than pay for itself in savings on heating bills. It will show care towards your employees and show that you too are trying to provide a solution. Hot drinks are always a go-to way to warm up (and wake up – particularly in the morning!), if you don’t already, supplying quality products for staff to use in the kitchen or even buying in a round of hot drinks for your staff occasionally, will boost moral and temperatures respectively.
Ensure Any Heat is Emitted Efficiently
If you are to turn the central heating on, you want to ensure that your system is running effectively. Where possible, check the functionality of your boiler and that the building is fitted with quality central heating pumps. So much energy and money can be wasted on heating a building inefficiently, this really is of prior importance to inspect.
Another way of warming the office, is to purchase some under desk heaters – these heaters are electrical and work incredibly quickly. They can prove a great purchase in Spring and Autumn as you may not wish to use the central heating when the temperatures are a little warmer – just make sure that staff remember to switch them off!
