‘Can we make it a bit warmer in here?’ – A phase I have uttered countless times in my working life as the office aircon has offered me the opportunity to acquaint myself with what frostbite must feel like.
I don’t mind telling you, this phrase has rarely been met with kindly compromise. More commonly I have been subjected to dismissive comments such as;
“It’s not cold”, or even better, “you’re not cold”.
Or even blaming comments such as;
“You’re only cold because you’re a woman, women are always cold”
I seldom got to make it warmer.
At first, I would rationalise that if everyone else were not cold, maybe there was something wrong with my internal thermostat, but then I noticed something.
Women were cold. Shrouded in knitwear, wiping their noses on tissues in the middle of summer, some in gloves, some in hats. When lunchtime came around, they would peel off their layers to go outside into the August sunshine, only to return an hour later and wrap themselves up like they had just been pulled out of Lake Superior. I’m surprised I never saw anyone in foil.
Men, in contrast would be walking about the office in short sleeved shirts, sometimes shorts. Their comfort levels almost palpable to me, especially when I felt my heart was only beating twice a minute in an effort to conserve heat and energy.
‘Thermostat Warfare’ is real, I’ve witnessed it countless times, and predominantly it seems that women’s complaints or requests to make it warmer are sidelined in favour of keeping the office cooler.
“You’re only cold because you’re a woman, women are always cold”.
I started to wonder if they were right. Are women always cold? And if women are naturally colder than men, which of course cannot be helped, then is it right that our complaints are dismissed and we stay cold in the air-conditioning to allow men to feel optimum?
I did some research.
Starting with some facts, it is indeed true that women on average have a lower core temperature than men. Women usually have both lower height and weight and a higher percentage of body fat than men. In fact, it has been claimed by the more modern research that women pump out about a third less heat than men do, so don’t need as much cooling.
In the 1960s air-conditioning systems began to be introduced into office environments. A set of guidelines (Standard 55) were published on how to regulate indoor temperature and humidity and had been based on findings from research that had considered both environmental factors (temperature and humidity etc), and human factors (metabolic rate, weight, height etc).
There is a problem however. The research on the human factors, was based solely on men.
Okay, okay, I hear you, the workplace may have been more male dominated back then. Absolutely correct, it was. But is there any reason that all modern air-conditioning systems are still set up to follow the famous Standard 55?
Bear that question in mind as we go through this next bit of research.
In 2019 a study was published looking at the effects of temperature on cognitive ability between men and women. The study showed that at higher temperatures women perform better while the reverse effect is observed in men. Not only this but the increase in performance in maths and verbal tasks for women was much larger and more pronounced than the decrease in the performance of men.
It has been hypothesised that optimum temperatures for women and the performance of women is 22-24C whereas the thermostat is usually hovering between 19C and 21C in most offices.
If women perform much better with the temperature slightly higher, and the impact on men’s performance at higher temperatures does not fluctuate as markedly, is there an argument to shift that thermostat up a notch? I’ll let you decide.
(Note: This blog article does not take into consideration those experiencing menopause within the workplace, which I will look to cover in a future article).
By Jill Barrowclough, Operations Director