Get Employees Onboard with Building Occupancy Assessment
Maintaining the ideal occupancy comfort level is important to keep employees happy and efficient in their daily tasks in the workplace. A study by Cornell University’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory found that employees performed at 54 percent at their computers, with a 25 percent error rate, when the temperature was set at the government suggested temperature of 68 degrees. When those workers were in a warmer 77 degree environment, they performed at 100 percent on their computers, with a 10 percenterror rate. Occupancy comfort in the workplace is directly related to increased productivity and better output.
Understanding Occupancy Assessment
Effective occupancy assessment is a continual process that involves implementing an intelligent energy management system. This utilizes artificial intelligence to assess energy usage, make suggestions, and perform changes — all to maintain a more sustainable building. The management system involves having an online education center where occupants can be trained in optimized energy management solutions, such as learning how to use Computer Power Management (CPM) to streamline energy usage when working with office computers. Individual occupant energy usage is monitored through seat marking in this system. Occupancy assessment enables management to utilize this type of system to program variations for cooling, heating, and lighting for specific shift schedules to ensure optimized energy efficiency.
Keep the Lines of Communication Open
The most important step in getting employees on board with building occupancy assessment is to stay open and transparent. Schedule a company-wide retreat, lunch and learn meeting, or individualized team meetings to disseminate information on this new sustainability plan. You don’t want employees to misunderstand the details and think that they are being watched by management so they can be reprimanded for using too much energy at individual stations. The reasons behind this assessment, and how saving energy will be good for the company, needs to be explicitly explained so everyone can jump onboard this new transition train.
Distribute Occupant Comfort Surveys
The US Green Building Council has created a comprehensive Occupant Comfort Survey that can help your management team effectively assess the comfort level of employees. The survey addresses the four areas of occupant comfort:
- Indoor air quality
- Thermal comfort
- Acoustics
- Lighting levels
When these four comfort levels are adequately explained to employees, they will understand that occupant assessment is not simply about saving on energy costs. It also involves cultivating a building environment where all occupants maintain a positive sense of well-being. Make sure management is enthusiastic about these surveys, since 30 percent of the building occupants need to complete them for the amalgamated data to reap any viable results. Managers must stress the fact that a comprehensive analysis of these surveys will be completed to ensure that occupant comfort issues are addressed.
Incentivize Employee Participation
If understanding the facts, hearing the company sustainability vision, and letting their voices be heard through the occupant comfort surveys is not enough to incentive employee participation — it might be time to offer awards. Consider giving awards, prizes, and cash bonuses to employees who actively participate in the online education center. Awards can be given to employees with the lowest energy usage due to compliance with CPM streamlining of energy usage at their station.
Implementing this type of change in the workplace can take time for employees to acclimate to the new system. However, staying transparent and actively communicating throughout the transition period will increase the participation rate and enthusiasm for change.
