With fresh air, I can work better

Amazon chief health officer, Vin Gupta is a health data and respiratory disease professor at the University of Washington. In a recent conversation with CNBC Work, he says that, while Covid may have been a catalyst for buildings to adopt better air quality systems, the research supporting investment in ventilation pre-dates Covid. It shows that cognitive function and worker productivity are boosted with better air.

Boost performance

Good indoor climate has huge effects on our cognitive skills and productivity. Your ability to understand and use information can increase by 172% in a good indoor environment. Factory workers are found to be less productive on days where the air has high levels of pollution.

Better air quality also means a lower risk of infections and their transmission. According to Britain’s Healthiest Workplace survey, sickness-related absences are costing the UK economy £77.5 billion a year meaning HVAC system improvements are not only cost-effective when measured by long-term productivity gains.

Retaining good workers

Replacing staff goes beyond recruitment charges, the time and money required to find the right person. get them onboard, and train them are a significant cost to a business in addition to any knowledge or relationship collateral that you may lose when good workers leave the company.

Indoor air quality improvements make good sense as part of a workplace retention strategy in a difficult post-pandemic labour market. Joseph Allen, the director of the Harvard School of Public Health, Healthy Buildings programme, wrote recently, “the time has come to treat air quality as a must-have work benefit”.

Designing better ventilated workspaces

It is essential that a building designed as a workplace meets all government health standards and guidelines however to create a healthy and productive environment which makes an employee want to stick around we need to be demanding building ventilation of a standard which goes beyond the acceptable minimums.

Investing in clean air for employees pays off quickly. Employers should consider the cost of not having a well-designed indoor climate solution for their workers.