What is often forgotten This trick will help you work even more efficiently when working from home
Working from home has many advantages: You save yourself a trip to the office and can snack uninhibitedly at your desk. But there's one more thing that's important for working from home to work really well: ventilation.
08.08.2024, 11:42
08.08.2024, 11:47
dpa
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- Regular ventilation in the home office increases productivity and reduces the risk of burnout.
- The authors of the study recommend ventilating several times a day to minimize the concentration of pollutants.
- A survey of Dutch employees revealed that environmental conditions in the home office are rated better, while the technical equipment in the office is preferred.
Those who ventilate their home office more frequently are more productive and less at risk of burnout. Better air quality also contributes to a positive attitude towards working from home. This is the result of a survey of around 1,000 Dutch employees in November 2020, i.e. during the coronavirus pandemic.
The respondents found the environmental conditions in the home office better, but preferred the technical equipment in their office workplace. A group from Maastricht University in the Netherlands led by Martijn Stroom published the results of the study in the journal "Plos One".
Survey on everything from temperature and noise to WLAN
Numerous previous studies have come to different conclusions with regard to the productivity and satisfaction of employees working from home. Stroom and colleagues used the data collected during the pandemic to identify factors that influence employees' attitudes towards working from home.
Respondents were asked to assess which aspects of their work were better at home or in the office. On the one hand, these were the indoor environmental conditions, specifically temperature, air quality, lighting and noise. Secondly, the researchers asked about the equipment, namely desk, chair, screen, computer hardware and WLAN.
Environment is better at home
While the study participants rated all environmental conditions better on average in the home office than in the office, the opposite was true for the equipment. On a seven-point scale, the temperature at home was rated at 5.13 on average, compared to 4.59 in the office.
Women generally rated their productivity in the home office higher than men. And the larger the household in which someone lived, the higher they rated their own productivity in the home office on average. Overall, however, the respondents rated their productivity in the office higher (7.11 on a scale of ten) than their productivity at home (6.84).
Focus on ventilation
The researchers paid particular attention to the connection between ventilation and other aspects of working from home. It has long been known that stale air can lead to tiredness and concentration problems. Using a statistical analysis, the researchers determined that the higher the supply of fresh air (from zero to one hundred percent), the greater the satisfaction with the environmental conditions and equipment.
This indirectly increased the estimated value of productivity (0.4 points on a ten-point scale) and the willingness to continue working from home (1.2 points). At the same time, the tendency to burnout decreased with increasing ventilation duration (0.4 points on a seven-point scale). However, the researchers emphasize that the data is based on estimates made by the respondents.
"We find that home office ventilation is a key underlying factor in predicting overall satisfaction and is indirectly associated with increased productivity, increased willingness to work from home and reduced tendency to burnout," the study authors summarize their findings with regard to ventilation.
Experts recommend opening windows several times a day
But how much ventilation is enough ventilation? If the air in the room is stagnant, pollutants can accumulate there. These include exhaled carbon dioxide (CO2), but also vapors from furniture and building materials. With regard to carbon dioxide, experts assume that 1000 ppm (parts per million) in the room air is okay.
To ensure that this level is not exceeded, the room air should be completely replaced several times a day by means of shock ventilation or cross ventilation. How often this is necessary also depends on how many people are inside and how airtight the house is. CO2 measuring devices, also known as "CO2 traffic lights", show the concentration of the gas, the room temperature and also the relative humidity.
