Key Reasons To Keep Your Office Cool For Summer

Summer is arriving rapidly here in Britain – as it always seems to! As the weather starts to heat up, it’s always a good idea to take a look at your air conditioning unit to make sure it’s running at full efficiency. Effective air conditioning not only ensures the health of your employees, but also maximises their productivity.

Maintaining Employee Health

There are a few reasons why air conditioning is vital to keeping our work environments cool in the summer. Amongst the first and foremost of them, it prevents staff from getting ill. It’s true that compared to many countries in the rest of the world we have comparatively mild summers in Britain, but given the nature of our usual weather and climate, we can often underestimate our summers’ ability to affect the health of our employees. Dehydration and heatstroke are all too common in the summer months, so it’s a good idea to make sure that staff always have the option to hydrate themselves, and are able to avoid sitting in direct sunlight for too long. In this way, air conditioning systems can be used to protect human health by taking the edge off the worst effects of the summer heat, reducing the risk of related illnesses.

Keeping Up Productivity

High temperatures can also drastically affect productivity, as being too hot can make us feel sluggish, and impact our brain’s ability to process information. It’s very common for many of us to become tired when exposed to heat and sunlight for long periods of time. There are a couple of reasons for this; the first is that our bodies are naturally trying to maintain an even core temperature, so if we’re too hot they work overtime to keep us cool. Our metabolism and heart rate both increase to do this, and over time the extra pressure that our bodies are under can cause us to feel tired and unfocused. Fatigue is also a major side effect of dehydration – which we’ve already mentioned above – and can wreak similar havoc in levels of employee productivity and motivation.

In fact, research has shown that extreme temperature shifts in either direction can often result in severe distraction for employees through discomfort, so in the summer it’s crucial not to neglect your air conditioning system. By maintaining an even, cool and comfortable temperature in your workplace throughout the day, you can ensure that your employees are happy and healthy, thereby maximising productivity by allowing them to concentrate fully on their work.

Regular service and maintenance is vital to keeping your air conditioning unit running at full efficiency and effectiveness. At Askews, we are staffed by a highly trained team of professional heating and cooling engineers who are experts at doing just that. You can click here for a free quote, or call us on 01282 863 825 if you need some friendly help or advice.

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