San Diego — Teamwork erodes when workers are exposed to hot or even mildly warm conditions, according to the results of a recent study conducted by University of California, San Diego researchers.
They asked a group of computer science students to work individually or in pairs on programming tasks in rooms where the temperature was set to either 75° F or 84° F.
Although individual performances remained consistent in both rooms, the pairs in the warmer room “experienced a notable decline in productivity,” according to a UCSD press release.
The students working in the warmer room were less satisfied with their partner and had a greater desire to switch partners for future tasks. On the other hand, the teams in the cooler room “generally outperformed” the individuals and were nearly twice as likely to add features to the code.
“There’s a breakdown in communication and interaction between workers when it’s hot,” study co-author Teevrat Garg, an associate professor of economics at UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, said in the release. “When it’s hot, you’re more irritable and annoyed and therefore less likely to work collaboratively with people.”
Fellow researcher Elizabeth Lyons, also an associate professor at the school, recommends employers consider environmental conditions “when structuring collaborative work” and invest in climate control for team-based workspaces.
The study was published in the Review of Economics and Statistics.
