Employee health directly correlates to employee productivity. The healthier your employees are, the more work they do. That said, you need to maintain a clean and healthy work environment. You may think about this in terms of waste management, but you may have overlooked indoor air quality.
Misconception About Office Air Quality
You and your employees may easily ignore workplace air quality because you notice outdoor air pollution more. When you enter your office, comparing your exposure to air pollution outdoors, you tend to think that your office air is cleaner. Such a misconception, along with the ones included below, should be dispelled before you can work on improving your office in Overland Park and other cities air through air purification or professional air duct cleaning.
Carbon Dioxide Pools Indoors
Offices keep outdoor air pollution out, yet employees inside breathe out carbon dioxide. As a result, the exhaled carbon dioxide remains indoors, causing headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness among office workers. These symptoms become all the more apparent once you spend more hours in front of your computer or in meetings.
Ventilation Systems Accumulate Dirt
You may have a ventilation system in place, but ventilation systems can easily be filled with dirt and gunk. You still get indoor-outdoor air flow, and you also breathe in polluted air. In the end, you fare no better in your office or outside of it.
Plants Purify Less Effectively
Now, you may have a few plants strategically placed around the office. Contrary to popular claims that plants can purify office air, however, a study in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology from Drexel University by Bryan Cummings and Michael Waring proves otherwise. Although plants can purify the air, they fail to effectively purify the air in realistic office environments. You will need ten to a thousand plants per square meter to completely clean indoor air.
Clean and Install Air Cleaning Systems
What then do you do to improve your workplace air? For one, you can hire air duct cleaning services in Overland Park. A clean ventilation system can work wonders in spewing polluted indoor air out and sucking in fresh, clean outdoor air. In addition, you can also install a reliable air purification system to doubly clean office air.
Monitor Air Quality
For the long-term, you can place air monitors in different parts of your office. Although quite the investment, monitors can give you constant information on carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulates in your office air. Once these levels reach dangerous heights, the monitors will give you warnings. Other small improvements you can do include prohibiting cigarette-use in the office, adding filters in your ventilation system, and using low-pollutant furniture and décor.
Gauge Air Quality
After all of these improvements, how can you know the workplace air you breathe is clean? Conduct a survey among your workers and watch out for the presence of symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, fatigue, runny or stuffy noses, or irritability. The less these symptoms exist among your employees, the more you can gauge the level of cleanliness of your office air.
With this, you finally understand the impact of indoor air quality. You can put importance not only in cleaning your office of the waste but also in cleaning the air in your work environment. Ask for professional help in conducting the air improvement practices above, and you will eventually work for long hours minus the headaches.
