A new survey commissioned by Honeywell says that nearly three out of four office employees are worried about indoor air quality (IAQ), and very few of them are getting the updates about it they want. The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research, which polled about 3,000 office workers in buildings of 500-plus employees in Southeast Asia, Germany, India, the Middle East, the U.K., and the United States.
An overwhelming majority (89 percent) of those surveyed said air quality directly impacted their health and well-being, but about two-thirds of people said they only occasionally received updates about IAQ. Only 15 percent of those surveyed said they receive real-time updates. About 90 percent of office workers said it’s at least somewhat important to be kept informed about indoor air quality, and 65 percent said it was very or extremely important.
What’s funny about the findings is that only about two in five survey respondents could accurately identify all the factors that contribute to indoor air quality. More than 36 percent of workers didn’t know CO2 factors into IAQ, and 41 percent of those surveyed were unaware that humidity plays a part.
Since the pandemic started, most workers have likely seen news stories talking about how important indoor air quality is, but they still may not understand everything about it. In fact, most workers’ office IAQ is probably superior to their environment at home. A recent study by researchers and Texas A&M and Lancaster University examined office air quality and home levels in 2019 and 2020, and they found that indoor air quality at home was the worst of the two in most situations.
So, if property managers have invested in HVAC upgrades to improve indoor air quality within the past couple of years, they may want to communicate those efforts loudly and often. Employees and therefore employers care about IAQ more than ever. They want to know what their company is doing about it, even if they don’t fully understand what it’s all about.