Habits & desk health
Office temperature and productivity calculator
Type the room temperature to see how office work performance is expected to compare with the best temperature, and what that means over a working day.
Measure at desk height away from windows, heaters and direct sun; the estimate is for typical office tasks.
How the performance estimate works
Seppänen, Fisk and Lei of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory pooled studies of office work such as typing, call handling and text processing measured at different temperatures, and published a curve of relative performance in 2006. The calculator uses their fitted equation, with T in °C: performance = 0.1647524·T − 0.0058274·T² + 0.0000623·T³ − 0.4685328. The curve peaks at about 21.7 °C (71 °F); every other temperature is shown as a percentage of that peak. A °F reading is first converted with °C = (°F − 32) × 5 ÷ 9. The equation is only valid between 15 and 35 °C.
Worked example: at 25 °C (77 °F) the curve gives 98.2% of peak, a loss of 1.8%. Applied to an 8-hour day of 480 minutes, that is about 8 minutes of output, a small but steady drain that grows quickly in hotter rooms.
| Temperature | In °F | Relative performance |
|---|---|---|
| 18 °C | 64.4 °F | 97.3% |
| 20 °C | 68 °F | 99.5% |
| 22 °C | 71.6 °F | 100% |
| 24 °C | 75.2 °F | 99.1% |
| 26 °C | 78.8 °F | 97.2% |
| 28 °C | 82.4 °F | 94.4% |
| 30 °C | 86 °F | 91.2% |
Using the result in a real office
The curve is flat around the top: anything from about 20 to 24 °C stays within 1% of the peak, so arguing over a single degree in that band is rarely worth it. Losses grow faster above 25 °C than below 21 °C, which makes overheating in summer the bigger risk for most workplaces. At 30 °C the estimate is roughly 9% below peak, close to one working hour lost in two days.
Keep the limits in mind. The figure is an average across many people and tasks, not a prediction for one person; clothing, humidity, air speed and how much control people have over their own space all shift what feels comfortable. Thermal comfort standards such as ASHRAE 55 account for these factors, and a fan that raises air speed can make a warm room feel noticeably cooler without changing the thermostat. Take the reading at desk height, not next to a radiator or a sunny window, because a few metres can differ by several degrees. Shared offices rarely suit everyone, so a small personal fan or an extra layer often solves more complaints than changing the setpoint for the whole floor.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best office temperature for productivity?
Research by Seppänen and colleagues puts peak office performance at about 21 to 22 °C (70 to 72 °F), with little difference anywhere between 20 and 24 °C.
How much does productivity drop in a hot office?
On the Seppänen curve, performance is about 2% below peak at 25 °C, 6% at 28 °C and 9% at 30 °C compared with the optimum near 22 °C.
Is a cold office bad for work?
Somewhat. At 18 °C the curve shows about 3% lower performance than at the optimum, and cold hands slow typing, so cool rooms cost less than hot ones but are not free.