1. Quality

The quality of your product depends on how effectively your personnel can work, and temperature has an enormous effect on your personnel's effectiveness.

A study by NASA shows that as temperatures in a workplace rise, so do mistakes. The 10° difference between 80 and 90 can lead to a 42% increase in mistakes. That rate increases drastically to 400% when you add just 5 more degrees and raise the temperature of the workplace to 95° F.

2. Productivity

Everyone knows it feels unpleasant to work in the heat, but there is irrefutable data that proves heat hinders people's ability to work.

The temperature at which people begin to lose productivity is lower than you might think. Research from NASA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory demonstrates that this inverse relationship between temperature and productivity begins at only 71°. The hotter it gets, the more productivity drops. After 71°, productivity decreases at least 1% for every 1 degree. By 90°, it's down 29%. 5 more degrees, and that number's 45%.

Proper temperature control in your workplace can not only improve the quality of your product, but also the rate at which personnel can produce it.

3. Safety

As explained above, heat leads to a decrease in productivity and quality because of how high temperatures impact personnel performance. Another way it affects personnel is their physical health and personal safety.

Heat is correlated with an increase in injuries. According to NASA, at 95° F, people will likely collapse after only 45 minutes of work. OSHA's injury database shows that the injury rate in July and August, the hottest months of the year, is 300 times greater than other months. The U.S. Postal Service's data reflects a similar spike.

Personnel safety is essential to maintaining a functional and productive work environment. Injuries can decrease your productivity and can encourage employees to leave jobs. Thus, prioritizing your employees' health is, in turn, a long-term investment in your company's health.