Perceived control over indoor climate and its impact on Dutch office workers

A field study was conducted in nine modern office buildings in the Netherlands. The study focused on perceived control over indoor climate and its impact on satisfaction of building occupants, the incidence of building related (SBS) symptoms and self-assessed performance. The study involved a questionnaire amongst 236 office workers. Statistical analyses were conducted to investigate correlations between combined perceived control over temperature and ventilation on the one hand and satisfaction-, SBS- and productivity-indices on the other. Individual perceived control over indoor climate scores were perfectly normally distributed (using a 7 point scale coded from 1 = no control at all to 7 = full control) with as mean value 3.1 (SD 1.4). Respondents that perceived to have a high amount of control over their indoor climate were considerably more satisfied with their indoor environment. High control respondents also had significant less building related symptoms (BSI(5) 0.94 vs. 0.61). And productivity scores were significantly higher (6.3 %point) in comparison with the low control respondents.