Now your office thermostat setting may be discriminatory

by Christian Schappel

In HR, we’re constantly preaching that everyone should be treated equally. So why, then, are women constantly freezing in the office wearing parkas and Snuggies, while men can relax in polo shirts? 

It’s because some employers’ thermostat settings may unintentionally be biased toward males.

Now you may be asking: We make everyone work in the same facility, at the same temperature. How can that be bias?

Here’s how: Many building thermostats follow a “thermal comfort model that was developed in the 1960s,” and one of the variables used in their thermal comfort equation is the resting metabolic rate (how fast we generate heat) of a 40-year-old man weighing roughly 154 pounds.

Click here for entire article.