 Howard Wigg, Code Green, Sink Tech, Hawaii. We are gonna be talking about productivity in the workplace. And if you're any, if you have the same perception that I do and read certain psychological books, you know that the average office person, I'm almost afraid to say this, because it might include me, is not very productive. There's a lot of wasted time and a lot of what does get done is really not contributing to the well-being of the business or the agency or Mother Earth. So here to address those big issues and then hopefully get down to some narrow issues also, Dr. Phyllis Horner, Organizational Psychologist and CEO of Great Places and Spaces and with her, the bitter half, bitter half I think, Manford Zepka, the COO of Great Places and Spaces. Dr. Phyllis as mentioned is a psychologist. Dr. Zepka is a building systems engineer. So welcome to you both and give us an introduction of what this organization, Great Places and Spaces, is all about and then Phyllis send with some details. Well, Great Places and Spaces was formed out of the work that we've been doing individually for about 30 years in the building science side and in the workplace productivity side and culture. And it was formed because the time is now for us to advise leaders on how to connect the dots in the side and to really say when someone isn't productive and things aren't getting done, what are the factors that are causing that and how do you reduce the fact? That's really what we're after and we've created a few new ways to do that. One thing that comes from my side energy efficiency is the fact that lead buildings, leadership and energy and environmental design buildings are generally more productive, the occupants are more satisfied and the building managers can actually charge higher lease rents for them because people are happier in there. Yeah, absolutely right. And even in our current market, which is one of the lowest open commercial residential square foot right now, that is still the case. We're here to talk more about the health and wellness even in a lead building and the fact that not everybody responds equally to any given work setting. So for example, I could be cold right now and man could not and in the old days wouldn't bring it up. Now it's different. The employee expectations have changed and they're speaking up and that's really good for employers. The reason it's good is because once we know what they really need, we can add in for example, personal control of air flow and things of that sort. And one of my fields is lighting and we're getting more and more and you may introduce the topic, human-centric lighting. Right, right. For retirement homes, nursing homes, you can emulate even though the occupants may very rarely see the outdoors, you can emulate the cycle of the outdoor sun and then the setting of the sun. Wow, that's great. So yeah, so Matt and I are working together on this and when we first started out, he was doing maybe the physical side and I was doing the cold side. And what we realized by doing some deep dive research is that there are stats on the physical response to a culture and there are stats on the psychological or psychosocial response to a physical setting. So it's all across like the two sides of our brain. So Manfred, you've been interrupting us now and stop, why don't you give us a little, say an example of the type of work you do. First of all, I really have the pleasure to work with you because you're actually the expert here in energy code and it's a lot of work in energy-efficient buildings and actually it came up to a point then where I realized there's more than only energy. I didn't see only because we have to, I mean, there's no question we have to save energy. This is like imperative for us, otherwise we cannot save the planet. But actually there was one point where I started to read some research which came a couple of years back, 10 years maybe where they raised the specter of if you're making the buildings to energy efficient, all of a sudden it might become not as healthy. So then afterwards the health aspect came in. So I did specifically like occupant centered comfort health in terms of indoor air quality and how is the temperature inside, is it comfortable? So at this point in time actually we joined forces and we saw that actually you cannot really address the problem of productivity in like a silo. It has to be reaching over to the other side. And we also realized that Phyllis is really an expert in her field in the organization of psychologist engagement and I actually know a little bit about buildings, healthy buildings and energy efficiency or effective high performance buildings. So we came to the understanding. The best is actually that we joined forces and that's what we're doing right now. We actually offering ways actually to make a really big difference. And it's really a revolution how it's going on right now. It's not only we have to make it energy efficient but we have to make it healthy because when it comes down to it like what actually if you have a green building if the people inside is not healthy they are not satisfied. So we think it's red and what we saw it's really new front. The new frontier of green building doesn't push it away. It really the roots are there and we have to go further. That's right. And looking at the total cost of a building energy is just a little Manini thing and the manpower, the salaries are the big that's the 800 pound gorilla there. And the more you can improve the environment the more productive people are. Yeah. Is it 1% and 90% or? It depends on the mainland. Yes, but here might be three percent energy and 90 percent of the personnel cost. Yeah. And actually you bring up a really fascinating point that sometimes it's like lacking in the green building or this inability movement is that we have some more problem of putting a value. What is the immediate value in terms of power for a company? If we save energy for instance we can say all right we actually we save so much on the energy but in terms of making it more productive let's say you just make it 10% productive. 10% of 90% is much more than 30% or 1%. Yeah. And that's why he's the mathematician in the group. But it is true that like you say in both of you that really if you thought about it long and hard you would realize that the built environment is the first step and that's I think why well came along and also why a lot of books on the human psychological side like best place to work for all and best places to work and all of that kind of thing started to focus on something that they called the employee experience. And that is also a revolution, right? Because before when we did comfort studies for example it's 80% is that right? 80% is the acceptable level of satisfaction code. But what that means is that one out of every five people could be completely dissatisfied and unproductive and we're just looking the other way because we stop at the code and you would know about that, right? I don't know, what is your thought about that? Well, what comes to mind immediately is in our conditioned environment here in Honolulu a lot of people say that building is so inefficient it's so cold, I am really uncomfortable I have to wear a jacket and still my hands are cold. And number one it's wasting energy, number two it's making that person unhappy and they feel compelled to go outside and take a walk and warm up a bit. Right, so we're looking for helping to transform the workplaces in the United States so that that doesn't happen anymore. So that a person who is cold, number one people know it the bosses usually don't know, yeah they don't bring it up. And two that if in fact they also need a plant nearby that they have access to green space. Right now there is no measure for the individual at work experience that allows that except for the one that we've created. I personally have plants all over my office. Yeah, it really helps, right? And we do have some images, is it time to bring up an image yet or? Yeah, why don't we bring up image number one and see what's going on with that. Yeah, I should speak to that. Speak to that please. I'm the physical, you know, the physical person. So what do you have in a space? The space there are two aspects. One which usually we say, you know, it's a nice space that actually it feels good. This is the psychosocial response to occupants. That you come into a place, you know, the proportions are nice, it feels good, it has a sense of belonging, of place. So that actually is something which the architects excel and it is important, but it's not all. On the right side, you see actually is the physiological response of documents and there you see a lot of icons there which stand for like air quality, for ventilation for lights, what you know, how it was already saying for temperature for sound and ventilation inside. It says, you know, it indicates we actually have, we have something outside of green something. So these actually, all these conditions, we actually have a direct effect on productivity on how people can perform. For instance, like if it's the more and the amount of the biggest deficiency is noise. If the noise is too loud, actually people can actually lose in their productivity by 50%, 50%. And ventilation, for instance, and there was a study by the Harvard, you know, healthy building program where they said, on average, it takes $6,500. You can increase per person per year. If the ventilation rate is actually increased by twice as much as required by code, it might take some more energy, but right now, you know, on the other side, you can actually, you know, increase a lot of revenues. Would that be the increased ventilation? Would that result in a greater uptake of oxygen in the human system? Yes, you know, there's carbon dioxide. You know, if OSHA, for instance, says 1,000 ppm is acceptable, but right now studies have actually shown that already when it goes over 700, you know, your cognitive functions goes down. And we did some studies at the university where we measured the carbon dioxide levels in school classes, which was 1,400. I wouldn't know, because in a classroom, you've got, say, six and seven-year-olds, they are restless as heck. They're moving and squirming all over the place and they're breathing madly. They're metabolism-designed. And so they're exuding all of this carbon dioxide. How do you get it all out of there? Yeah, definitely. And again, like, if you don't get rid of the carbon dioxide, it accumulates. Other things is also indoor pollutants, like VOCs, what it's called, you know, all kinds of material we have inside, or inside germs, you know, if they are not expelled outside, they make people sick. So ventilation is a huge component. Yeah, I think you talk to a hospital manager, he will know something about ventilation. Yeah, he knows the germs out of there, yeah. So the return of investment, even by that, it's just... But then you run into the... It's a contraindication of your increasing your energy use because those fans are spinning real fast. That's exactly. And, you know, just to coming back, you know, you always try to, for energy purposes, to tighten up the envelope. But if you tighten up the envelope, we don't have so much infiltration. We have to get medical ventilation, which costs energy. But also right now, it's not sufficient. But really, you know, increasing the ventilation that we get an energy penalty. But, you know, as you know, there are technology which we can avoid that. And I think that's really important that we not only make it healthy, but we also make it energy efficient. We need to take a break, but as soon as we get back, let's talk about the most scintillating topic under the sun, namely, controls. I know that warms the uncles of your heart and as it does mine. We will take a break one minute, be back with Dr. Phyllis Horner and Dr. Manfred Zepka. One minute called Green Hawaii. Hi, guys, I'm your host, Lillian Cumick, from Lillian's Vegan World. I come to you live every second Friday from 3 p.m. And this is the show where I talk about the plant-based lifestyle and veganism. So we go through recipes, some upcoming events, information about health regarding your health and just some ideas on how you can have a better lifestyle, eat healthier and have fun at the same time. So do join me. I look forward to seeing you and aloha. Hey, aloha everyone and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of Three Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time, trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Good afternoon again, Howard Wake, Code Green, Think Tech Hawaii. Dr. Phyllis Horner and Dr. Manfred Zepka. What a scintillating team and speaking of scintillating topics controls. You were talking about buildup of CO2 in carbon dioxide in different areas. Let's take a big hall, the Waikiki or the Waikiki Hotels and these great big meeting rooms. Sometimes they've got 300, 400 people in them and sometimes they've got three or four janitors in them and other times maybe two dozen workers who are shoveling the tables around. The CO2 buildup in each of these environments isn't totally different and then you've got three o'clock in the morning, there's absolutely nobody in there. How do you keep the CO2 levels, the oxygen levels and the temperature all in an extremely energy efficient mode while delivering maximum comfort and maximum health through the occupant? Oh, the answer is actually our AC technology is too old because it has to have ventilation, it has to have sensible cooling and also dehumidification in one system and we can't do that. So we have to split it up, technology is there so then actually we can control ventilation differently from control, differently from dehumidification and again like dehumidification is to take the humidity out. And I think right now, one is of course the technology aspect but the other thing is the psychological aspect. I think it is. Well, before we go into that you missed my favorite, favorite topic namely CO2 sensors. We now have CO2 sensors, yeah. Definitely, yes. And if there's an excess increase of ventilation get that CO2 out of there because as we discussed earlier I think we've reached a conclusion that the greater the CO2 concentration the lower the level of awareness and human activity and energy. Yeah. You know of course if we increase ventilation then actually cooling will be affected and dehumidification. So we actually, the best would be that we step away a little bit and think out of the box and with new AC technology we can. So very important. Now the easiest example of that is we know or finally in Hawaii getting into our cooler weather and you walk into a building, oh it's cold. What happened? The AC was set for the hotter weather and he didn't dial down for the cooler weather and we're wasting energy and we're uncomfortable. You said something about soft, soft something as a joke you were referring to your wife here. Yeah, cause actually it's like a lot of psychology involved. Well we should just disclose since Howard outed us that we're partners in work and we're partners in life. So this is my spouse and my business partner. Nine years. Nine years. Nine years and counting. Yeah, that was a good person. Yeah, so I think that the idea of what you brought up earlier was also fascinating, both of you. When you said Howard, you know that the person walks in and they're freezing and that might be something that people notice is affecting their productivity. If their hands are so cold they can't fight for example or change a light or whatever they're doing. But this one with the ventilation is really much more insidious because if you really have not enough ventilation the person's gonna feel less productive and maybe even sleepy. And maybe then their manager walks by and says, it's a matter with Phyllis, she's like slumping at the desk. And that person could get a bad performance review simply because the systems of the building weren't set properly for them to actually be productive. And I think that's really a shame and something we really need to work on. And I think it's an easy fix because if you know it and you can measure it, you know that X% of your workforce, say it's 70% of your workforce is sensitive that way, you need something better than code, then you really need to put in something better than code than otherwise you are leaving money on the table. You're causing productivity dips. And a lot of us in our office jobs are paid to sync I think it requires energy. And I have been in this situation, mainly that lunch slump where I'm supposed to be undertaking a difficult task. And I know, I know the answer, I'm just too... Yeah, yeah. So how do we fix that now? Well, basically we have to have a way to measure. Maybe we'll pull up the next slide just for 37 or something. Let's do the next slide. Slide number two. Slide number two. There we are. So, I mean, this is basically something that many people have seen a version of. It's kind of like a modified basalos shark. It looks familiar. Right, and so you can see that the foundation is physical and psychological safety, which means that they feel like they're not marginalized, that they're not going to have too much darkness and trip. There's not anything that's volatile that's going to harm them, chemicals or otherwise. And then psychologically, they won't be yelled at when they make a mistake. So that's all in number one. Number two is belonging and acceptance, which is, do I fit in? Am I treated like a team player? Is there a sense that this is the kind of place that thinks the way I think? Is there a sense of camaraderie in the workspace? Yeah, and the teamwork, right, absolutely, absolutely. And all of this is like in surveys like Gallup, et cetera, in achievement and focus is, do I feel like I'm doing meaningful work? And then the prime part, the thriving work settings is that combination we're talking about, which basically says, I believe in the values. I would refer other people to work here and I don't want to leave. And the thing that we're trying to show to our clients is that we're skipping a lot of steps. We're skipping number one. And when we do that, when we skip that physical and psychological safety aspect or we have poles in the foundation, the ground can shift and people will leave. Right now is the biggest time where employees are ready to walk out if the environment doesn't match them and it's only gonna get to be a bigger issue even if we had a recession. So we're saying plug the problems in your lower levels before you try to just do a mission and vision and say, oh, we're now a really progressive workplace. So do you have like a checklist to take care of number one? Yes, actually we do. You can go into the workspace and interview the boss or whatever. Yes, we actually have, we've created an assessment and you could show us line number three and maybe you can talk about it, but it actually is a way to measure this. All right, this is my favorite slide. All right. And so when you see the physical workplace, it's at the X axis below, right? So it goes from low to high and then you have a Y axis, this is the culture. What is the culture of the place? So I will be addressing only a little bit and finish with jump in and not only is productivity a problem, but a lot of CEOs, when you asked him what keeps you up at night, they would suggest retaining an attracting talent. This is actually the biggest thing. So if we actually provide a workplace which is not conducive and attractive, people will just not come. Business might have to leave regions because they cannot attract talent and so on. So let me see like number one. Number one, you see this quadrant, let's get out of here. You have a physical work score, a work space score which is low and you also have a deficient culture. So you don't wanna be in there and that's not surprised that actually people are just running away from that. And when you go to quadrant two, you have the gilded cage. The workspace might be really nice. We have all kinds of amenities. We have beautiful interior and so on, but still people and but if the culture is not good, people also are not productive or run away. We feel this way. Or they call that golden handcuffs in the old days. Actually also Google had some of this because they had the beautiful workspace and they ended up thinking that they were treating everyone fairly and that people were happy. But then they had a big walk out of women and men that supported them because of an unfair work culture. And so it caught up to them and I guess that's our main message is you could catch up to anybody. What you really need to do is to ask each person what is the ideal work setting that makes you productive. Roll all that data up and then say, okay, so of all the things that are important to our people, they're gonna make them wanna stay because it's not only what's important to you, but how does it compare to what you have now? What are the biggest priorities that would give us ROI without going, blowing the budget? And it's our contention that the amount of money they're wasting on lack of productivity right now would be more than made up for by the small investments in some of these changes. Maybe can we bring it back to slide number three? Also thank you and see the quadrant three. Yeah, well, quadrant three is a place where you love your work so much that you look the other way on the way that it's laid out. You try not to let it affect you. So we call it first colored glasses. And then quadrant four is what we are helping business leaders to do is to maximize and optimize both the physical and the psychosocial response to the workplace. One last, sorry, go ahead. We've only got a little time, but one example of improving the interior environment we talked about earlier is plants. I personally just love having plants around. That's one of the easiest. Speaking of which, what do they absorb? Absorb? They absorb CO2. Yeah, exactly. That's actually what we have come up with what we call an ROI. Actually, you don't necessarily have to make everything optimal. What is the biggest or the smartest investment? For instance, you see it like that with the plants. Plants are absolutely a perfect example. They're very relatively cost effective. They could be the first step. And then we just move from there. And we've got about one minute. Give me some other examples of how you might suggest improving the workplace. Well, basically, I think on the physical side, on the physical side, logo wear for people who are cold. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You just like, you invest a little bit of money in a person and then they feel like they're proud that to wear your logo wear and instead of all these different assortments and things, that's an easy one. Yeah. And asking people, what do you want? That you invest into things which afterwards it's not considered to be. And on that very cherry note, we must fund farewell to Dr. Phyllis Horner, Dr. Manfred Zepka. Thank you so much for being on cold green, safe take away. Thank you so much for having us, Howard. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thanks.