People aspects of business continuity: consider the built environment

Much has been written about the importance of information availability, but much less about ensuring the availability of that other vital business resource: the company’s people. Most organisations recognise that absenteeism costs large amounts of money over a working year, which in itself can have a real and threatening impact on financial performance, however when absenteeism increases beyond normal background levels it can become a critical business continuity issue. Especially in people-intensive operations such as call centres / contact centers.

The following paper, first presented at ‘HB 2006’: the Healthy Buildings Conference in Lisbon (5-8 June) explores the extent to which office workers’ health and performance is affected by air quality in the typical workplace environment and explains how six years of research by British Telecom has demonstrated that staff health (and morale) can be dramatically improved by paying attention to natural – but invisible - components of the air.

The paper explains how, in an experimental system, environmental stress symptoms amongst staff were reduced by 57 percent, respiratory stress symptoms by 59 percent and debilitating headaches by 71 percent. Sickness absenteeism was cut by more than 35 percent, with the added bonus of improved staff performance and reductions in staff turnover.

Read the paper

•Date: 23rd June 2006 • Region: UK/World • Type: Article •Topic: BC buildings and fac.
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