Correlation of indoor air quality with working performance in office building

Abstract

In Malaysia, most of office building utilizes mechanical ventilation system to maintain its indoor air quality. However, if the mechanical ventilation system is not properly installed and maintained, it will contribute to poor indoor air quality which leads to decrease the productivity of office workers. This study assessed the correlation of indoor air quality toward working performance at office building in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia using questionnaire survey. The findings revealed that the office can be categorized as sick building syndrome with the highest symptom is lethargy as marked by 75 % of the office workers. Since most of office workers are unauthorised to adjust temperature and air velocity of the air-conditioning system, this leads to the dissatisfaction toward indoor air quality where 40 % of the respondents are dissatisfied with temperature and air velocity. Ultimately, this study has successfully indicated that temperature has the strongest correlation with working performance as indicated by spearman correlation value of 0.648.