Sabina Kadić-Mackenzie
Outside, autumn has arrived with a distinctly Scottish chill.
Inside the office, a familiar dispute is heating up. Quite literally.
Someone is cold. Someone else is hot. The heating goes on. A window opens. A cardigan appears and is donned in ‘subtle’ protest. Within minutes, the office thermostat has become the most contested piece of workplace equipment since the Post-It note.
A trivial disagreement? Perhaps.
A useful analogy for something much bigger about how we manage people? Definitely.
Having un-learned all I was taught in biology classes at school, it turns out that the assumption of 37 degrees Celsius as a universal “normal” human body temperature is, well…simply wrong.
Body temperature, it turns out, varies between individuals.
In simple terms: what is normal for one person, may not be so for another.
Beyond the anatomy lesson, perhaps workplaces could learn something else from that fact; namely that there is cause for caution in the much sought after “middle ground”, and in assuming that the middle automatically represents all, or represents fairness.
Sure, the middle, or average, is useful for benchmarking. But it is much less useful for understanding the complexities of human beings and what motivates them.
So, what’s a leader to do?
Instead of chasing one solution that works for everyone (an impossible task!), there is an opportunity to create a culture of trust and understanding, where individuals regulate their own environment and work within the guardrails on offer.
This then allows every leader to ask themselves: what does an individual need to do their best work, and how can we reasonably make it happen?
And we shouldn’t underestimate the role of good communications in making this happen. Regular, open and honest conversations help leaders understand what individuals genuinely need, while also creating the space to explain wider business considerations and constraints. Done well, good communication builds the trust and understanding that allows people to feel heard, even when the answer isn’t exactly what they had hoped for.
I am not advocating for employers to accommodate every preference. That would be unworkable in any setting. But, what we should all understand and remind ourselves of is that people have different circumstances, needs and starting points. And if you start at different points, you won’t always meet in the middle.
Recognising that isn’t indulgence. It’s just good management.
There is a business case, too. Research repeatedly shows that people who feel trusted, understood and respected are more likely to feel valued and to believe they belong. And employees who feel a sense of belonging, are more likely to bring their best to work.
So perhaps the thermostat dispute isn’t really about the temperature.
It is a reminder that there isn’t always a perfect middle ground, and that sometimes, “most people” isn’t what we should be aiming for.
When organisations make reasonable room for differences and when trust is at the forefront of relationships – and underpinned by good communication – the result is a more diverse and inclusive workplace where people feel seen and understood.
They know the value they add and feel valued for it.
And perhaps that is a far more important setting to get right than the thermostat.