As the temperatures reached a jaw dropping -21 degrees with the windchill in the Tri-State area this President’s Day weekend, the New York Times put out an article in their Sunday issue referencing a study that argues the snow and cold weather should be celebrated by non-retail oriented business owners. The study was published last year in The Journal of Applied Psychology and it focused on data that was generated over two and a half years at a midsize Japanese bank in Tokyo. It showed that nothing threatened the productivity of its workers quite like the threat of a beautiful day. In fact the study goes on to say that each time the weather was less than desirable (in the case of the bank in Tokyo it was mostly related to rain, but the article argues the same holds true for snow) that workers productivity increased 1.3%, which added up “over a year…would be a productivity boon of $937,000 for the company”. So with the next threat of a rain storm, or in the more immediate case in the Northeast a snow storm, ask yourself if you are taking full advantage of the increase in focus and attention around your office.
To read the article in its entirety go here.