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CanadaWe spend 90% of our time indoors—and indoor air can be teeming with irritants that trigger allergies and asthma. Get the facts about allergies and asthma and what you can to do relieve symptoms in your facility.
Tag Archives: IAQ
In recent years, employers have looked to employee wellness programs as a means of increasing productivity, reducing insurance costs and fostering better employee wellbeing and satisfaction. There’s a direct correlation between employee wellbeing and costs to employers. Worker’s compensation claims and healthcare bills amount to more $60 billion per year in the U.S. So, it makes sense to help boost employee health in order to boost a bottom line.
There’s also emotional aspects to wellness. Job satisfaction and the notion that employers have a social responsibility give employees a feeling that companies care for them.
And so, employers roll out the usual suspects when it comes to employee wellness programs: smoking cessation classes, exercise breaks, yoga classes, weight loss challenges and the like.
Problem is, these efforts don’t work.
According to a clinical trial published by the Journal of the American Medical Association and reported by the New York Times, employee wellness program efforts don’t provide any substantial benefit in terms of healthcare savings. More importantly, don’t impact employee health all that much.
Researchers tracked 33,000 employees of BJ’s Wholesale Club over a yearlong period and found that employees participating in employee wellness programs saw no reduced blood pressure or other health measures. And there was no financial gains or savings for the employer in undertaking the wellness program.
“Wellness is this multibillion-dollar industry where there has been a really weak evidence base of what these programs do,” said Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, in the New York Times when asked about the clinical trial.
So, is there anything employers can do to positively affect the health of employees?
We believe wellness begins by creating a conducive workplace. Given that indoor air is two to five times more polluted than outdoor air—and that employees spend an average of nine hours a day in these enclosed spaces with others—it makes sense to provide a cleaner indoor environment.
Ultimately, instead of tired smoking cessation programs, or five-minute exercise sessions, we feel employers should focus on a better way to boost productivity and build a culture of health: Cleaning the air.
For example, AeraMax Professional’s line of commercial-grade air purifiers removes up to 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants like viruses, germs, allergens, bacteria, dust, odors and volatile organic compounds from indoor air, providing a healthier, cleaner environment. That means less pollution to exacerbate asthma conditions, and less germs and viruses coursing through the air, making employees sick. And that means less strain on insurance and health benefit programs.
Even though Bob Savage was doing the best he could—outfitting employees with masks, installing suction systems near equipment and the like—there was one reoccurring environmental problem at Drake Precision Dental Laboratories. Dust.
The dust problem
“Dental labs, by their very nature, are dusty environments,” Savage, VP and CFO of the Charlotte, NC laboratory, said. “We use a lot of different materials that create dust and particulate matter that enters the air. Since I joined the company 20 years ago, it’s been a concern for us.”
So, the lab, which creates fixed and removeable dental prosthetics for clients in 40 states, took aggressive steps. Knowing that surface cleaning would just kick up more dust, Savage decided instead to clean the very air inside the facility, which host more than 100 employees.
After research, the company selected AeraMax Professional commercial-grade air purifiers. AeraMax Professional machines use a unique four-stage filtration system to effectively and efficiently remove up to 99.97 percent of airborne pollutants, like dust, allergens, bacteria, viruses, odors and volatile organic compounds, from indoor air.
Drake Precision Dental Laboratories also chose units featuring optional PureView™ technology. PureView features a visual display of the PM2.5 particle counts entering the units and the clean air coming out. The wall-mounted units also employ patented EnviroSmart™ Technology that senses sound, motion and odors in a room, automatically adjusting to optimize performance.
And the previous dust problem?
“Once we found (AeraMax Professional) and installed a number of units needed for the square footage, it became easier to control,” Savage said. “And the air quality is leaps and bounds from where it (previously) was.”
“The air quality is leaps and bounds from where it (previously) was.”
In a paper published at the Global Conference on Business, Economics, Management and Tourism, researchers found a direct correlation between work environments and job satisfaction among employees like dental technicians.
The Result
Using a survey, researchers tapped the feelings of workers in education, banking and telecommunications and found that satisfaction was tied directly to the quality of the work environment. Researchers focused on two areas: Work and Context. Work was defined as the intrinsic aspects of the job—things like training, skillsets and production of work. Context, on the other hand, focused on the overall environment and things like the work setting, the enclosed spaces and the office set-up.
The study acknowledged that all too often employers focus the majority of their attention on the Work and not enough on the Context—the work environment. So, the researchers theorized, employers would experience better overall employee job satisfaction if the company paid closer attention to the work environment in totality. Increased employee satisfaction is tied directly to better work environments.
This affects Dental Technicians
It stands to reason that the survey results would be the same—if not greater—in dental labs. That’s because dental labs, with all the dental technicians grinding, chipping and contouring of molds and appliances, are very dusty, unhealthy environments. And, while dental lab owners may consider training opportunities and other work-related incentives as a way to boost dental technician satisfaction, they should consider the Context aspects of the workplace, as evidenced by the survey’s findings. To that end, dental lab owners and managers need to review the work environment, ensuring there are ample opportunities to boost satisfaction and morale.
The Solution
One way to do that is addressing the dusty environment. HVAC systems do a fine job of moving the air throughout a facility. But they don’t really work to improve the air. Heavy HEPA filters designed to replace regular HVAC system filters aren’t the answer, as they are thick and decrease airflow, creating a strain on the system.
Also, suction systems used in conjunction with grinding equipment used by dental technicians aren’t the answer either. They only affect the immediate grinding area and are often taxed to their limits during the normal workday and workload.
One sure way to improve the work environment and help boost employee satisfaction is installing AeraMax Professional air purifiers. They’re dedicated to one task: Dramatically improving indoor air quality by “scrubbing” the air.
These commercial-grade air purification systems effectively and efficiently remove up to 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants. They remove viruses, odors, volatile organic compounds, dust and bacteria from lab settings using hospital-like True HEPA filtration. The four-stage filtration system of AeraMax Professional systems automatically senses when air needs to be cleaned, working behind the scenes to refresh air and improve the overall health of occupants.
In recent years, all sorts of companies have focused their attention on the environment—and some have intensified efforts to correct the ills of poor air quality due to global air pollution. Now, home furnishing giant IKEA is stepping into the indoor air quality arena in a most unusual way.
Introducing GUNRID
The company has developed a fabric curtain that helps reduce air pollution when exposed to light—both sunlight and indoor lighting. Called the GUNRID, the curtain is coated with a mineral-based treatment that acts almost like photosynthesis, breaking down surface pollutants to reduce indoor air pollution. Given that indoor air is two to five times more polluted than outdoor air—which itself is quite polluted—any measure of help in helping poor air quality is a boon.
“For me, it’s important to work on products that solve actual problems and are relevant to people. Textiles are used across homes and by enabling a curtain to purify the air, we are creating an affordable and space-saving air purifying solution that also makes the home more beautiful,” says Mauricio Affonso, Product Developer at IKEA Range & Supply.
In addition, the company is also committed to reducing air pollution in its manufacturing processes. IKEA is exploring ways to turn rice straw, a rice harvesting residue that contributes to air pollution because it is typically burned for disposal, into a renewable material source for future products.
Still, the company acknowledges that these are small steps. “We know that there is no single solution to solve air pollution,” says Lena Pripp-Kovac, Head of Sustainability at Inter IKEA Group. “We work long term for positive change, to enable people to live healthier and more sustainable lives.”
What can you do about poor air quality now?
Currently, there’s a more proven—and significant—solution to poor air quality. The complete line of AeraMax Professional air purifiers uses a four-stage filtration system employing hospital-like True HEPA filtration to eliminate 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants, including viruses, germs, bacteria, odors and volatile organic compounds, from enclosed indoor spaces. The units also have a unique sensing system, which continually monitors the air, adjusting to clean air when necessary for the ultimate in set-it-and-forget-it convenience.
