Mild heat exposure does not reduce individual computer programmer productivity but significantly impairs team performance, especially in more diverse teams, raising concerns about climate change impacts on modern collaborative work.
Editor’s note: For a broader synthesis of themes covered in this article, check out our VoxDevLit on Climate Adaptation.
As temperatures rise globally, the economic costs of heat stress are becoming clearer (Burke et al. 2015, Dell et al. 2012, Heal and Park 2016). While the productivity losses from heat exposure have been extensively studied at the individual level (Adhvaryu et al. 2020, Somanathan et al. 2021, LoPalo 2023, Hancock et al. 2007, Lai et al. 2023), the role of interpersonal dynamics remains largely unexplored. This distinction is crucial for two reasons.
First, modern economies increasingly depend on team-based production. In 2017, 78% of US employment was in occupations where group work was reported as either ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important (O*NET 2020).
Second, increasingly, cognitive-intensive occupations that rely on interpersonal interaction are located in regions such as South Asia and Southeast Asia, which frequently experience high temperatures but have limited deployment of commercial climate control technologies (Blom et al. 2014, Thursby and Thursby 2006). For instance, the demand for commercial-scale air-conditioning units in both Africa and South Asia in 2018 was only about 5% of that in the United States, while in Southeast Asia it was around 10% (JRAIA 2019).
Using a field experiment to study the impact of heat on team production
To understand whether heat disrupts team production differently than individual work, we conducted a field experiment with computer programmers in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Garg et al. 2025).
Our experiment engaged 232 computer science undergraduates, randomly assigned to work either individually (134 participants) or in pairs (98 participants in 49 teams). Participants were also randomly assigned to complete their tasks in either warm (29°C) or control rooms (24°C). The moderate temperature increase was intentionally set below the thresholds where previous studies have found negative impacts on individual productivity, which typically begin around 30-33°C.
All participants worked on the same Java programming task, with pairs using the pair programming software development technique in which one person writes the code (the ‘driver’) while the other provides guidance and reviews for errors (the ‘navigator’). Teams were instructed to switch these roles every 30 minutes.
Participants had four hours to implement up to five features in a piece of software code, earning performance bonuses for each feature successfully completed. We measured their performance (features completed), effort inputs (characters typed, time spent actively coding), and collected survey data on task difficulty, mood, and partner evaluations.
Heat exposure impacts team performance
Our field experiment revealed three primary findings:
- Moderate heat exposure (29°C) did not negatively impact the performance of individuals working alone. This aligns with previous findings that negative productivity effects typically occur at higher temperature thresholds of approximately 30-33°C.
- Teams generally outperformed individuals in normal temperature conditions. Under control conditions (24°C), teams were nearly twice as likely as individuals to add any features to the code.
- Most importantly, teams performed significantly worse in warmer rooms, with the heat effectively negating all the performance advantages of teamwork. Teams in control rooms were more than twice as likely to add features compared to teams in warm rooms.
How does heat affect team performance?
Our analysis of task inputs suggests that teams in warm rooms did not necessarily exert less effort. We found no significant differences in the total characters they typed or their time spent actively coding.
We found that the negative effects of heat were most pronounced among more diverse teams; that is, mixed-gender teams and teams with differences in academic seniority experienced the most substantial productivity declines when working in warm conditions. This suggests that heat may exacerbate existing coordination challenges in more varied teams.
Our post-experiment survey data reinforces this interpretation. Team members in warm rooms, particularly those in more diverse teams, reported lower satisfaction with their partners and a greater desire to change partners for future tasks. This indicates that heat may strain interpersonal dynamics in collaborative settings.
Implications for firms in developing countries
These findings have important implications for workplace design, human resource management, and climate adaptation strategies, particularly in developing countries with growing knowledge economies.
- Organisations may benefit from temperature-responsive work allocation policies. When ambient temperatures rise above 29°C, the productivity advantage of teamwork is effectively eliminated, with team productivity falling to approximately half that of individuals working alone. Firms can adapt by assigning more individual tasks during warmer periods and scheduling collaborative work during cooler times or in climate-controlled environments.
- Our results suggest that climate control investments may yield higher returns for collaborative workspaces than for individual workstations. In facilities with limited cooling resources, organisations might prioritise temperature management in meeting rooms and shared workspaces over individual offices.
- As climate change progresses, the economic costs of higher temperatures may be more significant than previously estimated, as team-based production becomes increasingly important in modern economies. This underscores the importance of climate mitigation policies and workplace adaptation strategies, particularly in developing regions where air conditioning remains limited.
References
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