I work in a real estate office where, for some reason, they insist on leaving all the lights on. Even in offices that are empty. It drives me crazy, because it wastes a lot of electricity in a part of the country that we don’t have a lot. Any ideas why they might feel the need for this? My theory is that they want it to look like there are more agents working here (a lot have quit with the housing slump). I feel, however, that clients would be better served by lowering overhead costs than by having a feeling that there are a lot of agents in the office. Any suggestions on how to get them to agree that turning out the lights is the smart, responsible thing to do?
8 Responses
Go straight to the top. Go to the top boss.
You need to convince this person that its a waste of electricity.
Reasons they might keep them off:
To make it look occupied to ward off robbers.
To make it look occupied to look like a bigger company.
To make it easy for the janitor to clean them.
\Simply because they are lazy.
The first two reasons are hard to overturn. You basically need to prove that it isn’t worth the electricity for these benifits. For the last two, you could recomend installing those motion sensored lights. When people walk in the room, the lights turn on. A lot of buildings are getting these installed. Hope this helped!
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I sat and thought about this, looking for a clever answer….and I couldn’t find one…
One reason being..I work in a bank, and I believe that every light in this building is on 24/7….and it doesn’t really bother me….
I work in a office too…I just turn of the lights!! in our warehouse i leave one on not all 6…..breakroom light is off when not in use
Face it people dont care because it is not their personal bill…i am sure they turn off lights at home but dont expect them to do it.
you will have to lead….eventually they will follow
If your plan reduces the overall productivity of the office, then why should they listen to you? If I were your boss, I would probably just fire you and move on.
Congratualtions for your effort.
Before doing anything else, stop and consider the following things:
What is the reason and consecuence of keeping lights off or on?
Is because safety reasons? Don’t fight it againts a wall. Propose alternatives for changing habits and then shape the behavior of those around you. The first step is instead impossing, become a role model in the nicest sense of the definition. Propose how much $ you save by turning that off, sometimes it’s a lot easier just to have them change the lightbulbs that having to face a robbery and have everybody to blame on you because your proposal.
“clients would be better served by lowering overhead costs than by having a feeling that there are a lot of agents in the office.”
–> Is there a reason behing having customer’s perceive there are more agents in the house? Does it represent business? If lights are off, customer’s perceive there is no much work, therefore not a good company? Maybe by having a green sing saying, This Office Takes Care of the Enviroment for All of Us to Enjoy it, We Strive To Achieve a Better Use of Electricity In Benefit of All… in example. In this way you change the perception of a customer thinking that the office is empty and not enough people around, the key is communicating why we do things to reinforce your idea plus you are considering all the people who you work with in the effort of taking care of the issue, people like to know you care about them, boss, coworker and customer. Don’t drive yourself crazy, save your health first, your emotional stability and THEN ACT reasonably fundamenting your ideals.
Remember, look at the interest of the company, bring a propose, with what you believe is a good silution that saves $ and keeps customers visiting you.
Turning lights off is a good initiative for saving our resources, but plan how effective and efficient is before stepping in a battle. Be creative and find other ways to make it happen, you can convince more people by giving an model example. Try for a week as a test how it works and then tell them, hey, we saved this $ much and we took care of the enviroment, people will see is a good thing.
I hope that helps!
If they are real estate agents then I hope they would understand the idea of saving money. There is so much economic sense behind turning off a light. Also, pull up some articles on how to make houses more green. For example, putting in a geothermal unit may help them sell more houses. Not sure if they will listen, but the money aspect may work.
go straight to the top and tell them there wasting money with the high prices of our economy i guarente they wil turn them off if they dont take it upon urself to switch off the lights b4 u leave
talk to your boss and see if they can have the building maintenance replace the wall switches with motion sensing light switches(about $15-$20 ea) the switch will turn the lights on with detected motion and shut the lights off when there is no motion detected. the timing can be adjusted to turn the lights off after only a few seconds to several minutes. the office will save money and the staff can continue to ignore the lights. win-win