The Reverse Placebo Effect

Something strange often happens, I've noticed, when you put an EMS product into a facility that didn't previously have one. Suddenly the slightest sense of discomfort, subjective as the concept of comfort is to begin with, becomes a cause for immediate complaint. We've seen it happen time and time again. The vast majority of these complaints are either entirely unverifiable or are ultimately traced to preexisting, long-term mechanical issues. So how is it then that simply installing the EMS triggers this kind of behavior from building occupants? This is the mystery that I have come to call the "Reverse Placebo Effect" (RPE) and it has the potential to become quite troublesome.

Occupants complaining to the head office about their work environment - be it a restaurant, convenience store or retail/office space - can derail otherwise successful projects with alarming speed. I recently had the maintenance director for a large chain of auto dealerships tell me quite unequivocally that the energy savings and many other benefits of the system wouldn't mean a thing if the senior management staff had to listen to disgruntled site managers. In this particular case we were able to identify numerous, long-standing mechanical issues that were the root of the complaints and these were then reported back to the customer for immediate action.

So what are we to make of this then? It seems to me that there are at least 2 major causes for RPE. The first is the simple fact that the site occupants no longer have the same level of control over their heating and cooling setpoints that they had with standard thermostats on the wall. Understandably, this often engenders a sense of lack of control that can be annoying and frustrating. For users of the EcoView system, we generally recommend allowing a comfort range of several degrees up or down that the occupants can work within. Since our system is centered around a touchscreen interface, the occupants can easily see the limits within which they are allowed to change setpoints. This goes a long way towards alleviating the sense of lost control but does not resolve issues with the mechanical systems, which are often what drives the occupants to fiddle with the comfort control settings regularly. It is also somewhat at odds with the general benefit of the EMS to begin with - which is to prevent local misuse of the mechanical systems that result in premature failure and unnecessarily high energy bills.

The second and closely related RPE contributor is the Big Brother problem. That is, the site occupants know that management is monitoring and governing their comfort and lighting settings and do not take kindly to being imposed upon by people that are sometimes thousands of miles away. Whats more, the occupants often assume that the energy consumption data, now at the fingertips of management, is being used to judge the operational efficiency of the local site overall. This is especially true for site managers, who typically are not aware of what they can do to conserve resources and as result feel that they are being unfairly judged on something that they cannot control.

Bringing EMS technology into the small building market for the first time has been a challenging endeavor to say the least. The technical hurdles involved in delivering a robust, cost-effective EMS product for this market have been at times daunting but over the past couple of years we have proven that it can indeed be done.  Dealing with occupant issues is just another dimension in this challenge, albeit one that calls for a different type of solution. The most direct route for addressing spurious occupant complaints is clearly education. The site owners must be preconditioned to expect the low-grade initial backlash from site occupants. Site personnel, in turn, need to be assured that the goal of the system is not to sacrifice their comfort for the sake of energy savings. Additionally, during the initial installation (or preferably before the install) all mechanical equipment must be thoroughly inspected and tested. The site managers must also be interviewed to identify and document preexisting issues and a comprehensive report must be provided to the owners/managers very early-on in the project.

The good news is that in our experience the site complaints are generally short-lived. After approximately 30-60 days of living with the system the site personnel tend to become accustom to its presence and the incidence of complaints typically drop off dramatically after this point. Moreover, the system operators tend to make all necessary schedule and setpoint adjustments within this time period and preexisting mechanical issues get dealt with.

In my view RPE is an unavoidable reality and part of introducing an automation product into a market sector that is not familiar with it.  Anticipating the effects of RPE is key in dealing with it effectively. It is clear that the benefits far outweigh the initial adjustment period and that site personnel can be trained to accept and appreciate the value of EMS in their buildings.