Evaluating Office Users Requirements and Occupiers Preferences in Changing Business Environment

Transcription

1 HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Department of Surveying Yan Wang Evaluating Office Users Requirements and Occupiers Preferences in Changing Business Environment Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science in Technology Espoo, Finland, 2 nd April 2009 Supervisor: Prof. Seppo Junnila Instructors: D.Sc. Anna-Liisa Lindholm & M.Sc. Tuuli Luoma

2 HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ABSTRACT OF THE MASTER S THESIS Author: Yan Wang Title of thesis: Evaluating Office Users Requirements and Occupiers Preferences in Changing Business Environment Date: 2 nd April, 2009 Number of pages: 123 p. Faculty Professorship: Faculty of Engineering and Maa-20. Real Estate Business Architecture Major subject: Department Real Estate Management Department of Surveying Supervisor: Professor Seppo Junnila Instructors: D.Sc. Anna-Liisa Lindholm & M.Sc. Tuuli Luoma Abstract In accordance with the current transformation of the workforce as well as the work pattern brought by the business globalization and the widely application of information and communication technologies in the work, the offices are likewise experiencing the revolutions in terms of accommodating and supporting the status quo and the future trends of the workforce and work pattern. Additionally, the corporate real estate is also playing a key role in supporting and adding value to the organization s core business The main aim of this study is to find users requirements office and occupiers preferences to their office in terms of physical, virtual, social, and financial perspectives respectively by reviewing literature and conducting case study. On operational level, the objective of the study is to develop feasible self-completion questionnaires on both individual and organizational level to identify the requirements and preferences In this study, literature study as well as case study in a Finnish Communications company is applied in order to find theoretical and empirical evidence and implications on this issue. In the case study, qualitative methods, such as online questionnaires, faceto-face interview and field observation, serves to achieve the case study objectives. The study results are produced with the help of the qualitative methods mentioned above. The results of the questionnaires suggested the requirements and preferences as well as the respondents attitudes to different workplace issues. The interview was conducted on the organizational level so as to have in-depth understanding the occupiers preferences. Generally, the results present implicative findings for the whole study. The implicative findings, along with the designed questionnaires in this study can be referred to produce more extensive knowledge in the future relevant study. Keywords: office, workplace, users needs, occupiers preferences Language: English I

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This Master s thesis was conducted from October, 2008 to March, 2009 in Espoo, Finland. And it was carried out based on the project Office Occupiers Preferences in Changing Business Environment which is mainly collaborated by TKK Real Estate Research Group (REG) and KTI Property Information Ltd as well as financed by Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (TEKES) and other 14 public and private organizations. During the six months of the study, I was lucky to have support, trust and encouragement from many people. First of all, I would like to thank my parents and my fiancé Ran. With their understanding, caring and patience, I can always retrieve my confidence and have a positive attitude to the study in the bleak winter. Secondly, I am very grateful to the trust and support from my supervisor: Professor Seppo Junnila as well as my instructors: M.Sc. Tuuli Luoma and D.Sc. Anna-Liisa Lindholm who accepted me as a researcher in this project. I appreciated their valuable suggestions and ideas during the whole investigation period. Furthermore, I thank them for their patience in the collaboration process. Last, but not the least, I also would like to thank Mr. Jari Salo from Elisa for his contribution and cooperation to the case study of this thesis, as well as M.Sc. (Tech.) & M.Sc. (Econ.) Heidi Falkenbach for her valuable advices to my questionnaire design in this study. II

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACRONYMS...V KEY CONCEPTS...VI 1 INTRODUCTION Background Aims and Objectives Methods Structure Scope WORKPLACE LANDSCAPE Physical Perspective Office Location Office Layout Physical Office Environment and Working Comfort Virtual Perspective Information and Knowledge Management ICT Application: Fostering VOs and VTs Distributed Workplace Social Perspective Learning Collaboration Being Open vs. Being Private Merging Living and Working Financial Perspective Costs and Benefits in Flexible Workplaces Acquiring Financial Benefits from Corporate Real Estate RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Case Study: Elisa Methods Procedure Questionnaire Samples III

5 4 FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS Physical Perspective Office Location Office Layout Office Physical Environment Office Interior Design Virtual Perspective Technology Tools in the Office Virtual Collaboration Working Anywhere Social Perspective Collaboration: The Socialization with Others Accessibility to the Privacy: Being an Individual Work Satisfaction Financial Perspective Cost Saving Benefits Adding DISCUSSIONS Conclusions and Propositions Limitations and Future Research REFERENCES APPENDIX 1. Corporate Real Estate Strategies APPENDIX 2. Real Estate Performance Measures APPENDIX 3. Questionnaire for Office Occupiers' Preferences APPENDIX 4. Questionnaire for Office Users' Requirements APPENDIX 5. Responds Pool for Online Questionnaires APPENDIX 6. Interview Questions IV

6 ACRONYMS ASID CREM FM HR IAQ ICT IEQ IT LAN MO PEM POE R&D SOHO VO VT American Society of interior Design Corporate Real Estate Management Facilities Management Human Resource Indoor Air Quality Information Communication Technology Indoor Environmental Quality Information Technology Local Area Network Multi-space Office Personal Environmental Module Post Occupancy Evaluation Research and Development Small Office Home Office Virtual Organization Virtual Team V

7 KEY CONCEPTS Place Place is space for functions; It is a space transformed by social relations and human activities. Place is the space for human actions and for subject. And the functional and qualitative features are important for place. Space Space is the entity of physical dimensions and relations. It is the structure of the world; it is the three-dimensional environment in which objects and events occur, and in which they have relative position and direction. Office Office is generally a room or other area in which people work. Physical space Physical space is built, tangible environment. Physical places are made for different purposes and different uses. When these spaces are in use, they are places which can be classified in many ways: private, semi-private and public places, quiet places, etc. Open-plan office The generic term used in architectural and interior design for any floor plan which makes use of large, open spaces and minimizes the use of small, enclosed rooms such as private offices. Virtual space Virtual space refers to an electronic collaborative working environment or virtual working space. The internet and intranet provide a platform for working places for both simple, e.g. , and complex communication tools, e.g. collaborative working environments. Social space Social space refers to joint mental spaces, which require communication and collaboration. Mental space consists on cognitive constructs, thoughts, beliefs, ideas, and mental states. Creating and forming shared places provide social places. VI

8 Office Occupiers Office occupiers refer to the organizations which reside in the office properties as an owner or tenant. Office Users Office users in this thesis, refer to the individuals who are using the office facilities, i.e. the employees who are working in the offices. Office Needs The term refers to the supplies of office which is desirable or valued by office users. The needs include: public needs which are identified by both organization and external parties, blind needs which are identified only by external parties, private needs which are identified only by organization, as well as unknown needs which are identified by neither organization nor external parties. Requirements Requirements in this study, refer to the needs which can be identified by either organization or external parties, i.e. public needs, private needs, and blind needs. Preferences Preferences have many different meanings under different contexts. In this study, it refers to the workplace strategies or alternatives selected and adopted on organizational level. VII

9 1 INTRODUCTION With the evolvement and prevalence of business globalization as well as information and communication technology (ICT), business nowadays has been under the significant transformation in creating values. Among all the elements facilitating the growth of business organizations, talents with expertise and knowledge are becoming the most powerful and competitive resource, as well as the driving force for organizations to grow, to expand, to innovate, and to success in the marketplaces. In other words, business organizations are expected to achieve their business goals with the assistance of the human resource weapon if they can improve their talents productivity and innovation capability at work. However, organizations have been faced with the increasing challenge of promoting workers working efficiency and productivity as well as attracting and retaining their talents by enhancing their job satisfactions. The production loss and the lack of stable human resource will eventually lead to the business failure. Offices, as the major workplaces where work usually gets done have been stressed their significance on accommodating working people and their job tasks, as well as supporting and facilitating the workforce s working productivity, innovative ability and job satisfaction, all of which are considered as the main drives for the business success and organizational development. Hence, nowadays offices are paid more attention on being enhanced its functionalities to serve the workforce. In order to identify the attributes of supportive offices, this study focuses on investigating this issue from offices end-users and occupiers perspectives. In this chapter, the background (section 1.1) stresses the motivation of this study. And the study aims and objectives are demonstrated in section 1.2 where research questions will also be proposed. In section 1.3, methodologies will be briefly presented. And in next two sections (1.4 and 1.5), the structure of the thesis and study limitations are specified. 1

10 1.1 Background In accordance with the changing business environment, the work transformation is becoming more technology-based and knowledge-oriented. In the past few years, many significant changes in business can be attributed to the boom of ICT. ICT s influence is now penetrating to almost every level of businesses, from operational supportive tool to strategic weapon. Consequently, business organizations now are able to enter the markets which are once perceived to be difficult or even impossible with relative lower costs. Focusing on technology business organizations such as software developers and e-commerce solution providers, their business operations are mostly involved into ICT. Furthermore, technology has facilitated non-ict companies to grow and to expand dramatically and globally. For instance, a banking corporation can easily and swiftly deal with capital transfers with the help of computer network and business system. And a multinational firm can carry out video conference meeting with participators geographically dispersed in different parts of the world thanks to the electronic communication system and technology. Under this business environment, nowadays the work pattern also changes because of the ICT s implementation. Employees are becoming increasingly productive, informative and even innovative with the help of high speed of information transmission and sharing, large volume of information storage, instant online or wireless communication, as well as virtual cooperation and collaboration by setting up teleconferencing or video-conference meeting. Furthermore, with ICT s contribution, work pattern has been evolving with significant flexibilities. Employees are currently able to work at different physical locations. Known as teleworking, it enables employees to conduct their work at a distance from the place where the work is conventionally done. This working manner not only provides employees with the flexibility in working places and working time, but also saves their commuting time and costs as well as enables them to better balance their work and family. As to the organizations, teleworking can convey better customer services and motivate mutual trust among the workers. Furthermore, the lower costs on office occupancy can be achieved with less workers are being seated in the central offices. In order to meet the current working needs, such as project-based and globally 2

11 cooperation, various ICT devices and tools are widely applied in facilitating virtual collaboration among the location-dispersed team members. The team members are connected either in synchronous or asynchronous way. In the process of virtual communication, not only can sounds be transmitted, but the image can be shared among the team members. Reflected by this trend, project-based team work has gradually dominated the current trends of work transformation. In addition to the major work transformation, human resource which produces most of the knowledge is deemed to be one of the most powerful weapons in today s knowledge-oriented business environment. Concerning to the workforce of different generations, workers have different attitudes towards their work as well as demands differently from their work. Earle (2003) suggests that workforce born between 1940s and 1960s usually tends to prefer a stable and quiet environment in which they can concentrate on their work. Additionally, the employees of this generation devote themselves into work and work hard to achieve their goals which are at higher or even top level in the organizations. In another word, these employees are not easy to accept the concept of flattened hierarchies. Differed from workforce born between 1940s and 1960s, workforce who was born between 1960s and middle of 1970s are more incline to adapt them to work in a more fast-paced environment which is full of communication, interaction and innovation. They welcome the flexibility brought by the use of information and communication technology. However, they have relative low loyalty to their companies if they are dissatisfied with their work. And they are more interested in working at less hierarchical organizations. (Earle 2003) Unlike the workforce mentioned above, individuals who were born after 1970s not only demand earnings for their lives, but also pursuit self-actualization. They seek to work in the organizations which can physically and virtually support their work, provide open and flexible workplace with low hierarchy, and encourage their innovation. In addition, they expect their employers to motivate their long-run development, value their engagement and regard them as partners by their organizations. Furthermore, employees of this generation seek to balance their work and lives rather than sacrifice lives for complete dedication to the companies. Hence, in today s highly-competitive business environment, 3

12 organizations may run the risk of losing their competitive human resource if they cannot fully understand their working needs. (Earle 2003) In the light of current work pattern and workforce transformation, the organizations developing trends are accordingly evolving. Mosbech (2004) unfolds several trends of organizational development. For instance, the organizations are evolving from hierarchical to flat structure. The trimmed structure enables more swift information delivery and more efficient operation and response within the organization so that the productivity can be achieved. Also, the organizations have developed from linear structure to network-based structure which is a collaboration of people or organization. This structure reflects mutual respect and reciprocity. The network-based structure encourages cooperative relationship and equality. Under such trend, instead of being structural static, the corporations are also becoming more flexible to meet the needs of project-based job tasks. Individuals appear to be less departmental attached. On the contrary, they can be flexible to cooperate and collaborate with colleagues from different departments based on the job tasks requirements. Furthermore, the communication style in the work has changed from formal to informal way, and work meetings are becoming spontaneous occurring, rather than being arranged in advance. In addition, work is no long carried out in one place. Information and communication technologies have realized remote work, including individual and team work. Based on the organizational trends mentioned above, Mosbech (2004) also proposes that nowadays office buildings develop so as to accommodate these trends. Considering the organizational development from linear to network-based, the office buildings are changing from individual placement to business centers and company houses which facilitate collaboration. The increasingly flat organizational structure encourages more visible management among the employees. The collaborative work brought by the flexible organizational structure urges for open environments to accommodate the team work conducted by employees from various department. The increasing need for team work and informal communication require more informal meeting space, and spontaneous occurring meetings should be accommodated by more space which has been allocated for meeting areas in the office buildings. In addition, remote work can be achieved only by allowing employees to access to the technologies, flexible 4

13 working policy, and physical workplaces. Undeniably, as one of the major elements that are seriously taken into account by employees when they make decisions in their career, offices not only accommodate working people, but also integrate physical, virtual, and social elements to support employees work and facilitate their initiative, productivity, and innovation. Furthermore, offices are regarded as organizational brands, identifying the corporate images which can be perceived by all the stakeholders of the organizations, including their employees. Hence, a good workplace helps to attract, retain, develop and nurture talents who may make significant contribution to the organizational business goals. Hence, given the organizational evolutions and office buildings changes, corporate real estate management nowadays should fully consider their workplace solution integrating people, space and technology. Robertson (2000) develops the concepts of key corporate resource which has been illustrated in Figure 1. It reveals a current relationship among people (human resource), technologies and space (workplaces). Alternative work arrangements are provided to people because of the various needs for individual/team work, concentrative work/collaborative work, face-to-face collaborative/virtual collaborative work and on-site work/remote work. To support the alternative work arrangements, spaces and technologies should highly support the working people physically and virtually. On the other side, the different attributes of alternative work arrangements determine the differed functions of alternative space arrangements and enabling technologies. Take concentrative work and team work as example, the workspace for concentrative work are mostly arranged as enclosure office rooms so that individual can have full concentration on their work, whereas team work can be arranged by open-plan space so that individual employee can have easy access to each other. In terms of the enabling technologies, concentrative work may require of the common and simple technology settings, such as PC, whereas team work may require more complex settings, such as projectors, teleconferencing and video-conferencing. 5

14 Figure 1. Pumping up key corporate resource (Source: Robertson 2000) In order to adopt the right workplace arrangements along with the space arrangements and enabling technologies, the organizations should obtain full knowledge on employees work pattern, organizational structure, human capital as well as physical and virtual workplace conditions. Therefore, it is critical for the organizations to have such knowledge from workplace evaluation on users requirements and occupiers preferences before the new construction or renovation of the office buildings. Presently, the organizations are either implementing linear or cyclical office building process (Barrett & Baldry 2003). In a linear building process as shown in Figure 2, organizations will go through the stage of planning, briefing, design, construction to the last stage of occupancy. For every new project, the whole process will be repeated from the first stage to the last. Figure 2. Traditional building process (Source: Barrett & Baldry 2003) However, in cyclical building process as depicted in Figure 3, a stage for evaluation is added and linked the whole process. This stage aims to investigate and collect occupiers feedbacks to evaluate the building design from users perspectives and how the workplace design support the occupiers daily work. Additionally, the evaluation stage serves to provide very valuable information to the design of a new building. 6

15 Figure 3. Cyclical building process (Source: Barrett & Baldry 2003) The second method appears to be more reasonable because it takes users needs and occupiers preferences into consideration which are the essence for building and designing. Hence, to today s corporate real estate managers, briefing and post-occupancy evaluating office users and occupiers needs and preference enable them to update with users information and to accumulate relevant workplace knowledge which can guide them for next design or accommodation. Generally, by evaluating the attitudes, needs, requirements and preferences from office occupiers and users perspectives can enable organizations to better understand in which way they can make the full use of their offices to maximize their employees working potentiality so as to add value to their core business. 1.2 Aims and Objectives The main aim of this study is to obtain the general knowledge on today s offices as well as the office users requirements and occupiers preferences on their offices from both literature review and a case study in terms of physical, virtual, social and financial perspectives in the office. The physical workplace, including the issues of office location, the office layout, the accessibility and the functions of the various workplace areas, the workplace interior design as well as the 7

16 office s physical environment; virtual workplace, including distributed work, communication as well as information sharing and knowledge learning supported by ICT devices and tools; social workplace, including such main activities as collaboration, learning and office users overall work satisfaction; and the occupiers financial concerns on workplace costs and benefits. Meanwhile, the study may also reveal the convergence and the divergence between the users requirements and occupiers preferences to the same workplace issue. To the space suppliers, the findings of this study are expected to highlight the trends of demand-oriented office real estate market, and to business organizations, to stress the significance of meeting office users workplace requirements. On operational level, the objective of the case study aims to develop feasible self-completion survey questionnaires which can be applied in future relevant study of exploring users requirements and potential needs as well as occupier s preferences respectively. In addition, the questionnaires are expected to provide foundation for in-depth investigation so as to obtain the underlying explanations, reasons and triggers behind the phenomena on the workplace issues. The following research questions summarize the study objectives: What survey questionnaires can be designed to identify the requirements and preferences? What kind of offices have been provided to the office users and occupiers? What are office users and occupiers requirements and preferences to different workplace issues? 1.3 Methods In order to get empirical evidence on office occupiers preferences and users requirements, this study is not only established on the literature study, but on a case study as well. By conducting literature study, a picture of current offices and relevant study on occupiers preferences and users requirements can be outlined. Literature study helps to establish the knowledge framework from previous researcher s perspectives, and provide useful information on designing survey contents. 8

17 In case study, various qualitative methods are applied, including pilot questionnaire survey, face-to-face interview and field observation. Qualitative method facilitates to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior (Robson 2002). Hence, this method can help to identify office users requirements and occupiers preferences, as well as explore the contexts and reasons that lead to such requirements and preferences. Specifically, the pilot questionnaire survey serves to identify the preferences and requirements (understanding and attitudes), whereas face-to-face interview explores the further knowledge and reasons governing the occupiers and users behavior, and field observation provides more intuitive and objective impression. The case study is conducted in a Finnish telecommunication company whose head office is located in Helsinki s suburb. The objective organization is given pilot questionnaires both on organizational level and individual level. Based on the questionnaires results, interview is conducted with the company s Corporate Real Estate Manager who has holistic knowledge on the company s offices, and is also responsible for making the workplace strategies. 1.4 Structure The complete research includes the literature review and a case study with qualitative analysis. The structure of the thesis illustrated in Figure 4. 9

18 Figure 4. The Structure of the Thesis Illustrated as the above figure, the whole study is constituted by four parts. Part 1 and Part 4 are the introduction and conclusions of the study respectively, whereas Part 2 and Part 3 present and analyze the main body of the research based on literature review and empirical case study. According to this structure, Chapter 1 briefly introduces the whole study. Chapter 2 presents the current workplaces issues based on literature review from four workplace perspectives, which provide theoretical basis for the case study, while Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 introduce the methods as well as the empirical survey findings and implications obtained from the case study by using these methods. The empirical findings are expected to verify the information provided by the previous study as well as to explore new knowledge which has not been found or deeply discussed before. And Chapter 5 concludes the whole study as well as reveals its limitations and proposes the future study. 10

19 1.5 Scope The scope of this study is mainly focused on identifying office users and occupiers requirements and preferences from physical, virtual, social and financial perspectives. The study stresses the necessities of understanding their requirements and preferences, and investigates requirements and preferences on different perspectives. In this study, users needs refer to the supplies of office which is desirable or valued by office users. The needs include: public needs which are identified by both organization and external parties, blind needs which are identified only by external parties, private needs which are identified only by organization, as well as unknown needs which are identified by neither organization nor external parties. Users requirements, however, refers to the needs which have been identified by either organization or external parties. Occupiers preferences on the office refer to the workplace strategies or alternatives selected and adopted on organizational level. And the experimental study is conducted in one Telecommunication Company in Helsinki. And limited number of participants is arranged by the company to take part in this survey. 11

20 2 WORKPLACE LANDSCAPE In this chapter, the study mainly discussed office occupiers preferences and users requirements to their offices from physical, virtual, social and financial aspects which are regarded as the critical workplace elements proposed by previous study. The physical aspect answers the question of where to work, while the virtual aspect and social aspect mainly answer the questions of how to work and who to work with. And the financial aspect connects the workplace with the organizations core business. The following Figure 5 illustrates the map of this study. Figure 5. The outline of workplace elements (Original Source: Lindholm 2008) Demonstrated as the above figure, the study is structured on two dimensions: integrated workplace elements as well as the workplace preferences produced on the organizational level and needs required on the individual level. On one hand, the study introduces several major workplace issues from these four aspects. On the hand other, preferences on organizational level and needs on individual level will also be related to these workplace issues. And this model will be applied both in this chapter (the theoretical study) and Chapter 4 (the empirical study). First, the study will discuss such issues as office location, workplace climate, 12

21 layout, interior design, facilities and services related to the facilities in the physical workplace perspective; In virtual workplace, the discussions are mainly focused on ICT supportive knowledge and information sharing and learning; the mobility of work, as well as virtual collaboration. And in social workplace, the study investigates the major social workplace issues, such as learning, collaboration and job satisfaction. Last, in financial aspect, we unfold the costs and benefits of current flexible workplace as well as give a brief introduction on the workplace s function on adding value to the corporate core business. From another dimension, based on this integration, both individual employee and the organizations will have particular requirements and preferences to some of the workplace issues in these four workplace elements. And in both theoretical and empirical study, some implications on these preferences and requirements will try to be uncovered. In the following sub-chapters, the attributes of office are discussed from physical (section 2.1), virtual (section 2.2), social (section 2.3) and financial perspectives (section 2.4). Not only existing workplace theories, models and propositions will be introduced, but some relevant discussions of organizational preferences and individual requirements will be presented. 2.1 Physical Perspective Information and communication technology, rapid innovation and today s hyper-competitive business environment require the evolution of today s physical office space. Offices no more solely provide employees with the space which is built up with bricks and mortar. Instead, the workplace should accommodate agile office facilities, technology tools, and people with different needs when they are conducting work. Hence, today s workplace has to be designed and constructed as an integrated environment for meeting changing needs, creating productivity, improving communication, facilitating knowledge sharing and prevailing, stimulating creativity and innovation, as well as attracting and retaining the talents. According to Nenonen (2008), physical workspace is built, tangible environment. 13

22 Physical places are made for different purposes and different uses. Hence, physical workplace refers to the entity which can be visually perceived Office Location There are many factors which can affect the organizations decisions on office locations. And these factors can include occupancy costs, provided indoor facilities, enough parking spaces, easy access to the labor markets, access to the customers, proximity to the traffic nodes, access to the public services, and even access to the nature. In the research conducted by Leishman et al. (2003), different office space preferences of office occupiers were investigated and compared at four locations within Edinburgh and Glasgow, UK. On the organizational level, the office occupiers are prioritized such office location factors as high proximity degree to the labor market, private car parking provision for directors or partners, and having easy access to public car parking facilities. However, the most significant factors which were paid exactly the same attention within the four locations are easy access to the labor market. This phenomenon can be explained by the current knowledge-based work which requires abundance human resource. Other factors influencing office building selections, such as floor-space layout type, high IT and telecom specification and high specification in lighting, heating, air conditioning, are also emphasized in occupiers preferences. Doubtlessly, these factors can better support office users daily work, which is valued significantly by the occupiers. In addition to these traditional location specifications, outdoor nature environment, especially wild nature related to the office users needs and occupiers consideration has also been given increasingly more attention. An interesting survey conducted by Kaplan (2007) in USA demonstrated that employees are shown to be more satisfied for sitting outside with a view of large trees landscaping and flowers nearby. When asked about the changes anticipated by employees in terms of their nearby natural setting at their workplace, participants who lack of landscaping around their working sites expressed the desire for a wilder natural setting with trees, flowers, as well as wild animals instead of mowed lawns. Employees satisfaction to their workplace area can be enhanced 14

23 due to the physical and mental health benefits brought by nature surroundings. The Fortum s office in Helsinki is located in Keilaniemi, Espoo, facing the sea and small harbor. According to Rauhala, Fortum s corporate real estate manager (2008), the employees are extraordinarily fond of this natural beauty and feel proud of working with such nice office surroundings. The natural view not only helps Fortum s employees to work more efficiently with less stress but more relaxation and inspirations, but also underpin the corporate image and symbolize the corporate culture. Therefore, the office buildings with more relaxing natural surroundings can better attract and retain the talents in the light of today s human resource transformation Office Layout One office space layout model was coined by Duffy (1997). Duffy classified the office space layout into four categories according to the different level of individual autonomy and interaction. Table1 illustrates the four office space layout based on different degree of autonomy and interaction. Table 1. Four office space layout (Source: Duffy 1997) Low Autonomy High Autonomy Low Interaction HIVE CELL High Interaction DEN CLUB HIVE: Working in hive office, employees have neither autonomy nor interaction. This layout appeared in a bureaucratic working fashion in which employees needs for communication with their colleagues and supervisors will always be impeded employees, which results into low chance of being productive and innovative. CELL: Cell office allows employees to obtain relatively higher autonomy to have the control of the way they work. The application of cell workstations 15

24 can better improve the employees job satisfaction and as a return, working productivity will also be facilitated. DEN: Differed from cell, den is the office layout arrangement with high level of interaction, but low level of autonomy. It encourages teamwork which generate a great amount of communication which promote knowledge and information prevailing. However, employees working this arrangement can not choose the interaction degree which will result to a concentration loss. CLUB: The offices which apply club method not only have high degree of autonomy but have high degree of interaction. Employees working in club have the autonomy to control the degree of interaction that they want to be involved to. Apparently, club will meet individual s increasing needs of communication and collaboration in their work. Furthermore, on individual level, this layout may enhance their job satisfaction from enabling them to control their working environments according to their requirements. Another approach of office layouts is to divide them into two dimensions of single-minded space and open-minded space, as well as individual knowledge work and collaborative knowledge work (Holtham & Ward 2000). Figure 6 illustrates this concept. Figure 6 Four Dimensions of workspaces (Source: Holtham & Ward 2000) 16

25 Cited by Rogers (1997) from political theorist Michael Walzer, single-minded spaces refer to those spaces which provide single function, whereas open-minded spaces are those spaces with multi-function and participation, such as cafes, shops, streets, and parks. As identified in the above Figure 6, cellular office, enclosed study room and team project office serve single functions which allow little participation besides employees who are conducting the work. A lack of stimulants in single-minded spaces will lead to the loss of creativity for employees. On the contrary, open-minded spaces, such as open plan office usually provide multifunction and various participations which arises greater possibilities for employees creativity and innovation. However, the major challenge that exists in open-minded space is the distraction caused by noise and visual interrupt. In addition to the above mentioned approaches, Mosbech (2004) proposed the model of four zones in the office. This model stresses that facility s functionalities meet the requirements of both the organization s needs and individual employees working profiles. Briefly, the four zones are divided as public zones which are characterized by openness with a great deal of activity and movement; semi-public zones where sound levels are high, but with limited usages by outsiders; semi-private zones where teamwork can be conducted; and private zones which are areas for individual work requiring concentration. For most of the employees who work in the offices, office layout may be the most significant concern to them. With the fading applications of conventional workstation, individual employees increasingly care about how their office space functionally supports their working needs. Brill et al (2001) proposed ten of the most important workplace qualities on individual employee level, and ranked them in order: 1) Ability to do distraction-free solo work 2) Support for impromptu interactions 3) Support for meetings and undistracted group work 4) Workspace comfort, ergonomics and enough space for work tools (spatial size) 5) Workspace side-by-side work and dropping into chat 6) Located near or can easily find co-workers 7) Workplace has good places for breaks 17

26 8) Access to needed technology 9) Quality lighting and access to daylight 10) Temperature control and air quality It is obvious to find that among all the qualities, half of them are related with the needs for working privately with full concentration and conducting communication among the employees in either formal or informal way. Either working with single mind or working with others meets the requirements of knowledge-related work. Based on different needs for workplace functionalities, many researchers have proposed different theories and models to identify those working requirements and needs. Currently, many organizations prefer to adopted office layout which combines different functional workspaces, especially the wide implementation of open-plan office. This kind of office layout not only provides easy accessibility among the employees to meet their requirements for communication and interaction, but also benefits the organization with more efficiently used workspace as well as improved team work outcomes. Suggested by Rauhala (2008), Fortum s office in Helsinki prefers to adopt the strategy of open-plan office which enables employees to reach co-workers easily. In addition, a great number of meeting rooms and project rooms with different design and attributes are generally centralized in the public space of Fortum s office building. In terms of appearance, some of the meeting rooms present to be more enclosure and allow working group to be fully concentrated in communication and collaboration with no interruptions from outside, whereas some of them look more cozy and informal with bright-color and modern furniture and functional tools. In these meeting rooms, the walls are replaced by transparent glass so that the meeting spaces are more connected with outside. The ergonomic sofas and innovative interior design inspire the communication and sharing, thus improving the collaboration process. Nevertheless, such rooms are also equipped with curtains which provide flexibilities for formal meetings requiring no disturbance. Functionally, some meetings rooms cater to the technical requirements for non face-to-face meeting among the teammates. With the application of such indispensable equipments as internet, virtual communication system and webcam, employees can have their virtual meetings with other offices 18

27 located in different parts of world. These rooms are decorated with less garishness, but with more sententiousness, tidiness and formal. In addition, other facilities, such as coffee corner and catch-up section in the public zones of the office building are suitable for casual chat and ad hoc informal meetings among employees. The catch-up sections are designed as a series of train cabinets where employees can sit down and have face-to-face interaction. The navy blue background color, transparent separation glass walls and soft lighting can better accommodate and enable employees to relax in their chat. Practically, applying flexible and innovative office layout strategies with supported ICT not only promotes working productivity and communicating effectiveness, but also accelerates the information and knowledge circulation within an organization. Furthermore, flexible office layout will enhance the employees satisfaction to their work and interpersonal relationship Physical Office Environment and Working Comfort Sustermeister (1976) defined working productivity as the production with the least effort as output per employee hour, quality considered. Poor indoor environment results into the discomfort or even syndromes which impede work devotion. Becker and Steele (1995) suggested a number of concerns regarding to the basic workplace environmental conditions, they are: Air quality, including air flow, rate of exchange, purity, humidity, etc. Temperature in the workplace, including comfort, controllability, appropriateness for the task, etc. Ambient sound conditions, including noise levels, ability to hear necessary information, etc. Lighting conditions, including access to natural light, visibility of work, controllability of luminance of lighting, and controlling glare on video screens, and Physical body positions in repetitive work, including seated posture supported by proper furniture, location of material and shelves, computers and key-boards, etc. Leaman (1995) concluded that individual employees who are unhappy with 19

28 temperature, air quality, lighting and noise conditions in their offices are more likely to say that the working environment affects their productivity at work. In addition to these physical conditions, workspace layout and workplace privacy will also affect employees environmental satisfaction. Besides, ergonomic facilities, such as work desks and chairs, as well as fitness equipments and health care center assist the workplace comfort. Hence, workplace comfort provided by organizational physical facilities should be studied and applied to the real work. Furthermore, as illustrated in the following Figure 7 and Figure 8, Oseland (2004) finds that employees productivity is highly positive correlated with their satisfactions to facilities and working environment, whereas negative correlations between employees work satisfactions and effective time wasted due to poor design and management of the office facilities, as well as environment. Specifically, it can be observed from Figure 7 that individuals are more productive given the same amount of satisfaction increase on facilities than on environment. Likewise, they are more dissatisfied given the same amount of time wasted on dealing with the facilities than on the environment. Figure 7. Correlation between productivity and satisfaction (Source: Oseland 2004) 20

29 Figure 8. Correlation between downtime and satisfaction (Source: Oseland 2004) The evidence of major problems exists in indoor environmental quality (IEQ). According to Dorgan and Dorgan (2005), IEQ is composed of factors such as space, temperature, humidity, noise, lighting, interior design and layout, building envelope, and structural systems. A subset of the IEQ is indoor air quality (IAQ) which can be defined as temperature, humidity, room air motion and contaminants. Grounded on three investigations, Dorgan and Dorgan (2005) proposed the office occupants health and productivity will be hampered if the IAQ is not at a right level. Currently, many research indicates that an average productivity loss of 10 % due to poor IAQ. However, the benefit of approximately 6% can be achieved by improving indoor air quality. According to Rauhala (2008), Fortum prefers to install the air purification on the ceiling of the open-plan office in order to improve the IAQ. Another problem addressed significantly is the lighting in the office due to the open-plan office. Open-plan office environment allows for one set-level of lighting which cannot satisfy with all the employees needs and requirements. Veitch (2005) suggested that people who have access to window and obtain natural day-light are more satisfied with their lighting condition than the people who do not have the access to the windows. Hence, when given a choice, people are more preferred to have natural lighting in their workplace rather than electric lighting. Besides, Veitch proposed that individual lighting controls can solve the 21

30 problem of individually different lighting needs. Enabling employees to control their preferred work conditions will result to a positive impact on work productivity. In several countries in northern Europe, there are laws requiring that all employees must have the access to natural lighting at their personal workplaces (Becker & Steele 1995). Becker and Steele (1995) also suggested that the areas proximate to the window walls can be used for open-plan layouts and walkways so that the light will not be blocked. In terms to the thermal controllability, Oseland (2004) and Roelofsen (2002) demonstrated that office occupiers have major dissatisfactions with office temperature. One explanation for this phenomenon is that employees can not control the thermal and ventilation system by themselves due to the open-plan office. However, Becker and Steele (1995) proposed another approach of personal environment controllability by loosening constraints on how people can use their workplaces. This practice implies that employees should not be constrained into one certain workplace where the temperature maybe too high/low, and the lighting maybe too bright/dim. Instead, they can seek any places which are environmentally support their work. In addition, workplace comfort problem may arise if the employees are not supplied by ergonomic work facilities, and open-plan office may also cause the potential visual and acoustic problem, such as noise and privacy. For example, the syndromes brought by sitting in front of and staring at computer for a long time may be caused by improper office furniture. However, many organizations begin to realize the importance of providing healthy workplace for their employees. Some of them prefer to provide individual employees with sports facilities, such as gym, swimming pool, to improve their workplace health and others prefer to install equipments to prevent comfort from too much noises and visual distractions. 2.2 Virtual Perspective In this section, the virtual workplace achieved by information and technology tools and infrastructure is introduced. With technology applied in today s work, 22