An evaluation of office occupiers' needs and preferences

A study on the influences of cultural differences and generations in workplace

management

Bee Yee Gan

Helsinki University of Technology

Dr Barry P Haynes
Sheffield Hallam University

Abstract:

Purpose – Office provision is an important component of the property sector.

Stakeholders such as developers, investors and service providers have a vested
interest in establishing office occupiers' needs and preferences. The aim of this paper
is to evaluate the preferences and needs of office occupiers and to explore the
influences of cultural differences and generations in workplace management.

Design/methodology/approach – the authors evaluate the literature that categorises

office occupiers' preferences. The occupier perspective of office provision is fully
explored. Office occupier segmentation and analytical tools are identified.

Findings – This paper establishes that the office environment is more than just a
physical environment. Office space should be viewed from multiple dimensions, not
just physical. Increased understanding of the physical, virtual and social elements of
the space as well as of the occupiers' values, needs and preferences form a platform
for new kinds of services, products and business opportunities for the various players
in the property sector. A deeper appreciation of occupiers’ preferences is developed to
include the virtual and social space requirements.

Originality/value – This paper will demonstrate that a greater understanding of the

office occupiers' preferences adds to the organisations' knowledge. This additional
knowledge enables the opportunity to provide space to support the well-being and
productivity of the individual space users.

Keywords: Cultural, Generation, Workplace, Office evaluation, Occupiers' perspective

Article Type: Research Paper

1.1 Introduction
Today, organisations around the world are operating in an unprecedented, highly
competitive market. The global workforce is now more mobile than ever before,
meaning that companies are no longer competing for talent nationally, but rather on an
international level. Organisations have to compete to attract, develop, deploy and
retain the services of skilled people. It is crucially important to understand the
occupiers’ preferences and needs as workplace design is considered to be the
strategic weapon in the battle to attract and retain the best talent!

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 The aim of this paper is to identify the key preferences and needs from the occupiers’
perspective and to study the influences of nationality, ethnicity, generation and age in
workplace management.
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1.2 Literature Review

A significant amount of research has previously been undertaken in the area of working
environment. The origin of the traditional city centre office complex lies in the scientific
management theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. One of the
major theorists behind the School of Scientific Management was Federick Taylor
(1911). He argued that work was best undertaken by being broken down into its
simplest parts, which resulted in people being treated as units of production.

The nature of office work has since changed from that of passive and static activity, to
that of a dynamic and flexible activity. The changing nature of the office work has
created tensions in office design. The challenge, for modern office designers, is to
create environment that support the ways that people work, and act as enablers of
work processes, and not as disablers. Laing (1991) acknowledged the existence of the
potential tension between office design and the work processes, and argued that the
conventional office design, which was based on passive individual process work, was
restricting organisations ability to be creative.

Traditionally, the office environment has largely been considered to be the physical
environment. The main physical components consisting of office layout and office
comfort. This approach tends to assume that the office occupant is a passive element
of the office environment. Haynes (2007) has established that the behavioural
environment is an integral component of office productivity. This study establishes that
it is the behavioural environment that has the greatest impact on office productivity. It
demonstrates that it is the dynamic elements of the office environment, interaction and
distraction that are perceived as having the greatest positive and negative influences
on self assessed productivity. The implication for designers of modern offices is that
they need to find the optimum balance between encouraging positive interactions,
whilst at the same time reducing negative distractions. Office environments should be
designed to allow group collaborative working to coexist with individual private working.
This balance can only be achieved if the office designers can identify and quantify the
impact of the behavioural environment on office occupiers’ productivity.

Myerson and Ross (2006) proposed four realms or models for knowledge work:
academy, guild, agora and lodge. The Academy describes the corporate realm which is
a learning campus where knowledge can be produced and applied into work; the Guild
describes the professional realm in which a cluster of professional peers gathering
together and sharing skills and knowledge; the Agora describes the public realm in
which organisations is open to the markets, customers, and other sectors; and the
Lodge describes the domestic realm in which life-work setting is established. The four
realms demonstrate and include the main social activities and relationships in today's
office, such as learning, collaboration and the relationships with the public and one's
private life. It also confirmed the importance of the behavioural environment in the
designing a productive workplace.

The 2008 Gensler Workplace Survey – United Kingdom creates new insight about the
knowledge workplace activities: focus, collaborative, learn and socialise modes that
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produce business success. Individual spends average of 59% of their time in focus
mode, that involving concentration and attention to a particular task or project. 22% on
working with another person or group o achieve a goal (collaborative mode); 6% in
social activities (socialise mode) and 4% in acquiring new knowledge of a subject or
skill (learning mode). Acoustic and visual distractions can impair individual’s ability to
focus. Creating a distraction free environment can help in increase the productivity. By
exploring how individual work in the office, the organisations can design a suitable
workplace to accommodate and to encourage these activities.

No single office task now seems predominant: neither reading, telephone work, writing
nor computer work. More time is typically spent away from the workplace. This is often
in one-to-one meetings, and in activities which are highly interactive and mobile. As
organisation begin to use ICTs to organise their use of office space and their working
hours, new working patterns will become more common. Flexible working and new
ways of working have been described as tele-working, hot-desking, hotelling, video
conferencing, mobile communications and home working. Today's organisations are
exploring a multitude of alternatives to address the issue of space, and workplace
design is also changing to meet the new demands by placing more emphasis on the
collaborative configurations, flexibility and environment. The publication from DEGW in
2008 – Working beyond the walls places a great emphasis on new ways of working.
The workplace have evolved from ‘my office, my space to any space, any place. With
the support from ICTs, individual can work from anywhere they want, either from home,
in the office or even in public spaces, such as airport, cafe etc. Depending on the
organisation’s culture and individual work pattern, these new ideas will have great
influence on designing the workplace.

Globalisation is not only affecting the business environment but also the individual
level. Many organisations have been expanding their business from local onto national
level, or even international. Professor Geert Hofstede developed a methodology for
analyzing and comparing cultures. The Hofstede's 5 Cultural Dimensions - Power
Distance Index, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance Index and Long
Term Orientation (2001) can be adopted to help office designers and organisations in
gaining the cultural awareness to manage the multi cultural workplace. Holstede has
carried out an extensive research on more than 70 countries. From his research it
appeared that all countries have a distinct culture of their own which can be compared
with the culture of other countries. The high Power Distance Index shows that people
find it normal that a small group of people have much power while most of the people
have less power. China is one of the countries where Power Distance is relatively high
and the UK is relatively low, therefore it is common in a UK office to see manager
working in the open plan office. A Chinese manager might find it very hard to work in
the open plan office with the sub-ordinates. In most Asia countries, people take pride in
their workplace, and are proud to work in a Grade A office environment. The idea of
working from home might not appeal to them. It is therefore an important part of
consideration when designing the workplace. Not only aiming to provide the right
physical environment but also act as a catalyst to creativity and collaboration.

Today, we have four different generations working together in the workplace. As baby
boomers (1946-1964) and other veterans (1922-1945) delay retirement and stay on the
job, they are now working in the same environment with Generations X (1965-1980)
and Y (1981-2000). Each generation has distinct attitudes, behaviours, expectations,
habits and motivational buttons. Learning how to communicate with the different
generations can eliminate many major confrontations and misunderstandings in the

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workplace and the world of business. The Johnson Controls - Oxygenz (2009) reported
that there is 1.7 billions of Generation Y entered the global workforce. The Generation
Y is aged between eighteen to twenty-five, and they are perhaps the most digitally
sophisticated generation we have ever seen. The Generation Y want to work in an
environmentally aware workplace, work flexibly, be more mobile, and prefer to have
access to a team space and breakout spaces. Organizations must offer a range of
workplace options to meet the needs of different groups of workers.

The key to creating an optimum workplace to meet the unique needs of each
organisation is to focus on people and the ways they work together and individually.
Understanding what are the occupiers’ preferences and needs, cultural and generation
differences are important in designing the workplace.

Figure 1: Proposed Theoretical framework for Office Occupiers' Needs & Preferences
Model

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1.3 Research Methodology

It is appropriate to start this section by considering the philosophical foundations on

which research can be based. Since the research process is more than just the
collecting of data and the interpretation of the results.

Easterby-Smith et al. (2002) present two philosophical traditions or paradigms,

positivism and social constructionism, as alternative ways of undertaking social science
research.

To establish the key differences between the two philosophical traditions of positivism
and social constructionism, it is worth starting with a couple of definitions.

Positivism can be defined as:

"The key idea of positivism is that the social world exists externally, and that its
properties should be measured through objective methods, rather than being inferred
subjectively through sensation, reflection or intuition." (Easterby-Smith et al, 2002,
p28)

Social constructionism can be defined as

"The idea of social constructionism then, as developed by Burger and Luckman

(1966), Watzlawick (1984) and Shotter (1993), focuses on the ways that people make
sense of the world especially through sharing their experiences with others via the
medium of language." (Easterby-Smith et al, 2002, p29)

Comparing and contrasting the two definitions highlights the different role that the
observer of the research undertakes. In the positivist paradigm the researcher must
maintain independent from the subject of the research, so as not to introduce any bias.
In contrast under the social constructionism paradigm the observer is an integral part of
what is being observed.

It could be argued that positivism has been the prevailing research paradigm for social
science with its strong connection and affinity with the natural sciences. However,
since the early 1980s the competing paradigm of constructionism has developed
momentum, with supporters proposing that it should be the prevailing paradigm for
social science research (Easterby-Smith et al, 2002). This is a debate that is paralleled
in the area of facilities and workplace management literature with calls for a range of
research approaches (Grimshaw & Cairns, 2000; Cairns, 2003).

Having identified the two main philosophical traditions of positivism and social
constructionism; it seems appropriate to explore further the philosophical differences
between the two paradigms. The aim is to establish a supporting rationale that justifies
the appropriateness of the philosophical stance on which this research is based. It is
also intended that by adopting such an approach, the specific concerns of the facilities
and workplace management research community can be addressed (Cairns, 2003).
Cairns (2003) presents the argument that the emergent field of facilities and workplace
management research lacks a theoretical foundation, and therefore proposes the need
to consider the philosophical basis on which research is undertaken.

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Figure 1 illustrates the theoretical framework on which this research is based. It
included categorising variables such as: multigenerational, age and cultural
differences. Included in the model are the evaluative variables that measure the
physical, the behavioural environment and the virtual environment. Since this approach
aims to evaluate the occupier perspective, it aims to create a socially constructed
reality which's based around the occupiers perceptions.

The most commonly used sources of evidences are documentations, archival records,
interviews, direct observations, participant observations and physical artefacts.
According to Yin, 2003, the use of multiple sources of evidence in case studies allows
the researcher to address a broader range of historical, attitudinal, and behavioural
issues. As each source has its own strengths and weaknesses, when combined, they
are highly complementary.

The aims of the study are to evaluate the preferences and needs of office occupiers
and to explore the factors of diversity (cultural, gender, generations) in designing a
right workplace. The authors will conduct focus group studies follow by questionnaires
and interviews. The property sector is selected as the research subject as it fulfils the
criteria of the research, as there are office occupiers and offices in most cities around
the world (multicultural). In addition the authors aim evaluate within companies and
across countries. The study will commence in the UK, follow by countries in Asia,
Europe and America, with the aim to understand the cultural differences and
generations in designing the suitable workplace for the property sector, and to develop
a tool to help any organisation to achieve this in the future.

The focus group will be carried out with the aim to identify some key issues in the
office. All employees in the office will receive the questionnaire, questions on the
physical environment, behavioural environment, nationality, ethnicity, gender, work
patterns, satisfaction of the current working environment and preferences. All the
variables can then be categorised into its own categories, such as
culture/generation/gender/ways of working.

The study will commence in the UK, followed by countries in Asia, Europe and
America, with the aim to understand the cultural differences, and generations, in
designing the suitable workplace for the property sector. An anticipated output from the
research will be the development of a tool to help any multinational organisation to
successfully establish an international office.

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1.4 Summary

Individuals with different values, different ideas, different ways of getting things done
and different ways of communicating in the workplace have always existed. To be
success in the new business era, the organisation needs to be able to retain and
attract the best talent, and the ability to offer a better workplace is consider to be a
substantial weapon in today’s’ competitive business world.

Many research have been carried out on workplace, most are concentrating on
increasing the productivity, enabling collaboration and knowledge transfer and
motivation and most importantly to achieve organisation’s objectives. Individual’s
needs and preferences are often been overlooked. The Preference Research Project
will look into the needs and preferences of both organisations and individual
perspectives. As part of the research project, the author is going to carry out the
research from the sociological perspective, translating the cultural issues, generation
gaps and age issues into the workplace management context. The pilot study will be
carried out in the summer in the United Kingdom; data collected will be published,
aiming to gain interest from the overseas offices. The second stage is to study the
international offices, comparing the data and categorise the variables into different
groups. The final stage of the study will be to develop a tool to advice organisation on
any future openings or refurbishment projects.

If you are interested in this project, please get in touch by sending an email to : Bee
Gan – bee.gan@tkk.fi

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