Dave Wilson, Director of Consultancy for Mace Macro, considers the importance of facilities management in delivering improved employee productivity
Most organisations probably make the assumption that happy employees are productive employees. This seems to makes sense, and certainly most managers and staff would agree that this is the case.
However, there is little empirical evidence to support this supposition. There may be two reasons for this: firstly, it is almost impossible to define or measure ‘happiness’ in this context – morale (which might be perceived as the same thing) is a volatile commodity, and not susceptible to objective measure – and, secondly, productivity is also (at best) awkward to measure. This may not have been the case when the UK was primarily a manufacturing economy, but in today’s service economy productivity is a very different thing. Very few jobs are so simple now that output can be easily measured – perhaps call centres are one of only a few examples – and most jobs contain too great a variety of tasks for simple measures to be applied.
At the same time, facilities managers have responsibility for what is generally accepted as one of the key elements in ensuring ‘happy’ employees – the workplace. Management theorists including Mayo, Hertzberg and Maslow have all identified the importance of the environment as an essential component in the process of motivating staff, without which other motivating activities have no effect. So how can facilities managers work to help improve productivity, and how will anyone know if they have done so?
What staff want and need
The first step is to focus on the employees’ needs. Too often, facilities providers focus on the buildings rather than the occupants, and that really is a cart before the horse approach. If we assume that staff are not homogeneous, what generality of things would be useful for them in their workplace? Perhaps considering some of the psychology of work and the workplace would be helpful – and again, too few facilities staff understand this area of work.
There are, in essence, only four or five fundamental theories about motivation at work, and of those only three really involve the working environment – the balance being more concerned with interpersonal issues and management style. So those that we can draw on are Mayo’s Hawthorne Experiments, Maslow’s theory of a hierarchy of needs, and Herzberg’s development of that into motivation/hygiene theory.
Prima facie, the Hawthorne experiments give some indication that environment has an impact on performance, in that changes to the working conditions stimulated greater productivity, even where those changes were negative. However, leaving aside the age of the theory (the study was carried out in the 1920s) and the fact that it relates to a US manufacturing facility, the theories are as much about team working and bonding in the face of adversity as they are about the impact of the workplace. In addition, some commentators have alleged that the findings were highly subjective and ignored contrary results in other teams in the same workplace.
Even if we accept the findings as commonly interpreted, however, what do they tell us? Only that staff respond positively to changes in the workplace, which may be no more than common sense would tell us. So, in this context, Herzberg’s development of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may be a more useful model for those of us looking to manipulate the workplace to improve productivity. Herzberg developed Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ into a more sophisticated, work centred, ‘hygiene/motivation’ perspective; and in this respect, the work environment is purely a hygiene factor, which is to say, not motivational but able to prevent dissatisfaction. However, a further development of this theory (Likert) suggests that because the workplace is usually a group environment, it is the effect on the group that is important.
To this extent, the effects of the workplace are: - To influence the morale of the group;
- Determine whether the group achieves the organisation’s objectives;
- Determine the degree of co-operation afforded by the group to its members;
- Motivate the group to perform;
- Determine the quality of human relations within the organisation.
This is much more positive than looking at the environment from an individual’s perspective. And, both Herzberg and Likert emphasise that good working environments are necessary before more proactive motivational approaches can have any impact. But does it help facility managers and building occupiers?
Applying the science
Even a brief glance at most workplaces might convince you that most organisations make no attempt to apply the psychology, even if they know it. The disparity between the resources put into formalised human resources management and the attention paid to the workplace is clear in most business. The numbers of staff involved, and the generally more senior status of HR managers, reflects a perception that this is more important than facilities. But if Herzberg and Likert are right, then the organisation needs (at the least) to maintain a basic level of quality in the workplace before staff can be motivated to perform: and Likert goes further, suggesting it is an essential aspect of positive performance.
But does this knowledge lead us to better workplaces? It is obvious, for example, that less consideration goes into the design of workplaces than into, say, retail spaces. Compare the deliberate manipulation of shoppers through lighting intensity and tint, floor finishes, sound, colour and temperature, to the average office space. It is immediately clear that retail spaces employ a barrage of (more or less) sophisticated techniques to influence buyers, whereas in an office uniformity and simple basic provision are the order of the day. The most one might hope for in most offices is that some thought has been given to an efficient flow of people around the desking and some effective proximity of dedicated spaces like meeting rooms, kitchens and toilets to the main working area. In practice, the emphasis in office design tends to revolve around space planning and some relatively superficial colour scheming, which usually is more to reflect the corporate image than to assist staff in working effectively. What is most noticeable, especially in London, is the extent to which ‘good’ space planning revolves around achieving high densities of staff.
This is because finance directors and facilities staff alike focus on cost rather than productivity. Referring back to the management theorists for a moment, if we accept that successful groups are what create successful organisations, then we need to be more sophisticated than simply providing teams with dedicated areas of desking. Even organisations which provide (and encourage the use of) informal areas do not go so far as to make these territorial. Such spaces tend to be like ‘common rooms’, available for everyone in the organisation, yet theory suggests that we want the teams to build their group relationships, and this is better achieved in their own space. Sitting at desks not being conducive to communication, an obvious option is to introduce central ‘soft areas’ at the heart of each team’s domain.
Allied to all this, the demands from staff are evolving rapidly, and successful organisations want to keep their staff and provide the most effective workplaces for them. It is arguable that, with this new generation, the old norms can be abandoned and new opportunities exploited.
One of the key changes is the startling recognition that work need not be boring. As employers (and providers of space) you might think the workplace ought also to reflect this – it should not be boring, either. So, you might want to stop providing a single spatial model throughout the organisation. While the move away from cellular and hierarchical space allocation has been positive, we need to recognise that people need different types of surroundings depending on the specific activity they are engaged in at any given time, and they need to be able to change that space when the activity changes. We already do this with meetings – so why not with other types of work? Activities like creative work, task requiring concentration, and communications, all have different optimum environmental conditions – and these might also further vary according to the preferences of the staff. So, more flexible space is needed to bring out the best from our workers.
Finally, we need to reconsider the prevailing orthodoxies about facilities management. Cost management, one of the strengths of the profession, is obviously crucial, and I am a strong advocate of thoughtful measurement and comparison of cost and its component elements. However, what organisations need in order to grow is high levels of productivity, yet facilities staff are not encouraged or informed about how they contribute to this. While businesses may measure, for example, revenue or profit per employee or per square metre of property, this is never reported to the facilities managers. It would still only be a measure of collective, rather than individual, endeavour, but it would have value as a balance against the pure cost focus approach which dominates the industry today.
Mace Macro is the Facilities Management service arm of Mace, a recognised market leader in construction and project management. Macro’s management team is made up of a number of well-known professionals within the Facilities Management industry. The experience and track record of both Mace and the Macro team is extensive. The company was established to meet the need for an organisation able to deliver property and business solutions with a total property life cycle approach.
(This article was originally published in Director of Finance 2004 edition) |
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