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Keywords
Performance criteria, Efficiency, Productivity, Premises,
Offices, Organizational performance
Abstract
Stiffening competition, caused by an increasingly turbulent contextual and transactional environment, forces many organisations to re-examine every way in which they can improve their performance. As a substantial part of the resources used during the transformation from input to output within office-based organisations, office accommodation can have a significant impact on organisational performance. This paper gives an overview of the performance criteria organisations should meet, and discusses the added value of office accommodation to organisational performance.
Introduction
Currently, over 25 per cent of the civilian labour force of the USA - over 35 million people - is employed in office buildings (BLS, 2002a). The primary process in office-based companies consists of receiving (input), generating, interpreting, processing, editing, managing (transformation), and providing (output) information (Wentink and Zanders, 1985). In this process the actual transformation is established through coordinated interaction between the production factors: people and means (see Figure 1).
If an organisation is guided by profitability, the transformation process should be effective as well as efficient at the same time. If this is the case, we can speak of a fruitful or productive process. In order to anticipate possible future internal and/or external changes, the process should also be flexible. Finding the right balance between the mentioned criteria asks for certain creativity.
As a substantial part of the resources used during the transformation from input to output within an organisation, which is quantified in the corporate balance sheet, the accommodation can have a significant impact on the profitability or performance of an organisation.
Nowadays, there are two important approaches that contribute to organisational performance:
(1) achieving greater efficiency by reducing the occupancy costs by reducing the amount of space per employee; and
(2) achieving greater effectiveness by improving the productivity of the employees by providing a comfortable and satisfying working environment.
In order to maximise the cumulative impact of both approaches, and to avoid a negative impact of one approach on the other, a transparent decision support structure with clear definitions is desirable.
The performance criteria of an
organisation
The profitability or performance of an organisation depends to a great extent on meeting the generic performance criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, flexibility, and...