As someone involved in research and publication investigating workplace productivity for nearly 30 years, it is surprising to observe how some factors have remained largely constant throughout that time, despite the huge evolution of workplace strategies and design.
In the late 1990s, some of the earliest research around workplace productivity was undertaken by the co-author of our textbook Corporate Real Estate Asset Management: Strategy and Implementation (2017), Dr Barry Haynes. His pioneering work for a PhD examined the most significant influences on workplace productivity using a perception-based survey which was the forerunner of later tools, such as the Leesman Index.
The 2007 published research, based on a statistically significant data set, using factor analysis, established that the two most significant behavioural variables affecting workplace productivity were:
- Positive influence (Cronbach's alpha = 0.88): work collaboration and social interaction.
- Negative influence (Cronbach's alpha = 0.8): interruptions and noise.
This is perhaps not surprising in an era where offices largely comprised either single managerial offices or large open plan desks, cubicles or other one-size-fits-all approaches.
What is surprising is that, despite the move away from open plan and the office as a machine to contemporary activity-based working solutions, these two variables broadly remain the most significant in numerous research studies undertaken across the globe over the past 30 years.
So, in this white paper, we track a number of research outputs which show this consistency and ask: why has the dial not turned, despite significant advances in workplace strategy and ABW design?