Holistic workplace management: gathering KPIs through users’ involvement

Expert

Taking on this challenge, my research aimed at enhancing the dialogue between different workplace users and restoring a balance in the traditional power relationships. In the built environment and real estate field, interested parties or stakeholders, actors, end users, occupants, customers tend to be mentioned interchangeably when referring to people, groups and / or categories who use buildings to different extents. From those who hold a position of power in the real estate supply chain (e.g. service providers, owners or investors) to ‘occupant organizations’ meaning structured institutions or entities with formalized objectives, to the end users who receive goods or services as individuals, persons, human subjects, a multiplicity of stakes partake in workplace creation. However, it is very rare for all these actors to be able to confront each other regarding their respective expectations, needs, and experiences.

I made it possible thanks to the cooperation between the Real Estate Center (REC) of the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering (ABC) at the Polytechnic University of Milan and the Department of Design & Environmental Analysis at Cornell University (USA) and four multinational corporations headquartered in Italy.
Mixed work groups of 10+ people representing all the stakes at play (i.e. owners, presidents and managing directors; financial directors; corporate real estate managers; human resources directors; facility managers; engineers and architects specialized in space planning; information communication technology manager; directors of corporate departments engaged in the development of the core business; employees; consultants and collaborators) were called to the same table for the first time to discuss about the most relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure and manage workplace performance. We have repeatedly discussed the expected quality of the workplace, based on their respective value codes and their respective familiarity with the data and information available to them. From time to time, interests of an economic-financial nature, of an environmental and spatial nature, but also of a social, human and perceptual nature have emerged.
Although these points of view may seem jarring, the multiple encounters between these categories of users have confirmed their fundamental complementarity. It was possible, not without effort, to develop a constructive discussion on the most useful variables to define appropriate workplace strategies. Finally a matrix of 33 KPIs was created including several facets of workplace performance:

• environmental quality (e.g. thermal comfort, acoustic quality, etc.);
• building operation and management (e.g. resource consumption, design for all, etc.);
• space usage (e.g. space utilization);
• business effectiveness (e.g. revenue, deadlines met);
• costs; value/return/yield (e.g. operating costs/person);
• productivity/ways of working (e.g. customer retention, effectiveness of help desk, etc.);
• user attitude (e.g. engagement, image, etc.);
• and staff characteristics (e.g. multiculturalism, psychophysical wellbeing, etc.).

Continuous control over these KPIs will guarantee the satisfaction of all the respective needs and interests.

What emerges from this research is the key function of integration on which it is necessary to invest. Integration of disciplines, interests, phases of the life cycle of properties, data, people with their diversity. The application of a holistic attitude is the only approach through which it is possible to put all these elements together within a strategic tool that works not only as a rigorous and systematic sum of the parts, but as a multiplication of experiences.

* For additional information see:
Tagliaro, C. (2019). Prendersi cura del luogo di lavoro – Progettare, gestire e utilizzare lo spazio ufficio attraverso indicatori di prestazione. (EN. Taking care of the workplace – Design, management and use of office spaces through performance indicators). Milano: Franco Angeli (ISBN 978-88-9178-906-8).

Release date: December 2020