one of my assignments =)

>> Altering the Environment to Maximize the Employee Potential

I was motivated to explore the area of Environmental Psychology with Organizational Behavior because I had a personal interest in the aspect of understanding effects of environment interactions with human behavior. To ground this focus and ensure the feasibility of exploring this topic, a fair bit of research was done to retrieve articles that could educate readers on the trends and impacts of environment facilitation on employee behaviors. Numerous reports were found to justify that this area was subtly recognized in organizations, but inadequately adapted for the benefit of companies.

Office layouts and designs were significant reflections of organization culture, and influenced its productivity and efficacy as it primarily determines workflow in the organization (Accounting Office Management & Administration Report, New York, 2006). Office design and ergonomics were found to be closely related to the decrease of productivity in organizations (Dorothy, 1990, & Schneider, 2007). Also, numerous reports have reflected that employees had strong tendencies to be less enthusiastic to work longer hours in the work place unless work environments would be improved (Cullen, 2004, & Schneider, 2007).

Hayward (2007) and Pfeffer (2007) observed that most of these employees had low job satisfaction and did not appreciate the office design. In fact, they found the design disruptive to their work. In both reports, this was attributed to the noise and distraction influenced by the open-concept layout of the office, which interfered with employee functionality. They also reflected to receive inadequate privacy. According to Schneider (2007), if these employees had a more conducive environment, they had a potential to increase their work output by at least 21%.

Despite such negative feedback about the open concept, other firms have reported to benefit from the cost saving and efficiency of this option. Pritin (2004) reported that large firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young slashed their office spaces and housed employees in the open-concept layouts while allocating common rooms for meetings. They also made use of slimmer computers to reduce space requirements. This strategy helped the two firms save up to half of their required office area effectively.

While different strategies influence organizations individually, Haley (2004) highlighted that optimum arrangements would establish mutual benefits for the employees and organization. Her advice was to provide employees with liberty and autonomy in managing their personal work space. She found that through this, greater productivity and loyalty were developed for the benefit of the organization.

Hence, it is crucial to observe that while managing physical space and possible cost savings, there is a necessity to look after employee well-being and functionality within the allocated spaces. Otherwise, when the systems were not suitable or practical for the employees who were the end-users, it will result as a design-disaster that would contributed to productivity-disaster as described by Crytzer (2006). It was therefore important to incorporate essentials of equipment and the clarity of workflow into the design of the workplace (Lev-Ram, 2006).

It was however encouraging, realizing that firms are beginning to identify the significance of environmental influences on work productivity. Dorothy (1990) had identified trends of companies approaching specialized interior designers to enhance pleasantness of the work environment. However, In conclusion, the importance of employee satisfaction and appropriateness in developing suitable layout designs were the key to attain greater productivity. There were several ways to achieve this. For instances, involving employees in furniture selection as proposed by Neal (2004), or exploring alternatives of enhancing work place aesthetics by incorporating pleasant interior design as suggested by Patricia (1988).

I have drawn up a newsletter – Office Concepts, with the objective to provide suggestions in providing a better working environment for employees, in order to expand the employee productivity potential.