Quality of the physical workplace environment can have a strong influence on a companys

ability to recruit and retain talented people Some factors in workplace environment may be
considered keys affecting employees engagement, productivity, morale, comfort level etc.
both positively and negatively.

Although convenient workplace conditions are requirements for improving productivity and
quality of outcomes, working conditions in many organizations may present lack of safety,
health and comfort issues such as improper lightening and ventilation, excessive noise and
emergency excess. People working under inconvenient conditions may end up with low
performance and face occupational health diseases causing high absenteeism and turnover.
There are many organizations in which employees encounter with working conditions
problems related to environmental and physical factors. Pech and Slade (2006) argued that
the employee disengagement is increasing and it becomes more important to make
workplaces that positively influence workforce.

According to Pech and Slade the focus is on symptoms of disengagement such as distraction,
lack of interest, poor decisions and high absence, rather than the root causes. The working
environment is perhaps a key root causing employees engagement or disengagement.
Another research indicates that improving the working environment reduces complaints
and absenteeism while increasing productivity (Roelofsen, 2002).Wells (2000) states that
workplace satisfaction has been associated with job satisfaction. In recent years, employees
comfort on the job, determined by workplace conditions and environment, has been
recognized as an important factor for measuring their productivity. This is particularly true
for those employees who spend most of the day operating a computer terminal. As more
and more computers are being installed in workplaces, an increasing number of businesses
has been adopting ergonomic designs for offices and plant installations. Ergonomics, also
called biomechanics, has become popular because of demand of workers for more human
comfort.
Journal of Business, Economics & Finance (2012), Vol.1 (1) Leblebici, 2012
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Many executives are under the mistaken impression that the level of employee
performance on the job is
proportional to the size of the employees compensation package. Although compensation
package is one of the
extrinsic motivation tool (Ryan andDeci, 2000) it has a limited short term effect on
employees performance. A
widely accepted assumption is that better workplace environment motivates employees
and produces better
results. Office environment can be described in terms of physical and behavioral
components. These
components can further be divided in the form of different independent variables. An
organizations physical
environment and its design and layout can affect employee behavior in the workplace. Brill
(1992) estimates that
improvements in the physical design of the workplace may result in a 5-10 percent increase
in employee
productivity. Stallworth and Kleiner (1996) argue that increasingly an organizations physical
layout is designed
around employee needs in order to maximize productivity and satisfaction. They argue that
innovative
workplaces can be developed to encourage the sharing of information and networking
regardless to job
boundaries by allowing communication freely across departmental groups. Statt (1994)
argues that the modern
work physical environment is characterized by technology; computers and machines as well
as general furniture
and furnishings. To achieve high levels of employee productivity, organizations must ensure
that the physical
environment is conducive to organizational needs facilitating interaction and privacy,
formality and informality,
functionality and cross-disciplinarily. Consequently, the physical environment is a tool that
can be leveraged
both to improve business results (Mohr, 1996) and employee well-being (Huang, Robertson
and Chang, 2004).
Ensuring adequate facilities are provided to employees, is critical to generating greater
employee commitment
and productivity. The provision of inadequate equipment and adverse working conditions
has been shown to
affect employee commitment and intention to stay with the organization (Weiss, 1999;
Wise, Darling-Hammond
and Berry, 1987) as well as levels of job satisfaction and the perception of fairness of pay
(Bockerman and
Ilmakunnas, 2006). From a safety perspective, Gyekye (2006) indicates that environmental
conditions affect
employee safety perceptions which impact upon employee commitment.
Extensive scientific research conducted by Roelofsen (2002) has also yielded indications
suggesting that
improving working environment results in a reduction in a number of complaints and
absenteeism and an
increase in productivity. The indoor environment has the biggest effect on productivity in
relation to job stress
and job dissatisfaction. As suggested by Govindarajulu (2004), in the twenty-first century,
businesses are taking
a more strategic approach to environmental management to enhance their productivity
through improving the
performance level of the employees. It is evident in the research findings of Patterson et al.,
(2003) that the more
satisfied workers are with their jobs the better the company is likely to perform in terms of
subsequent
profitability and particularly productivity. Sekar (2011) argues that the relationship between
work, the workplace
and the tools of work, workplace becomes an integral part of work itself. The management
that dictate how,
exactly, to maximize employee productivity center around two major areas of focus:
personal motivation and the
infrastructure of the work environment. (Sekar, C.(2011). There are various literature that
defines different
factors that influence the performance of the employees. Haynes (2008) explains the
behavioral office
environment behavioral components of the office environment that have the greatest
impact on office
productivity. In all of the work patterns, it was found that interaction was perceived to be
the component to have
the most positive effect on productivity, and distraction was perceived to have the most
negative. As people are
the most valuable resource of an organization, and that the management of people makes a
difference to
company performance (Patterson et al., 1997). The workplace environment factors which
lead to engagement or
disengagement are illustrated in Figure 1. The factors encourage employees to
communicate with each other in
the workplace.
Defined Processes is the organizations responsibility to explain the workflow through
documenting and
communicating (Chandrasekar, 2011). The organization should find out tools what
motivates its employees and
has set up formal and informal structures for rewarding employees that behave in the way
required. Rewards
may consist of a mix of internal rewards, such as challenging assignments, and external
rewards, such as higher
compensation and peer recognition (Chandrasekar, 2011). This rewarding explains
workplace incentives.
41
to apply. The work environment is set up so that templates, guides, models, checklists and
other such workplace
aids are readily available to help minimize error rates and customer dissatisfaction.
Therefore, Chandrasekar
(2011) discusses the necessity of job aids.
There are various literatures that illustrate the relation between some of these factors and
the productivity of the
employee. There are different productivity definitions in literature. Rolloos (1997) defined
the productivity as,
productivity is that which people can produce with the least effort. Productivity is also
defined by Sutermeister
(1976) as, output per employee hour, quality considered. Dorgan (1994) defines
productivity as, the
increased functional and organizational performance, including quality. Productivity is a
ratio to measure how
well an organization (or individual, industry, country) converts input resources (labor,
materials, machines etc.)
into goods and services. In some case, the productivity is measured considering
performance increase as when
there is less absenteeism, fewer employee leaving early and less breaks; whereas increase in
performance can be
measured by the number of units produced per employee per hour. In this study, subjective
productivity
measurement method is used. The measures of this method are not based on quantitative
operational information.
Instead, they are based on personnels subjective assessments. Wang and Gianakis (1999)
have defined
subjective performance measure as an indicator used to assess individuals aggregated
perceptions, attitudes or
assessments toward an organizations product or service. Subjective productivity data is
usually collected using
survey questionnaires. Clements-Croome and Kaluarachchi (2000) discusses that subjective
data can also be
descriptive or qualitative collected by interviews.
Workplace environment
Lambert et al. (2001) found that environmental factors are important determinant of job
satisfaction. The level of salary, promotion, appraisal system, climate management, and
relation
with co-workers are the very important factors. Huges, (2007) surveyed 2000 employees
pertaining
to various organizations and industries in multiple levels. The reported results of these
survey
showed that nine employees out of ten believed that a workspace quality affects the
attitude of
employees and increases their productivity. James, (1996) concluded that the working as a
team has
significant impact on the satisfaction level of employees as it affects their performance. It is
essential to recognize to the significance of these factors to boost the satisfaction level in
the
workforce. How employees perceive their work environment can affect employee's
commitment,
motivation, and performance and also helps organization to form a competitive edge over
its rivals.
Brown and Leigh, (1996) concluded that a motivational and empowered work climate can
influence employee's attitudes toward work positively and can improve work performance.
Work
place survey conducted for steel case described that an effective work environment
management
entails making work environment attractive, creative, comfortable, satisfactory and
motivating to
employees so as to give employees a sense of pride and purpose in what they do (Taiwo,
2009).
Creating better and higher performing workplace requires an awareness of how workplace
impacts
behavior and how behavior itself drives workplace performance. People work individually
and
interact with others and this requires different workplace solutions (Chandrasekar, 2011).
How
workplace is designed and occupied affects not only how people feel, but also their work
performance, their commitment to their employer, and the creation of new knowledge in
the
organization. These are the cornerstones of the level of research known as the
environmental
psychology of workspace (Vischer, 2008). According to Abdulla et al. (2010) environmental
factors represent the immediate job environment that contains skills required to perform a
job,
authority, autonomy, relationship with supervisors and co-workers and other working
conditions.
EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE
Cummings and Schwab, (1973) argue that performance is ultimately an individual
phenomenon
with environmental factors influencing performance mainly through their effect on the
individual
determinants of performance, ability and motivation. According to Collis and Montgomery,
(1995)
Employee performance has been shown to have a significant positive effect on
organizational
performance. According to Adams, (1965) people are motivated to seek social equity in the
rewards they receive for high performance. He suggests that the outcome from job includes;
pay
recognition, promotion, social relationship and intrinsic reward. To get these rewards
various
inputs needs to be employed by the employees to the job as time, experience, efforts,
education and
loyalty. He also suggests that, people tend to view their outcomes and inputs as a ratio and
then
compare these ratios with others and turn to become motivated if this ratio is high.
Asian Journal of Empirical Research, 2(4): 96-117
99
Identifying and selecting the best employees for particular jobs is an important task for
organizations. High-performing workers are perfect since employee performance directly
impacts
the organizations bottom line. Poor performers can cost their employer money through the
loss of
production and in the costs of turnover and training (Cooper and Cartwright, 1994).
According to
Suhartini, (1995), employee performance is a combined result of effort, ability, and
perception of
tasks. High performance is a step towards the achievement of organizational goals and
tasks.
Employee performance is an important building block of an organization and factors which
lay the
foundation for high performance must be analyzed by the organizations. Since every
organization
cannot progress by one or two individuals effort, it is collective effort of all the members of
the
organization. Performance is a major multidimensional construct aimed to achieve results
and has a
strong link with planned goals of an organization (Abbas and Yaqoob, 2009). Performance is
the
key multi character factor intended to attain outcomes which has a major connection with
planned
objectives of the organization (Sabir et al. 2012).
2.1 Working environment
An attractive and supportive work environment can be described as an environment that
attracts individuals into the health professions, encourages them to remain in the health
workforce and enables them to perform effectively. The purpose of providing attractive
work environments is to create incentives for entering the health professions (recruitment)
and for remaining in the health workforce (retention). In addition, supportive work
environments provide conditions that enable health workers to perform effectively, making
best use of their knowledge, skills and competences and the available resources in order to
provide high-quality health services [11]. This is the interface of the work environment and
quality of care.
Working environment can be divided into two components namely physical and behavioral
components [14]. The physical environment consists of elements that relate to the office
occupiers ability to physically connect with their office environment. The behavioral
environment consists of components that relate to how well the office occupiers connect
with each other, and the impact the office environment can have on the behavior of the
individual. According to Haynes (2008), the physical environment with the productivity of its
occupants falls into two main categories office layout (open-plan verses cellular offices) and
office comfort (matching the office environment to the work processes), and the behavioral
environment represents the two main components namely interaction and distraction.[ 15]
These components can further be divided in major attributes and operationalised in the
form of different independent variables. These variables will be used for analysis of their
impact on dependant variable [14]. It is generally understood that the physical design of
offices and the environmental conditions at work places are important factors 10

in organizational performance. The empirical research by Stall [14] has also shown that
when human needs are considered in office design, employees work more efficiently.
One survey conducted by Brill [16] in particular has suggested that improvements in the
physical design of office buildings may result in a 5-10 percent increase in productivity and
eventually increase performance.
Other studies have examined the effect of physical work environment on workers job
satisfaction, performance, and health. For example Scott, (2000) reported that working
conditions associates with employees job involvement and job satisfaction *17+. Strong et
al (1999) in a study observed that social, organizational and physical context serve as the
impetus for tasks and activities, and considerably influence workers performance *18+.
Researches on quality of work life have also established the importance of safe and healthy
working conditions in determining employees job performance *19+.
The influence of working environment, which is mostly composed of physical, social and
psychological factors, has been extensively examined in past two decades. In a number of
studies, employees motivation, job satisfaction, job involvement, job performance, and
health have been found to be markedly influenced by psycho-social environment of work
organization [20].
According to Franco performance relies on internal motivation but presence of internal
factors such as necessary skills, intellectual capacity and resources to do the job clearly have
an impact. As a consequence employers are supposed to provide appropriate working
conditions in order to make sure the performance of employees meet the required
standards [21].




Participatory measures such as teamworking and high-involvement work
practices demonstrate improvements in performance, but can also have less
positive outcomes for employee and social well-being. Performance changes
may occur because participation leads to changed attitudes which lead to
higher performance. Alternately, changes to behaviour and performance may
be achieved not through attitude changes but through fear and an insecure or
intensified work environment.
One explanation for these contradictory results is that participation schemes
are sometimes introduced as part of restructuring packages. When employees
are faced with an insecure environment, participation may induce compliance
and not the attitude changes necessary for employees' commitment to the
enterprise. If this is so, behavioural changes may not be of the order
anticipated.
EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION AND COMPANY PERFORMANCE: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Juliette Summers and Jeff Hyman
21 March 2005




Personality, Health, Work Environment and Performance
According to Schneider (1987), people makes place. Costa, McCrae and Holland (1984)
assert that people begin this process by selecting the vocation that match their
personalities. Similarity between a job applicants and the values of recruiters and
employees within the organizations
results in improved work attitudes and increased performance after organizational entry
(Chatman, 1991; Judge and Cable, 1997). Research by Cable and Judge (1994) providesevide
nce that the applicants pro-actively choose the organizational environment based on
their personal preferences, as they found job candidates seek organizations with reward
systems and culture that fit their personalities