The number of serviced offices is increasing strongly, offering a large and growing range of services and facilities to attract and retain more tenants. Research has shown that most business centres are quite similar with regard to physical aspects and that especially services are a way to differentiate themselves from others. Serviced offices are used by all kinds of organisations ranging from freelancers to large corporates. It is likely that the end-users of serviced offices do not value each service and facility to the same extent, as they differ on organisational, personal and job characteristics and have different reasons for using a serviced office. This thesis explores differences in the perceived importance for different types of end-users of serviced offices.
Literature review of user characteristics resulted in three organisational characteristics, four demographic characteristics, seven job characteristics, and eight different reasons for using a serviced office. Combined with analyses of services offered on the internet, this resulted in a list of 31 services and facilities. Data were collected through a questionnaire in 13 different serviced offices in the Netherlands, in which 137 end-users participated. The offered services and facilities list was then reduced to ten factors with principal component analysis; for example building related services and facilities (e.g. cleaning and maintenance), work related services and facilities (e.g. secretarial service), non-work related services and facilities (e.g. gym, childcare),
or shared workspaces and rooms (e.g. conference room, concentration booths). The most relevant user characteristics were entered into multiple regression analyses to determine their effect on the perceived importance of each service/facility (factor).
Results showed that personal characteristics like age and educational level influence the perceived importance of services/ facilities to stimulate interaction (e.g. workshops, social meeting space). Surprisingly, organisational characteristics had very little effect on perceived importance, except that some sectors attached a higher importance to ICT and catering. The reasons for using the serviced office showed logical effects on importance of services too; for example those using the office to work in a certain atmosphere found facilities to stimulate interaction significantly more important.
This study contributes to the knowledge on serviced offices, the services they offer and the varying types of users they accommodate. Furthermore, it contributes to existing knowledge on office end-users’ references. It gives new insights in the effects of a range of user characteristics on how important services and facilities are considered to be in multi-tenant offices. So far, research on this topic has focused largely on single-tenant offices with large corporates. Serviced office owners and operators can use these insights to differentiate their product offer from competitors and aim for specific tenant market segments. In the
end, a better fit between organisation/end-user and the building should improve core business productivity of tenants and their employees’ quality of life.