Measuring and managing the workplace for knowledge worker productivity

In 2013 and 2014, a research team formed by Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA) and the Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa) set out to determine what is known about effectively measuring knowledge worker productivity. AWA, a London-based workplace strategy consultancy, partnered with CEBMa, an Amsterdam-based organisation that ‘researches’ research, to undertake a critical appraisal of the best available academically rigorous evidence about how the productivity of knowledge workers can be measured — reliably and with validity. This research project was sponsored by eight organisations in knowledge sectors such as banking, energy and telecommunications: Allied Bakeries, the British Council, BDO, BP, RBS, Telereal Trillium and Old Mutual Wealth in the UK; and Allsteel in the US. CEBMa advocates what it calls an evidence-based management approach. The starting point for evidence-based management is that management decisions should be based on a combination of critical thinking and the best available evidence. By ‘evidence’ we mean information that comes from scientific research, internal business information, and even personal experience. In principle, then, all management decisions need to be based on real ‘evidence’ derived through a scientific process. This process not only involves knowledge of the research field and methodology, but also — and particularly — teaching students and managers how to think scientifically in order to counterbalance the subjectivity of their own judgment.