A question of numbers

What should office tenants be asked in a nationwide survey of occupiers across Poland? Which projects should be included in the list of 50? These and many other questions were put to a group of leading figures in Poland’s office sector, and the participants came up with a variety of different opinions, mainly on the criteria for selecting the offices to be surveyed

Richard Stephens

Learning our lesson from the warehouse questionnaire meeting (for further reference see Eurobuild CEE\'s May issue, pp 70-73), Eurobuild Awards and Millward Brown presented the participants of the office questionnaire meeting with a far simpler draft version of the questionnaire than had been handed out to the warehouse group. Despite this, the office group felt that the questionnaire could be simpler still.  

Location, location…

We started with location. It was agreed that a general question on the location of the office in terms of the convenience of transport links was a good place to start. The second question referred to location in relation to the proximity of shops and services, and, apart from taking out the reference to ‘pre-schools’, which was deemed irrelevant and misleading, this too was agreed on.

The next few questions concerned technical, comfort and design aspects, and several of those present, including Jacek Kopczyński and Nicklas Lindberg, felt that they were too mixed together and that individual elements should be dealt with separately. For example, the questions: ‘How satisfied are you with your office building, taking into account elements such as functionality of space, technical conditions, quality of finishes, architectural style, site design, etc.?’ (Erik Drukker rightly asked what ‘etc.’ was supposed to refer to – we have taken it out) and ‘How satisfied are you with the office building facilities influencing comfort of work, taking into account elements such as indoor and outdoor lighting, cooling/heating system?’ included aspects which need to be taken individually. As Anna Kot pointed out, a tenant might be happy with the architectural style but not with the technical conditions, so to have them in the same question wasn’t right. This was taken on board and in the new revised version (at the end of this article) the different elements have been addressed separately.

A suntan at your desk?

The need to phrase questions carefully was re-enforced when we came to the next question: “How satisfied are you with window and daylight access?” Quality of windows and quality of daylight access, the group pointed out, are different things. The purpose behind the question is to find out about daylight access, so we’ve changed the question to ask only about this. Apart from daylight access, the importance of windows in the survey was doubted by the group, but some, including Piotr Górecki of Knight Frank, felt that it could be an important feature to ask about, yet not fully comparable as many buildings have only glass curtain walls. Some participants doubted the relevance of a question about elevator waiting time, but in our pre-meeting research this was an issue that was often raised, so the question: “How satisfied are you with elevator waiting time?” has been left in. Parking turned out to be an issue which the participants had strong feelings about. Mariusz Kozłowski commented that tenants usually want more parking spaces both for themselves and their guests, but are unwilling to pay for them, so the focus should not be on quantity. Therefore the question: “How satisfied are you with the quantity of parking spaces for guests?” has been changed to the less specific: “How satisfied are you with the office’s parking?” Reaction to the question: “How satisfied are you with the service charge, taking into account the method of evaluating/calculation, fairness, stability throughout the year and the lease period?” echoed that of the warehouse group on the question of rent. Which tenant, they said, is ever happy with the service charge? Not many, of course, but again, there are degrees of unhappiness, and the ratings all add up to give a picture of how the tenants collectively view a particular project. Daniel Bienias, who has recently joined CB Richard Ellis, felt that the clarity of service charge calculation should be addressed specifically, so the service charge question will be divided into two, as follows: “How satisfied are you with the clarity of the service charge calculation method?” and “How satisfied are you with the quality of services provided in the service charge?” Close to the end of the questionnaire we have inserted the following question: “How well do the words listed describe your office building?: quality; friendly; functional; comfortable; spacious; elegant; multifunctional; attractive architecture (external/façade); attractive interior design of communal space; pleasant to work in”. The group liked this, feeling that such a method would be easier and quicker for tenants to rate, and allowing many of the points that were initially dealt with together in the original version to be put to the tenants as individual points.

Who should fill it out?

Several of the concerns of the office group were similar to those of the warehouse group. They wanted to know who would fill out the forms on behalf of the tenants: the office manager? the managing director? If the office manager, then would this person have sufficient knowledge to be able to answer the financial questions? If the managing director, would he or she be in a position to answer the more technical questions? These are legitimate concerns. However, Eurobuild Awards and Millward Brown, the independent market research company carrying out the survey, believed that tenants will take the few minutes necessary to fill out the forms because it will be made known to them that the feedback they give will be passed on to the owner of the building, and that if the person filling out the form cannot answer all the questions, he or she can ask for help from colleagues who do know the answer. Millward Brown will initially send the questionnaire to companies by e-mail, following this up by phone if necessary, to ensure the requisite number of tenants give their feedback to enable the project to be part of the survey.

As with the warehouse gathering, the most contentious part of the meeting concerned the list of projects in which the tenants will be surveyed. We didn’t present the group with a list, since we wanted to hear their opinions as to which criteria for selecting a project they think should be used (as with the warehouse and retail surveys, the scheme has to have been open for at least twelve months before the survey is carried out). Some of the experts felt that projects with less than a certain number of tenants (around seven or eight) should not be excluded as this would be unfair. Richard Aboo and Nicklas Lindberg even felt that an office with only one tenant should be eligible. Eurobuild Awards and Millward Brown, however, felt that this would undermine the legitimacy of the whole exercise if a one- or two-occupier office, or even one with three or four tenants, got the highest rating. We will consult further on this point.

Finally, Nicklas Lindberg wanted to know why there were no ‘green’ questions in the draft questionnaire. Eurobuild and Millward Brown had discussed this before but left out questions on sustainability and green energy because of the difficulty in formulating pertinent questions. We felt that perhaps tenants were not experts in assessing how environmentally-friendly their building is. However, we acknowledge that such a question shouldn’t be omitted, so we have now included the following question: “How satisfied are you with the building’s environmental standards?”, and in the last question we also ask if tenants are willing to pay extra for space in environmentally-friendly offices.

And on to the awards ceremony...

As in the warehouse and retail sectors, the questionnaire will be sent to tenants in selected office projects in Poland, who will rate the building they are leasing according to the criteria in the questionnaire. The office with the highest rating will win the “Best Office Award’, to be announced and presented at the Eurobuild Awards Gala on December 8th, 2010. The list of projects to be included in the survey will appear on the Eurobuild website in due course, after consultation with the Warsaw Research Forum in early June. ν

The Questionnaire

When answering, please use the following scale 
(except questions marked *)

Pasted Graphic 1.pdf ¬

Location

1)  
How satisfied are you with the location of your office in relation to car and public transport access?

2)  
How satisfied are you with the location of your office in terms of local amenities – shops, services and restaurants?
(not including those in your building)

Technical

1) 
How well do the words listed below describe your office building?*

Pasted Graphic 2.pdf ¬

2) How satisfied are you with the lift waiting time?

3) How satisfied are you with the daylight access in your office?

4) How satisfied are you with the indoor lighting?

5)  
How satisfied are you with the cooling and heating system? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

6)  
How satisfied are you with the quality of the fit-outs? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

7)  
How satisfied are you with the flexibility of the floor plan? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

Costs

1)  
How satisfied are you with the rental level in relation to the size, type and quality of the leased space?

2)  
How satisfied are you with the clarity of the service charge calculation method? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

3)  
How satisfied are you with the quality of services provided through the service charge? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

General

1)  
How satisfied are you with in-building services and amenities? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

2)  
How satisfied are you with the front lobby/reception atmosphere and design? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

3)  
How satisfied are you with the parking? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

4)  
How satisfied are you with the building’s environmental standards? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

5)  
How satisfied are you with the building management, taking into account friendliness, availability, responsiveness, understanding needs, commitment to organizing events and seasonal decorations? If you are unsatisfied, why are you unsatisfied?

6)  
Does the office space you lease match your current needs?*

Yes

No

If no, what are you lacking?

7)  
If you were looking for office space now, would you lease space in this office again?*

Yes

No

If no, why not?

8)  
In principle, is your company willing to pay extra for an environmentally friendly office building?*

Yes

No