Project Materials

THE IMPACT OF OFFICE ENVIRONMENT ON OFFICE PROFESSIONALS PRODUCTIVITY (A Survey of Selected Organization in Kaduna Metropolis)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study 

All the surrounding conditions that impact growth and development are defined as the environment in a modern dictionary. The internal and external factors influencing a secretary’s work environment are also considered part of the environment.

Clerical labour, including receiving, conveying, recording, processing, and safeguarding information, is done at an office, according to Rwuaan (2010).

The term “office” has two meanings: first, as a room or other location where people do their work; second, as a job title with associated responsibilities; and third, as an older usage of the word referring to a person’s actual place of employment.

Whether it’s a tiny office on a bench in the corner of a “mom and pop shop” or a large building devoted entirely to one company, offices are a common occurrence in architecture, design, and society. Nowadays, when people talk about an office, they usually mean the place where white-collar workers are employed. One common definition of productivity is the ratio of production to the total or partial amount of resources utilised in producing an output.

This allows for the comparison of one or more output measurements with one or more input measures. A Total Productivity Measure is an effort to incorporate all inputs and outputs into a system.

In his work, Palik (2006) lays out the relationship between the inputs and outputs of a process, which might include things like the quantity and quality of raw materials, the number of hours of labour, and units of capital.

The origins of the modern concept of office professional can be traced to the time when what are now known as secretaries laboured inside the rudimentary confines of an office.

However, it was only when the necessity for storing, retrieving, and protecting private matters became apparent that the early office professionals’ significance became apparent.

Back then, office workers’ happiness on the job was directly related to the importance of their tasks and responsibilities. Processing, documenting, and disseminating information are all part of an office professional’s job description (Smith, 2008).

In today’s business world, office professionals play an essential role that is essential to any company’s success. The federal government’s poorly thought-out plan to right-size and downsize this class of workers caused significant delays in the execution of office functions, making it vital to recall all impacted office professionals to their tasks (BPSR, 2008).

One of the primary functions outlined in the literature is that of office professionals in organisations. Keeping with the previous points of view. According to Omotosho (1990), a well-oiled office machine is essential to the success of any enterprise.

The office professional handles all the pressures and demands of the job by taking charge of any crises that may arise from the management of records, people, communication, information, and other resources that are intrinsic to running an office.

Nowadays, most offices distinguish between two kinds of office professionals: confidential and personal. According to MTU in Madelyn and Urwin (1980), office professionals are responsible for typesetting, recording, and keeping important or confidential company documents.

They also help top-level executives with routine tasks and make sure executives don’t have access to sensitive information. On the other hand, private office professionals are employed to run the office.

Office professionals are responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing delicious for the organization’s day-to-day operations, according to Ceik and Forti (2009).

Executives in most companies, according to Azuonge (2007), don’t realise how important office professionals are to the success of the company; as a result, these workers are treated disrespectfully and treated as postal carriers and clerks.

In the workplace, the whole efforts of a team are necessary to accomplish any goal that an organisation has. Any organisation, regardless of the services it provides to the public, relies on the office professional who is a part of this team to achieve its goals.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of office professionals’ responsibilities and functions in this era of globalisation, defined by computer and other office technologies and the complex nature of office interactions (Jeffrey and Kevin, 2001).

According to Njoku (2003), office professionals’ responsibilities are diverse and frequently vague. However, the tasks and function of office professionals and the expectations of an employer.

Clerical work includes responding to correspondence, filling out operations, managing records, and other unspecified functions like booking flights and accommodations, running specialised errands, and taking notes from the boss’s speech and making a mailable copy of it are all part of the job description.

The roles of office professionals, he continues, are growing at a dizzying rate. On the other hand, the image-making profiles that office professionals work with rely on their trustworthy performance of duties. With this goal in mind, we are conducting research to catalogue the functions performed by office workers at Kaduna Polytechnic.

Statement Of The Problem

Modern offices have failed to reach this goal due to issues such as a lack of investment in state-of-the-art equipment, poor human relations, physical environmental factors, and low compensation for office professionals. The usage of manual typewriters by office professionals is still used by some organisations.

Productivity is sure to suffer when office professionals are not given high-quality, efficient equipment to work with. It is also acknowledged that certain office professionals experience difficulties in collaborating due to an unproductive work atmosphere.

This leads to other issues, such as her lack of authority over her subordinates or her failure to adequately attend to office guests.There is a strong correlation between an office professional’s efficiency and the degree to which their workplace is clean and free of clutter.

Objectives of the Study

The primary goal of this research was to find out how different types of office settings affect the efficiency of office workers. However, the study was conducted with the express aim of:

1. learn what kinds of contemporary office equipment are necessary for the efficiency of office workers.

2. ascertain the contributing elements of the physical environment that enable the organisation to achieve its goals

3. learn how a company’s office productivity gains from paying its professionals a fair wage.

4. to learn how effective communication and teamwork boost efficiency in the workplace.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study set out to answer the following questions and test the following hypotheses:

i. In order to be productive, what kinds of office equipment do professionals need?

ii. What are the external physical elements that contribute to the accomplishment of organisational goals?

iii) How does an organization’s professionalism in the workplace relate to the effectiveness of its human relations professionals?

iv) How does pay affect the efficiency of an organization’s office staff?

The significance Of The Study

The importance of this research is immeasurable. The study’s findings will be extremely useful for the following, even though its sole purpose is to determine the impact of the office setting on office occupations:

Office Professional: An office professional is someone who manages the day-to-day operations of a firm, including setting goals, creating a strategy, and ensuring that all employees are following it.

In order to provide future researchers with important knowledge on the office profession, this work will serve as a reference.

Companies: To teach companies how to make their workplaces more friendly to secretaries.

Scope of the Study

To ascertain its extent of impact on office performance, the study zeroed in on the profession’s internal components. Office jobs and executives are also under the purview of this research.

Limitations of the Study 

The researcher had hoped to present an abundance of information pertinent to the study’s subject, but numerous constraints made that impossible. The execution of this research subject was severely constrained by time constraints.

Consolidating class attendance with data collection for the project was a major headache. Another issue with data collecting during survey research was a lack of funding, which prevented researchers from contacting respondents to request their information.

Terms Explanation

A change that an action or cause produces, whether positive or bad, is called an impact.

Any location where information is received, organised, recorded, rearranged, retrieved, and stored for later use might be considered an office.

Setting: This pertains to the physical state of the secretary’s workplace.

By dividing up the work between members of a group, an organisation is able to rationally coordinate the efforts of its members to accomplish a predetermined objective.

The term “secretary” refers to a someone who is engaged by another person, society, enterprise, organisation, or cooperation to handle letters, maintain records, and execute other business-related tasks.

A corporate executive is someone who possesses strong managerial or administrative abilities.

Workers: Those with whom one shares a workplace or organisation