Closing the loop : : the use of post occupancy evaluations in real estate management

Abstract: The real-estate sector has traditionally been thinking in terms of “bricks and mortar” focusing more on the buildings than on the tenants. A change of approach has, however, been detected since the mid 1990s. The tenant is now more in focus. This new situation puts higher requirements on both the individual real-estate manager’s and organization’s ability to determine the needs of the tenants. Evaluations and knowledge management can be a help in this process Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) is one tool where the tenant’s perspective is in focus. The purpose of this thesis is to study the Swedish real-estate sector’s attitudes and experience of POE. Furthermore the purpose is to investigate how POE can be implemented in the organization and what barriers there are to implementation. This thesis presents three empirical studies of the real-estate sector and their use of POE. The first study is a survey sent to Swedish real-estate managers to determine their attitudes and experience of POE. This study was followed up by a more in-depth interview study to determine the attitudes regarding POE among the real-estate managers. The third study was also an interview study and it was carried out with individuals in leading positions in organizations in the real-estate sector. The aim of this study was to get a clearer view of possibilities for change and barriers to change within the real-estate sector The results show that there is an interest from the real-estate managers towards evaluations but that they rarely carry out evaluations. The main barrier detected is the lack of support from top management and this has resulted in a lack of incentives for realestate managers to work with POE. The reason for this lack of interest from the top management can be the culture of the real-estate sector, a culture which has sprung from the building sector. The conclusion is that problems will not be solved solely by implementing POE. The organisation must take care of the information, share it, learn from it and use it in the best way in current and future projects. This can only be done by implanting a knowledge management system. To enable this kind of change within the organisation the top management must underline the importance of this and at the same time give the organisation both the right tools to enable implementation and incentives to carry this out and follow it through. One way to show the importance of knowledge management, and at the same time create incentives and methods to follow up the development of the organisation is to integrate POE in the Balanced Scorecard. The conclusion is that if the top management doesn’t want the organisation to fall behind its competitors it must put knowledge management on the agenda. Sooner or later the competitors will implement evaluations and knowledge management in their organisations, and then it is only a question of time before they have built a better and stronger organisation, with better-qualified employees, that generates more efficient services and more satisfied customers.