Towards Holistic Workplace Services: Turning the Focus on Knowledge Workers and Service Provider Collaboration

Workplace services - a combination of ICT, HRM and real estate and facilities related services - have traditionally been provided by separate entities, each focusing on their own area. Recent calls for a more cross-disciplinary approach indicate the need for collaboration between service providers. Also, the role of the knowledge worker as the wealth provider for the knowledge intensive organization, has recently been emphasized. We have investigated the role of knowledge workers in workplace service settings. We have also studied issues related to workplace service provider collaboration. The results indicate that knowledge workers´ interests are not optimally taken into account and that service provider collaboration is hampered by adversarial relationships and lack of tools facilitating collaboration. We argue that it is the role and responsibility of the employer organization, which directly benefits from the outcome of knowledge work, to take the responsibility of organizing optimal workplace setting for their workforce