issue 68
"Since the physical work environment affects employee productivity and morale, the employees themselves should have the right to decide how their workplace is designed."
argument 38
The following appeared in the editorial section of a campus newspaper.
"Because occupancy rates for campus housing fell during the last academic year, so did housing revenues. To solve the problem, campus housing officials should reduce the number of available housing units, thereby increasing the occupancy rates. Also, to keep students from choosing to live off-campus, housing officials should lower the rents, thereby increasing demand."
1) simply reducing the number of available housing units will probably increase the occupation rate, but will not necessarily lead to revenue increase, since very likely the number of students living on the capmus will remain unchanged or even reduced, and thus at the same rent rate, the total revenue will not increase as a result.
2) the arguer assumes that it is the high rent rate that prevents the students from living on campus, while this assuption is without sound grouds. It is true that rent rate is one important consideration for students to decide where to live, but practically, many other considerations will affect the decision, such as .......
The reasoning of the editorial is problematic for three reasons:
1. The argument assumes that increasing the occupancy rates can boost the revenue.
However, it is entirely possible that revenue continue to decrease even though occupancy rates increase.
The reason is simple. Revenue is not proportional to
occupancy rates but to the product of rent and number of rented house.
2. The argument relies on the gratuitous assumption that the current rent of campus
housing is high, causing the low demand for the campus housing. No data or evidence
supplied in this editorial to support this arguement.
3. The arguement assumes that lowering rent can lead to higher revenue by increasing
demand for campus housing.
.
Theoratically, to let the employees to decide how their work place should be designed will,to some extent, benefit the company as a whole, however, practically, in many circumstances, this is infeasible.
1) Every company has its own image, which is a very important part of the company identification. The outlook of the workplace is part of the corporate image and thus cannot be designed at will.
2) Every employee may has his own taste for the design of the workplace, and when conbinng those designed together, very likely we will not have a final version, which wins support from the majority of the employees.
3) However, we should not neglect the employees preference of what the workplace should be like. Thus, we designing the environment of the workplace, we should listen to the voices of the employees.
