The Relationship Between Environmental and Demographic Factors with Productivity of Islamic Azad University of Shiraz Employees

Background and Objectives: Design of work environment is one of the factors that can affect performance and efficiency of employees. Human’s productivity has different dimensions that may be affected by environmental factors and internal factors such as demographic characteristics. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the relationship between environmental and demographic factors with productivity of employees of Azad University of Shiraz. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, out of 360 (all of the employees of Islamic Azad University, Shiraz branch)186 subjects were selected as a sample through convenience sampling. The data collection tools were demographic information questionnaire, Physical Work Environment questionnaire and Hersey-Goldsmith’s productivity questionnaire. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to measure the relationship between quantitative variables with productivity separately. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between demographic and environmental variables. Results: The results showed that there was a significant relationship between the factors of work environment design (furniture, noise, temperature, lighting and spatial arrangements). Also, there was a significant relationship between the levels of education with productivity score, so that people with a PhD level had a higher level of productivity than the participants with lower education. Also, the simultaneous relationship of demographic and environmental factors with productivity was significant for spatial arrangements. Conclusion: The proper design of the work environment is related to employees’ productivity of Islamic Azad University of Shiraz. This can be affected by the demographic characteristics of individuals. However, the simultaneous effect of both factors with productivity showed that spatial arrangements has a considerable effects on productivity.