Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa April 2015 | Page 44

IMPROVING

Getting a return on

Interiors

Connecting design to the bottom line
BY SARAH POPE

W

hen office spaces are being designed, it must
be relevant to the business and the human
experience. It most certainly must improve
how businesses operate. This is because relevant design
has a direct impact on profit by increasing productivity
and enhancing collaboration.
Different businesses call for different returns on
their interior spend, whether its high productivity
within a large call centre or a welcoming and pleasant
environment in a retail store. There are a few factors
which companies need to prioritise when looking at
their space planning.

“Different businesses call
for different returns on
their interior spend.”
The first one is employee health and wellness.
Creating an area for your employees to have lunch or
even just a phone booth on a wall to take a personal
call helps alleviate discomfort in the workplace. The
happier your employee is, the more productive they will
be. There have been many health articles stating that an
office environment can cause productivity to drop if it
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April 2015 SA Real Estate Investor

is too noisy or if you are faced with the same mundane
desk space day after day. This leads us to the second
important factor – sound satisfaction.
Sound interrupts, sound rattles, sound hampers
productivity. It is an element that most interior
designers are considering when planning spaces.
Acoustic wall panels, phone booths to relieve loud
phone calls and meeting pods are just a few examples
of how this is being implemented.
Last but not least, is company branding and themes.
It has always been important for a company to have a
corporate identity and a mission statement, but what
is now becoming clearer is how this must be applied
to your interior space. The mission statement must be
clear by your interiors. For example, an open plan layout
allows staff to practise a company’s open discussion
policy. The type of company will directly relate to the
space you are in. Traders, for example, want eye contact
when they are on the phone and need to be able to
listen to one another.
Less employees are doing more work these days, thus,
businesses need to understand that their employees
are more likely to stay at a job where they like the
atmosphere they work in.

RESOURCES

Upstart Office
www.reimag.co.za