ROI on Smart Workplaces — Hard to Count But Hard to Miss

The benefits for employees are clear but how does the investment come back?

We can summarize our previous posts on smart offices by simply stating that it’s all about making spaces for work for the people who work in those spaces. 

Contents

• Direct savings in real estate costs
• Other cost savings
• Improved productivity

More corporate word salad? Not at all. It means that, moving forward from pandemic and navigating a hybrid-work landscape, workspaces can no longer be simply viewed as a place to get work done. They have to contribute to better workflows and create an environment where staff want to spend time because it’s the best option available to them — better than their own homes, even. 

The benefits that the transition to smart offices can bring are real and easily documented. We know what smart workplaces mean to those who work in them but what about the people who budget and pay for them? In business terms, transitioning to a smart office environment is an outlay on the balance sheet and an investment that needs to be justified. 

You still need to be able to make the business case for making the necessary investments. 

That’s why we’ve put together this list of the primary areas where the switch to smart workplaces results in lowered costs, increased value, and generally better financial outcomes.

Direct savings in real estate costs

Let’s start with the most obvious source of savings — less money spent on expensive office space. Right-sizing real estate commitments is a basic part of the transition to smart offices and the savings can be significant. But there are other related, secondary costs that fall when the main expense is reduced:

• Taxes on rent
• Additional costs based on how much space you occupy, like cleaning and common area maintenance fees 
• Fit-out costs for office furniture, IT infrastructure, necessary equipment

Other cost savings 

As we begin to look beyond the immediate savings associated with lower office-based operating costs, it’s not hard to discover other reduced costs that flow from the same changes:

• Lower costs associated with the effects of employee turnover, like recruitment and training, thanks to a more attractive and productive work environment that is hard for competing businesses to match
• Savings from shorter, easier recruitment processes when they are necessary, thanks to your office itself being an asset that draws interest from those in the job market
• Risk and cost reduction from lowered exposure to non-secure environments used for work purposes (less chance of using potentially compromised public connections and discussing sensitive materials outside of the office is less likely)

Improved productivity

Now let’s look at the other side of the ledger at more ways that smart workplaces provide a return on investment in the form of greater productivity from other assets. In addition to eliminating or reducing some costs, the benefits of smart offices include:

• Minimizing employee downtime spent looking for assets, securing a needed collaborative space or other tasks that are easily handled by smart offices 
• Increased productivity from staff who not only have easy access to the workspaces they need for meetings, one-on-ones, etc. but are comfortable enough to take advantage of their very best mindset or creativity needed for superior performance

Start adding these up and the savings stack up in a hurry. Both in reduced outlays and better performance from money spent elsewhere, working in a smart office brings benefits that can quickly cover the investment made in smart technologies. 

If you want to know more about how your facility can benefit from going smart, reach out to our smart building experts team today and sign up to our upcoming webinar - A Look Into New Standards in Occupant Experience Solving the Needs of Modern Employees where among other topics we will discuss the ROI from improving employee experience.

You may also be interested in our article on How to optimize your office space with data.