As any business owner or resident in Nairobi will tell you, property prices are on the rise. HassConsult Limited, the property investment consulting firm, have monitored prices in Kenya’s capital for nearly two decades. Over the first three quarters of 2019, they found a price increase of 8.6% in Muthaiga, one of the city’s major suburbs. Over the same period, they also found a 4.8% rise in Westlands and a 3.7% hike in Lavington.

Kenya’s largest city is becoming an increasingly expensive place to buy or rent land.

This has a major impact on business and how companies use their space.  Even if Nairobi’s property prices were not rising, a successful business should know how to manage their space effectively. This article will explore some of the reasons why space management is important to all the capital’s companies.

No matter what industry you operate in managing your workforce is very important. And, workforce management hinges on where your employees work.

 Modern, and proactive, workforce management is a science. Each business nurtures their company culture differently. Directors and management have their own ideas when it comes to motivating a workforce. Even so, many will have taken a look at the theories of those that have dedicated their lives to understanding human motivation.

Take Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for example. Most business owners have heard of Maslow’s work. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist whose theories revolutionised humanity’s understanding of itself. The American’s model sought to understand how the human mind is driven, what motivates and what disheartens the average person.

Maslow believed that, before an individual can be driven by notions of job satisfaction, progression or fulfilment, for example, he or she must first find safety. What he meant by the word ‘safety’ can be expressed very differently in different circumstances. These circumstances change depending on cultural variations, company attitudes, and the differences between countries.

Safety can mean having a roof above an individual’s head or their being secure in their job. It can mean protection from physical harm or trust in the banking system. One of the factors that companies must consider when it comes to their employees’ safety is the physical workplace.

First Voice, the online bulletin board for small businesses, found that not having an organised and quiet place for focussed work “has a negative effect on [employees’] productivity, satisfaction and wellbeing.”

A happy workforce is, according to Forbes, more likely to work hard, work creatively and stay in their job longer. As a result, modern companies are spending more and more on their office space. For example, modern American tech companies and startups spend much of their budget on bean bags and ergonomically designed chairs.

For many Kenyan office spaces, the first step toward improving the physical office environment is clearing it of all that is unnecessary. Every business has a work force sitting in office space. If a company expects that workforce to operate productively while they are boxed in between files or amongst piles of paper documents, then they are mistaken.

Fix your office space and your workforce will be more productive.