Prestige Property: 24-28 George Street, East Melbourne, VIC
Historic charm meets modern opulence.
By Terry Christodoulou
Fri, Mar 19, 2021 7:30am
2 min
2 min
Offered as a residence for the first time in over 100 years is this luxuriously transformed post office in East Melbourne.
Set across an impressive 723sqm plot, the 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2-car garage home presents 687sqm of contemporary living space – designed by Charles Salter – within its historic façade.
Retaining the post office’s 1920’s charm, the interiors blend old with new through soaring ceiling heights and tall windows meeting rich hardwood floors – now with hydronic heating.
The ground floor homes the formal dining, living and library – all leaning into the buildings historic charm – while the open plan living, dining and kitchen play a more contemporary role in the home.
Here, we are met with a large commercial-grade kitchen fitted with Viking industrial appliances and a handcrafted timber island. A fully appointed butler’s pantry and dumbwaiter round out the offering.
Flowing from the living and dining space is access to the vine-clad terrace, complete with a built-in barbecue area. An adjoining entertainment room makes clever use of the post office’s old bones.
The first floor is home to the parents’ retreat which includes a set of elongated ‘his’ and ‘hers’ walk-in robes and ensuite, which is fitted with limestone finishes and an opulent skylight. An impressive feature, the master suite’s northern wall of glazing retracts to bring the verdant gardens inside.
The basement sees three of the bedrooms, a bar, billiard room and 1200 bottle wine-cellar while a studio and conservatory (which sits atop a 10-metre pool in situ) is found at the back end of the property.
CCTV security, automatic irrigation, remote gates to basement garage are also here.
Arriving in a prized location, the residence is moments from the MCG, Fitzroy Gardens and the very best of Melbourne’s inner-city dining.
The listing is with RT Edgar’s Sarah Case (+61 439 431 020) and Warwick Anderson (+61 418 320 873). Price guide: $10 million; rtedgar.com
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New research suggests that bonuses make employees feel more like a mere cog in a wheel.
By Lisa Ward
Thu, Feb 26, 2026 2 min
2 min
When it comes to rewarding workers financially, cash isn’t always king.
Companies frequently give employees monetary bonuses, but a new study suggests that paid vacation time is a perk employers should also consider.
The study’s authors say that while they didn’t explicitly look into whether employees prefer time off, the study found that receiving extra vacation time rather than bonus money makes workers feel less like a mere cog in a wheel and more like people who are recognised and valued as individuals with a life beyond work.
It makes them feel more human, in the researchers’ terms.
And that feeling benefits employers as well as employees, says Sanford DeVoe, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the study’s authors.
Feeling more human is strongly correlated with higher job satisfaction, greater engagement with work, better relationships with colleagues and less inclination to leave a job, he says.
Feeling seen
In one experiment, the researchers asked about 1,500 participants to recall times when they received a monetary bonus or paid time off—all had received both—and how that made them feel.
Participants responded to the question on a 7-point scale, from feeling more like a robot on the low end of the scale to feeling more human on the high end. Monetary bonuses were given an average score of 5.04, compared with 5.4 for paid vacation time.
“While that difference may sound modest numerically, it represents a meaningful psychological shift,” says DeVoe. “It’s the difference between feeling neutral and feeling genuinely seen as a person.”
The authors then sought to better understand why paid vacation time made employees feel more human. In another experiment, about 500 participants were asked to imagine starting a new job where they might be awarded a bonus. Some were told the bonus would be an extra week of vacation, others were told it would be an extra week of pay.
Participants were then asked about their expectations for being able to keep their work and home lives separate in the new job. Those who could hope for a bonus of extra time off expected more separation between their work and personal lives than those whose potential bonus would be extra pay.
They also reported feeling more human on the 7-point scale. This suggested to the researchers that time off makes people feel more human because it creates a clearer psychological distance from work than a monetary bonus.
No interruptions, please
In a third experiment, the researchers further tested the idea that clear boundaries between work and personal lives were driving their results.
Two hundred participants were told to imagine being on a vacation and receiving two texts, including one from their mother. Half were told the second text was from a friend and half were told the second text was from their boss.
The authors then measured how human participants felt after each scenario. The average score for those receiving a text from a friend was 5.4 on the 7-point scale, compared with 4.16 for those receiving a text from the boss.
The difference in the scores “demonstrates that even minimal work intrusions can undo the psychological benefits of time off,” says DeVoe. “It shows that it’s not just time away that matters—it’s whether work actually lets go.”
All of this is important for employers looking to get the most out of their workers, he says. “For managers concerned with sustainable productivity, giving people uninterrupted time away from work can be a powerful lever.”
