Commentary

Top 10 CRE Trends

Top Ten Trends is an annual summary of the key trends impacting CRE; this is the 2022 iteration.

March 11, 2022

The past two years have been a period of unprecedented disruption in corporate real estate (CRE). Social and workplace restrictions and widespread remote working have led to changing employee expectations. Corporates, meanwhile, continue to assess potential adjustments to workplace strategies and company policies. So what can we expect in 2022?

At the start of every year, JLL’s global research team releases the Top Ten Trends, which covers ten key trends in CRE to watch out for in the coming year. The 2022 iteration has just been released and we briefly discuss three of these trends below:

  • It will be no surprise to Hybrid Work make it into the top ten. For a variety of reasons, we’re unlikely to see many corporates in APAC adopting a 100% remote approach but it is evident that hybrid is here to stay. Many corporates are still defining what their strategy will ultimately look like and there aren’t any right or wrong answers to what is an extremely nuanced question. There certainly won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, firms will likely need to do a degree of experimentation and solutions are likely to be bespoke.

  • One third of the workforce is currently struggling according to a recent JLL paper. This group feels that they have not been recognised for the effort they put into their work. The don’t feel energized or supported to the extent that they don’t feel that their company is a great place to work and many plan to leave within the next two years. This is a huge challenge but also a significant opportunity for firms re-think their workplaces and policies to nurture a thriving workforce and create what has been termed the Regenerative Workplace.

  • JLL research released two papers on Sustainability in APAC in 2021 (one on occupiers and the other focusing on employees) and adoption of Net Zero Carbon is expected to more than double between now and 2025 according to a report by JLL’s global research team. Occupiers globally see the value in acting responsibly to drive down carbon emissions and accelerate the race to net zero. However, many sustainability action plans are still in their infancy, with more than half of corporates saying they are either in the early stages of defining their action plans or are not sure where to start. Translating good intentions into achievable targets will require partnerships and innovative thinking.

2022 promises to be another interesting year in CRE and a breakdown of all ten trends can be found here.