Despite the challenging commercial real estate landscape and mixed economic environment, business leaders in APAC are bullish on the future, with 7 in 10 expecting their CRE budgets to increase between now and 2030, as revealed in JLL’s (NYSE: JLL) Future of Work survey. The biennial, global survey explores the evolving world of work by assessing the key priorities, challenges and strategies that are top of mind for more than 2,300 business and CRE decision makers.  

“Since our 2022 survey, the CRE landscape has become increasingly complex and dynamic, evolving toward better office use. We see that in these results, and in our conversations with clients,” said Neil Murray, Global CEO, Work Dynamics, JLL. “Looking ahead, business and CRE leaders working to drive talent and efficiency throughout their organisation must consider the unique needs of their organisation, and leverage tools such as tech, AI, and upskilling, as well as strategic partnerships across the value chain to enable the CRE function to reach its full potential as a powerful agent of transformation.” 

Competing visions on the most efficient workstyles create renewed CRE challenges 

Business leaders globally are mainly focused on three corporate goals over the next five years: growing revenue through expansion and M&A (57%), attracting and retaining talent (53%) and achieving organisational efficiency (54%).  

Strong momentum toward office-based work since 2022 has brought forth expectations among respondents to increase use of office space, where half of leaders plan to grow their total footprint over the next five years.  Today, 49% of organisations in APAC are considered “office advocates”, who would like to see staff in the office five days a week – as compared to 44% globally, led by India and China. On the other hand, Singapore, Korea and Australia lead the remaining 51% of APAC organisations who prefer hybrid workstyles. 

Hybrid work is here to stay, but the office is central to work again. Today, 85% of APAC organisations have a policy of at least three days of office attendance per week, and 4 in 10 expect the number of in-office days to increase by 2030. Today’s office advocates also make a concerted effort to address diverse workplace needs to support different workstyles and standardise the experience for both onsite and offsite employees. With more CREs aligning office spaces to employee demands, office attendance may also mean new opportunities for compensation and career advancement – more than a third of respondents could envision introducing different pay and benefits to employees who attend the office regularly. 

“The future of work looks different across companies and regions, reflecting the unique nature of organisations and employee needs. It keeps shifting and requires building evolutionary office programmes and spaces, able to adapt to continuous changes in the workstyles,” said Cynthia Kantor, CEO, Project & Development Services, JLL. “Globally, as CRE budgets and footprints receive new investment, the corporate real estate function must effectively partner with the C-suite to demonstrate the desired value.” 

Technology and AI as agents of transformation in the corporate real estate function 

Globally, business leaders believe CRE can add the most value by supporting business growth, enabling organisational efficiency and reducing operating costs. This sentiment is particularly pronounced in APAC, where digitisation is seen as a key value-add for the CRE function, with nearly two-thirds (63%) of decision makers seeing technology and AI adoption as critical for enhancing the value that CRE delivers in the future. 

CRE leaders in APAC anticipate that over 70% of their activities will be at least partially supported through the use of AI by 2030. Moreover, 90% of APAC organisations plan to accelerate investments in AI, with half expecting AI-enabled spaces by 2030. With tech-enabled spaces expected to come sooner than initially thought, a ‘future fit’ CRE team should focus on high value-add tasks internally, while automation and AI take on routine and repetitive tasks and outsourcing partners are brought in for specialist tasks and individual projects. 

Download JLL’s Future of Work Survey here.