Return-To-Office Gaining Traction Globally

The return to office movement is “gaining traction” across the US, Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions as occupiers anticipate greater attendance for the latter half of 2022. 

CBRE’s spring 2022 occupier sentiment survey reveals that more than 75% of respondents across those regions expect a “more regular return” to the office this year, with more than half currently establishing policies and communicating expectations to their respective workforces.  But the pace of the return runs the gamut: while attendance in the Americas and EMEA is relatively low, office attendance in the Asia-Pacific region is “essentially back to pre-pandemic levels.”

“Asia-Pacific was the quickest to return to the office since workers never left in the same numbers as in other parts of the world,” the report states. “Companies in the region were also more likely to require a return than leave the decision up to their employees…In the U.S., many companies have taken a voluntary approach, often leaving the decision to return up to their employees and their managers, resulting in lower attendance.”

CBRE experts note that the tight US labor market is a major factor as organizations seek to retain talent. Most employers in the US support hybrid work and are attempting to establish policies that allow for managerial or business-line discretion in creating expectations for when employees are physically in-office.

And “while more Asia-Pacific organizations intend to embrace hybrid work, few have formulated formal hybrid policies and there is agreement that ‘test and learn’ still has some way to go,” the report notes, adding that a third of Asia-Pacific respondents, led by domestic Asian companies, intend to maintain an office-first workplace policy.

Ultimately, the portfolio strategies of real estate decisionmakers emphasize quality over quantity in the post-COVID era.

“In EMEA and the US, there was a sharp decline from the responses a year ago in the share of companies that projected their portfolio to stay the same over the next three years. In these regions, very few companies now expect to maintain their current portfolio size, acknowledging that the greater adoption of hybrid work will impact their real estate footprint,” the report notes. “Conversely, in Asia-Pacific, the share of respondents that expected to keep their portfolio the same increased while the share that expected it to contract declined sharply from last year.”

The research notes a nearly even split in the US and AMEA between companies who expect to expand their footprint and those who say they’ll reduce their portfolios. Less than a quarter of respondents in Asia-Pacific expect their portfolios to shrink.