When it comes to corporate real estate portfolio management, there has been a big change in metrics. Instead of focusing on costs or how engaged or satisfied employees are, the favorite metric of CRE insiders has become utilization, according to a new report from CBRE Institute and CoreNet Global.

"Given corporations' hybrid work strategies, utilization rate has become the most common metric for guiding CRE operations and performance—leapfrogging both occupancy costs and employee engagement/satisfaction," the report said. "Additionally, seat and people density—which were not noted by respondents last year—is now considered a performance measure by more than one-fifth of respondents."

The survey was of 186 CRE leaders during the latter half of 2022. Respondents oversee combined portfolios of nearly 1.6 billion square feet worldwide, with an average CRE organization of 173 full-time employees and an average portfolio size of 17.2 million square feet.