For workplace and corporate real estate leaders, the message from Leesman’s latest CRE Leaders Poll is clear: the ambition for the workplace has evolved faster than the decisions shaping it.
Across 129 respondents and representing 85 million square metres, 84% of participants said the workplace should deliver a positive employee experience and support talent attraction, retention and culture. Yet, when it comes to choosing sites, employee experience still plays a secondary role. Location and cost remain the dominant factors, while only 27% say employee satisfaction and experience potential meaningfully influence site selection.
So, if the ambition has shifted, why haven’t the decisions?
Nearly all respondents (96%) reported significant challenges such as budget constraints (42%), uneven attendance patterns (38%), and buildings that don’t meet employee needs (31%). Hybrid hasn’t resolved the tension either: 98% of organisations operate in some form of hybrid, yet only 35% feel they’ve found the right approach.
Where deliberate change has been made, satisfaction rises though. So the problem isn’t that the answers don’t exist, it might be that they aren’t being implemented. Why are organisations struggling?
The data also points to something we see consistently in our own work: hybrid success isn’t just a space question. It depends on clear ownership and accountability across HR, IT and real estate. And it depends on measuring the right things. Utilisation and occupancy data tell you who’s in the building. They don’t tell you whether the building is working effectively.
Closing this experience gap starts before a building is even selected: it requires defining what experience means in measurable terms and weighting it alongside cost and location from the outset. Perhaps it means shifting hybrid conversations away from day-count rules and towards the outcomes that teams genuinely need the office to support. It means measuring whether the workplace is actually delivering on the experience it was designed to create.
UnWork helps organisations close that gap by bringing people, place and technology into alignment so strategy and decisions can move in the same direction.
Source: Leesman CRE Leaders Poll, December 2024
