The Future of Work Survey 2024

Companies are planning to expand in the coming years and many are ready to invest, but not at any cost: their CRE teams are acutely focused on proving ROI, and on demonstrating the value that comes from smart, responsible decisions. While 65% of decision makers are expecting their Corporate Real Estate (CRE) budget to expand by 2030, 62% also believe they will have to achieve a better utilization of their CRE portfolio.

To achieve this ambition, CRE Leaders realize they have some challenges to overcome - their functions are often perceived to be cost centers rather than driving value; their teams don’t necessarily have the skills and capabilities required for the future and there is an opportunity to transform and develop new operating models and more strategic partnerships – both internally and with external organizations.

Drawing on the Future of Work 2024 survey results, JLL has identified three key priorities required for the CRE function to become a powerful agent of transformation within organizations.

Supporting business growth is more important in retail (cited by 52% of respondents in this industry), banking (50%) and manufacturing (46%), while enabling innovation is paramount in the knowledge-based life sciences (48%) and technology industries (44%).

This increasingly complex and rapidly-evolving business environment demands an agile CRE function - one that is quick to test, learn and adapt, incorporating rapid iteration and experimentation to generate feedback and buy-in. It means thinking of the organization as a living organism that will continue to grow and evolve, rather than as a static environment. This calls for a better use of technology to collect and analyze data in real-time and extrapolate the implications, so CRE and business leaders are able to respond to changes in demand and make more informed decisions more quickly.

Concerns about a shortage of relevant internal skills and talent are higher than in the 2022 survey, reflecting an increasingly complex CRE environment. This is a challenge highlighted by 40% of respondents today. Shortcomings in data and technology are the most urgent priority. To thrive in a volatile environment, CRE teams need to adopt the right enabling technologies and to acquire the skills to use them. What’s more, CRE leaders believe that 70% of their activities will be at least partially supported by AI by 2030. And a quarter of the CRE function could be mostly automated. But while 87% of respondents consider that AI could help to solve major CRE challenges, the skills are not there yet. 63% of decision makers see technology and AI adoption as critical for enhancing the value that CRE delivers in the future.

Other key skills cited by at least 45% of respondents are: creative and analytical thinking and scenario planning. The demand for these skills, alongside holistic problem solving and entrepreneurial mindset, reflects the need for being smart and agile in a changing environment.

The sheer number of diverse skills required to transform the CRE function means more businesses are looking to tap into specialist external expertise. Across a range of activities, from workplace strategy to lease administration, 40% of CRE decision-makers report that a mix of in-house and outsourced resource is the most likely model over the next five years, compared with 25-30% who had adopted a blended approach in 2022. A further 20-25% are considering mainly outsourcing their CRE activities by 2030, to access the skills they cannot find internally.

• Evolve from operational implementation to becoming a change catalyst.
  Bring smart and innovative approaches to bear on business challenges and develop influencing skills to have a voice in key strategic business discussions and decisions.
• Strengthen relationships with the C-suite, business leaders and functional partners.
  Advocate workplace innovation across enterprise leadership including the C-suite by leveraging data to deliver the meaningful metrics senior leaders and the wider business need for critical decision-making and investments.
• Combine internal upskilling with external strategic partnerships to become future-fit.
  Perform a skills audit on your team, train and recruit where necessary. Build strategic partnerships to improve your performance across the entire real estate value chain.
• Embark on the AI journey.
  Adopt a ‘test & learn’ mindset, map the CRE activities that can be carried out by AI and develop strategies to develop the needed AI-enablement training programs and manage the associated risks.

The CRE function now has an opportunity to become a valued, trusted partner to business leaders, embracing technology to become an agent of transformation that enables smart, data-based decision making that sustains a high-performance workplace.

A ‘future fit’ CRE team should focus on core, high value-add tasks internally, while automation, robotics and AI begin to take on routine and repetitive tasks and outsourcing partners are brought in for specialist tasks and individual projects.