The Future of Work Survey 2024

JLL’s biennial Global Future of Work survey has been exploring the evolving world of work since 2011 and is recognized as a leading industry publication on the emerging CRE trends. This year, we draw on the experience of over 2,300 CRE decision-makers and the perspectives of JLL experts, highlighting the key areas of focus and strategies CRE leaders should be prioritizing over the next 12-24 months and beyond. Future of Work 2024 is part of JLL’s Future Vision program, a scenario-led exploration of the future of Real Estate. 

The 2024 Future of Work program will investigate these factors in a series of articles, beginning here with a look at the implications of shifting work patterns and their effects on workplace expectations. We will examine what this means for CRE leaders and their teams and how they should respond to meet the evolving needs of their organizations and staff.

• A desire to increase and rebalance organizational headcount, in an attempt to recruit the right talent and skills to be future-ready;
  
• A strong focus on organizational efficiency that requires smarter long-term investment decisions;
  
• Competing visions of ‘how work should be done’ to achieve the best performance – often coexisting within the same organization;
  
• An attempt from ‘Office advocates’ to promote equal work practices among their workforce and to design more inclusive workplaces;
  
• The recognition that flexibility in workstyles is the best way to strengthen organizational performance among ‘Hybrid adopters’;
  
• Finally, an opportunity for CRE teams to contribute to the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) discussion, by defining a compelling and evolutionary office model for their organization.
  

Despite the tight labor markets, the recent mass layoffs in several industries and the rise of AI and automation, survey respondents feel positive about the future. 64% expect their headcount to increase by 2030. But a rebalancing of skills is also taking place, as employers are looking to recruit the right profiles that will enable them to be future-fit.

The three most-cited corporate goals in the 2024 survey are: growing revenue through new markets and M&A, attracting and retaining talent and achieving organizational efficiency. The latter raises ongoing questions around the best ways to achieve smart growth and to reconcile potentially competing expectations, leaving organizations with a delicate balancing act. What’s the best way to secure organizational efficiency and attract the right talent? Should employees work together in the office, taking advantage of face-to-face interactions? Or should they be offered maximum flexibility, to allow them to decide where and when they can perform at their best? And what type of workplaces should CRE teams offer?

While approaches to office attendance vary widely, decision makers appear ready to invest. 65% of respondents said they expect their overall CRE budget to increase between now and 2030, but it will have to be invested cleverly and responsibly, in a context where CRE teams are still struggling to be perceived as value drivers and not merely cost centers.

The 2022 Future of Work survey found that 77% of decision makers thought hybrid work was key to attracting talent, however in 2024 the momentum has moved strongly towards office-based work. There is now a broadly even split between those organizations which favor some form of hybrid workstyles and those expecting to see employees back in the office full time.

Today, 44% of organizations can be characterized as ‘Office advocates’, who would like to see staff in the office five days a week. This compares to just 34% of employees working full time in the office in 2022. Meanwhile, the remaining 56% of ‘Hybrid adopters’ are operating a range of strategies from fully remote to at least three days a week in the office.

Even though there is often a gap between what employers expect and what is happening in reality, CRE leaders must assess whether the return to more office time will continue and what this means for office utilization. They also need to consider how space design can support the coexistence of different workstyles within their organization. For example, planning for full-time attendance for populations of engineers, while tech support teams might work in a hybrid manner. Despite this complex and evolving landscape, it’s clear that the office is central to work: 85% of organizations have a policy of at least three days of office attendance per week. And 43% expect the number of days in the office to increase by 2030, though this may still be within a hybrid work strategy for many organizations.

As a result of their growth projections and office attendance policies, more than half of respondents expect their total footprint to increase over the next five years. In parallel, more than 60% expect to see increased utilization of their office space and they are ready to explore a wide range of possibilities in order to achieve this.

While 39% of organizations could envisage introducing different pay and benefits to employees who attend the office regularly versus those who work completely remotely, 37% could consider providing a network of additional workspaces closer to where their people live. On the other side of the spectrum, one-third said they could envisage going completely remote by 2030 with no office space at all, relying instead on virtual spaces and team building events.

This is another signal that organizations are not yet clear on the best approach and that many options are still being considered. CRE decision-makers must therefore assess how best to support their own organization’s chosen workplace strategy and build an evolutionary office program, able to deal with a complex and shifting environment.