Cushman & Wakefield has released a global survey conducted in conjunction with CoreNet Global that provides insight into the features and accommodations that tenants truly desire at the office. Participants in the 2023 What Occupiers Want survey revealed the factors that are most important in their real estate decision-making in the post-pandemic era. Some of the results don’t come as a surprise, including the fact that most occupiers plan to continue to decrease their real estate footprint. However, tenants’ emphasis on communal space is perhaps greater than one would have anticipated. With occupants being increasingly keen on fostering collaboration among employees, the number of respondents interested in communal office space has nearly doubled since the period right before the pandemic, growing from 20 to 30 percent of the workspace to 40 to 50 percent.
The workplace of tomorrow is going to look a lot different than it did in the days when employees vied for the corner office. Office tenants may be decreasing their footprints around the globe as the sector struggles to recover from the consequences of the pandemic, but they are placing an increasing degree of importance on communal space as a key venue for promoting collaboration and innovation. Office footprints might be getting smaller, but employees’ desre for convening in the workplace is on the rise.