Companies in Europe are increasingly prioritising employee needs when making business and real estate decisions, according to CBRE's latest annual Occupier Survey.

Companies in Europe are increasingly prioritising employee needs when making business and real estate decisions, according to CBRE's latest annual Occupier Survey.

The survey, now in its fifth year, polls real estate decision-makers at global corporations which collectively occupy around 200 million m2 worldwide, to understand their objectives and associated challenges across a broad range of issues.

The respondents represent companies headquartered primarily in Western Europe or North America spanning multiple sectors, of which the largest are banking and finance, professional services, and technology and telecommunications.

EMPLOYEE NEEDS
The importance of an effective workplace strategy that prioritises staff needs has risen up the agenda. This marks a shift from the start of the economic downturn when cost was the core strategy driver, which created a potential disconnect between companies and their employees.

Today, companies acknowledge these factors cannot be managed in isolation as evidenced by a third of respondents (33%) citing labour and skill shortages as a key business challenge, up from 21% last year.

In addition, the workforce featured heavily as an explanation for companies’ location decision-making. For example, around half of the respondents (46%) cited talent availability as a key factor behind location decisions, while 30% highlighted the cost of labour as a key driver. Both responses were 10% higher than the corresponding figures last year.

As a result, interest in adopting workplace strategies continues to gain momentum. Of those surveyed, two thirds (67%) reported that their workplace strategy was primarily driven by the need to attract and retain talent. This represents a 20% increase from last year (48%) and dislodges cost savings from the top spot (56% in 2013 to 43% today) into third place as the principal aim of such a programme. The second most popular reason to implement a workplace strategy was the desire to increase employee productivity (46%), up from 37% last year.

COMMENT
Richard Holberton, senior director at EMEA Research and Consulting for CBRE, commented: 'Roll back two years and 70% of companies reported that the uncertain economic outlook in Europe was a key factor in their real estate strategy, with cost management being the primary objective. Today, this has somewhat abated with 50% identifying weak economies as a concern.

'Instead, attention has turned to the workforce. Location decisions are becoming more dependent on where labour is, or where it can be persuaded to move to, and building selection also increasingly reflects the importance of staff attraction and satisfaction. As a result, property decisions and employee aims are becoming increasingly aligned, with workplace and staff wellness high on the agenda.'