Corporate real estate leaders are aligning portfolios with the talent lifecycle to drive performance, experience and long-term business resilience.
As competition for talent intensifies and employee expectations evolve, CRE leaders are embedding workforce strategy into portfolio decisions to align CRE goal with long term business.
“The great paradox of the AI revolution: it has made human geography more critical than ever. To win in this era, portfolio and location strategy must fundamentally adapt or risk obsolescence,” said Dimitris Vlachopoulos, Head of Portfolio & Location Strategy, Strategic Consulting at Cushman & Wakefield. “Thus, increasingly, value is being measured not just by cost and utilisation, but by culture, engagement, talent attraction & retention, digital adoption and behavioural outcomes.”
“CRE is no longer just about managing space - it’s about enabling performance and experience,” said Carol Wong, Head of Strategic Consulting, Global Occupier Services, APAC at Cushman & Wakefield. “Across APAC, we’re seeing organisations reset their return to office strategies to focus less on mandates and more on creating workplaces people want to return to. Experience, flexibility and culture are now central to attracting and retaining talent.
Across the region, companies are navigating a renewed push toward office presence increasingly using curated environments and meaningful experiences rather than enforcement. At the same time, wellbeing and burnout levels have remained largely unchanged, signalling that more intentional, data-led workplace strategies are needed.
The conversation is also evolving beyond traditional hybrid or activity-based working models toward what many are calling Experience-Based Working - an approach that integrates flexibility, digital empowerment and structured change management to sustain new behaviours at scale. AI adoption and demographic shifts are further accelerating this transformation, raising expectations for seamless physical and digital experiences.“Aligning CRE with the talent lifecycle is critical to future-proofing portfolios,” said Despina Katsikakis, Global Chair of Strategic Consulting at Cushman & Wakefield. “Real estate decisions must now be integrated with workforce strategy, workflow evolution and change leadership. When we redefine value beyond utilisation to include employee sentiment, readiness and business impact, CRE becomes a catalyst for transformation rather than a cost centre.”
Organisations are also rethinking how success is measured. Experience-led KPIs, employee sentiment tracking, behavioural adoption indicators and digital engagement metrics are increasingly complementing financial and risk-based measures to demonstrate tangible impact.
Note to Editors
- These themes were explored during a Cushman & Wakefield client panel at the CoreNet Global Summit APAC 2026.
- The panellists were
o Despina Katsikakis, Global Chair of Strategic Consulting, Cushman & Wakefield
o Carol Wong, Head of Strategic Consulting, Global Occupier Services, APAC, Cushman & Wakefield
o Dimitris Vlachopoulos, Head of Portfolio & Location Strategy, Global Occupier Services, EMEA, Cushman & Wakefield
o Tzu Sinn Low, Workplace Experience APAC - Global Real Estate and Operations, IBM Malaysia
o Su-San Tan, APAC Workplace Change Engagement Lead, Citibank NA
featuring Despina Katsikakis, Tzu Sinn Low, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, Su San Tan and Carol Wong
