This week, CoreNet Global released FutureForward 2025, an in-depth look at the association itself and the profession that it serves. CoreNet Global has had a knack for accurately predicting corporate real estate (CRE) and workplace trends over the last roughly 20 years.

So what’s next?

“It’s not farfetched that the term ‘corporate real estate’ might not exist in 2025,” said CoreNet Global Chair David Kamen, MCR.h. “We are more now about work enablement and experience and that might not come through CRE. It’s more about engagement and not about desks and chairs anymore. It’s a holistic look at the space.”

Other trends:

  • The CRE role in major corporations is becoming more strategic in support of the business’s A common view among the focus groups and member interviews for the FutureForward 2025 initiative is that employee experience is increasingly an important goal and needs to be thoughtfully addressed on the CRE agenda. Some believe that CRE executives will become “experience managers.”
  • CRE increasingly needs to focus on employees, using techniques such as design That will require more reliance on soft skills – a natural curiosity, being able to listen, having a high degree of empathy, being creative and taking risks – rather than traditional hard skills such as financial analysis.
  • The next generation workplace likely will be built around workplace networks that will support mobile workplace complexity. Increasingly, CRE will need to provide technology-enabled workplace networks that will allow for greater agility and flexibility for both the organization and the employee, as well as long-term enterprise workplace effectiveness for the organization and the employee, as well as long-term enterprise workplace effectiveness for the corporation.
  • The gig economy – driven by an increasingly contingent work force composed of freelancers, temporary contract workers and independent contractors – is expected to make a powerful impact on how organizations are structured, how they function and how they are staffed
  • Large corporations are relying more on outsource partners as in-house CRE teams are becoming smaller, leaner and more focused on strategy.
  • Automation will be a game changer, but it might not be quite as quick to materialize as some expect.
  • The need to understand tech will continue to grow as data analytics, AI, robotics and automation drives change across CRE, as well as the enterprise itself, and other sectors. By 2025, CRE will require more digital business skills, including expertise in areas such as business intelligence, AI, cognitive reasoning and thinking.
  • Risk management is growing in importance and impacts the entire breadth of the CRE function