In 2017, companies around the world will spend billions of dollars on their workplaces. But now more than ever, companies must challenge themselves to break old spending habits. The nature of workplace strategy is evolving so rapidly that keeping up — let alone staying ahead of the curve — can be a definite challenge.

Workplace strategy used to be about maintaining facilities and trimming expenses — but it’s just not that simple anymore. Businesses need to create workplaces that attract the best talent, adjust to shifting workforce demographics and promote employee well-being while staying ahead of new demands and new technologies. And all of this must be accomplished while containing costs in an increasingly competitive recruitment and retention landscape.

To win the talent arms race, the importance of creating an effective workplace can’t be understated. For the average company, more than 80% of total costs are typically tied to people.¹ This means that even modest improvements to employee productivity, engagement and satisfaction in the workplace can have significant returns on investment.

In our work, my colleagues and I find that the most successful companies look at workplace strategy as a true business opportunity rather than just a design challenge. By bringing together our insights and experiences from every corner of the world, we have identified five major shifts we believe businesses need to make in the workplace over the next five years:

Together, we’ve created a series of posts that we’ll share over the coming weeks to dig deeply into each of these trends and present your “roadmap to 2022” — the ways you can start making progress now so that your business can stay on top in the future.

We’ll kick things off by exploring a topic that is core to every business: the people. Read about how you can make employee experience a core part of business strategy.

Also: Read Global Workplace Trends: Simple Steps to Take Right Now

This post is part of a series on the five workplace trends that Colliers’ global workplace experts see as the most crucial for companies to align with in the next five years. Contact the workplace expert in your region for more insights and information.

¹Rex Miller, Mabel Casey and Mark Konchar, Change Your Space, Change Your Culture: How Engaging Workspaces Lead to Transformation and Growth, (Wiley, 2014), 148.
“PIA Property Data Report 2016.” Property Industry Alliance. http://www.ipf.org.uk/resourceLibrary/pia-property-data-report-2016.html