Commentary

Metrics that Matter

As working practices and employee priorities change, firms need new metrics to measure performance.

November 15, 2022

Historically, corporate real estate (CRE) leaders measured performance from the perspective of operational efficiency and traditional KPIs were focused on metrics such as maintenance costs and cost per sqm. Pre-pandemic this was already changing and new metrics such as employee experience, productivity and technological capabilities were coming to the fore.

The pandemic has accelerated changes to workplaces and working practices and new priorities have emerged for CRE leaders:

  • Improving workplace experiences and catering to a more physically dispersed workforce are now much more of a focus for organisations.

  • Talent attraction and retention is a key focus amid the ‘great resignation’ and employee engagement, workforce resilience and hybrid strategies are key components of this. So is health and wellbeing, which has now emerged as the number one priority for employees.

  • ESG is no longer a nice to have for APAC corporates and achieving net zero carbon targets within ambitious timeframes is a must for many. D&I is also a priority as is ensuring employees’ physical and mental health and wellbeing needs are met.

  • Firms are looking to build more flexible, agile portfolios with the aim of improving operational efficiency and boosting resilience.

The 2022 update of JLL’s Metrics that Matter research was recently released. This latest iteration reflects these changing priorities and takes into account newer value-based metrics alongside their more traditional counterparts which suffer from a number of drawbacks:

  • The adoption of hybrid means occupancy and density are perhaps less relevant than before.

  • Space utilization can now be augmented by metrics that track how real estate is being used in real time.

  • The focus on ESG and associated regulations and targets require new metrics.

  • Capturing data and using it in the context of real time decision making remains a challenge despite the focus on technology.

Metrics that matter goes into detail on new metrics, the rationale behind them and outlines the steps that organisations need to take to get started. The report can be found here.