Global office utilization rebounded sharply in 2025, marking its largest annual gain in four years, but employers are finding that mandates alone are not what is drawing people back. New survey data from CBRE’s 2026 Global Workplace & Occupancy Insights report indicates that offices intentionally designed for collaboration, culture and connection are seeing the strongest improvements in attendance.
According to the report, office utilization rose to 53% in 2025, up from 38% the prior year. Peak utilization reached 80%, while average occupancy climbed to 111%, a sign that more organizations are embracing desk sharing and flexible workplace strategies. Rather than focusing solely on how full the office is, companies are increasingly evaluating performance based on what the workplace enables employees to do.
CBRE’s Lenny Beaudoin, executive managing director of workplace, design and occupancy and a co-author of the report with colleague Susan Wasmund, told Connect CRE that the best gains occur where the office is treated as a purposeful environment. He described a shift in workplace strategy toward affiliation, collaboration, culture and performance, with attendance viewed as an outcome of a better experience rather than a target in itself.
The research suggests that the office’s primary role has moved away from supporting individual, heads-down work and toward facilitating interaction. Among survey respondents, 93% cited collaboration with colleagues as a main reason to come in, followed by in-person meetings at 90% and social interaction and team building at 89%. Space allocation has followed suit: between 2021 and 2025, the share of space devoted to individual workstations dropped from 56% to 35%, while collaborative areas expanded from 12% to 56% of the workplace.
The report also notes a clear performance gap between prime buildings with strong amenity offerings and the broader market, with vacancies measurably lower in the best-quality assets. Beaudoin cautioned, however, that amenities work best as part of a holistic workplace ecosystem rather than as standalone features aimed purely at attracting people back to the office. Wellness and lifestyle elements contribute to engagement when they support broader goals of connection and productivity.
Examples cited in the report include a global financial institution where 85% of employees voluntarily met attendance expectations after the firm improved hybrid coordination and made on-site time more socially and professionally valuable. Another case study highlighted an Australian company that replaced rigid return-to-office rules with structured in-person team gatherings tied to relationship-building and key project milestones.
CBRE recommends that organizations approach office space as a strategic advantage instead of a fixed cost, measuring engagement and business outcomes alongside utilization, designing spaces to promote human connection, and using workplace data to shape attendance strategies instead of broad mandates. Suggested investments include technologies such as space reservation tools, presence sensing and AI-powered occupancy analytics, along with a focus on workplace quality and employee experience.
Looking ahead, CBRE expects office utilization to continue rising through 2027, while acknowledging that economic uncertainty, slower hiring, workforce reductions and pushback against rigid attendance policies could moderate growth. Beaudoin also pointed to AI-driven changes in job responsibilities and uneven attendance patterns as challenges that employers will need to manage. He noted that utilization can keep climbing if clear policies are paired with a compelling workplace experience, and that organizations which clearly articulate what the office provides that remote work cannot will be better positioned to translate attendance into business value.
