The Office Is Back. The Strategy Isn’t

The attendance panic is over.

And yet Leesman's latest research, covered by Propmodo in April, should stop every CRE leader mid-deck. The survey covers 129 global real estate leaders responsible for about 915 million square feet. Asked what goals drive their real estate strategy: 84% said positive employee experience. Number one. Cost reduction came second at 60%.

Then asked what factors actually matter most when selecting a new office: location came first (74%), cost came second (67%). Employee satisfaction and experience potential came in at 27%.

That's not a strategy gap. It's an execution gap. And it explains most of what's wrong with the current cycle.

What's Happening

The office recovery is real. 87% of organizations now set explicit utilization targets — up from almost nobody five years ago. The "we'll figure out attendance later" era is over.

But utilization going up doesn't close the Experience Gap. It reveals who has addressed it and who hasn't.

Leesman has been benchmarking workplace experience across more than a million survey responses for over a decade. The numbers are moving in the right direction. The average Leesman Index score is higher now than before the pandemic. The number of Leesman+ certified buildings, those scoring 70.0 or above, has grown.

But the average office still scores 69.5 on the Leesman Index. The average home scores 79.5. That 10-point gap doesn't disappear because attendance is up. It shows up in every renewal conversation.

Leesman's Q4 2025 survey of 129 senior CRE leaders puts a number on where things stand: 65% say their organization still hasn't found the right approach to hybrid work. 56% have formal attendance mandates. Only 35% say their current model actually works.

You can have rising utilization and still be in that 65%. They're not the same thing.

Why It Matters

Here's the decision pattern Leesman surfaced: CRE leaders say they prioritize experience. They actually select buildings based on location and cost. Experience lands at 27% in actual decisions.

The reason is structural, not motivational. Where the real estate function reports shapes what it optimizes for. Leesman's Chief Insights Officer Peggie Rothe said it plainly: "If you are reporting to HR, there would be a bigger understanding of the importance of experience. If they report to the CFO, then it is likely to be more cost-led."

Most CRE leaders genuinely want the experience to be better. The problem is they can't connect workplace quality to outcomes their internal stakeholders measure. Retention, talent attraction, productivity — the line from office investment to those numbers is hard to draw. So the easy metrics win. Cost per square foot. Badge swipes. Floor efficiency.

The same dynamic plays out on the landlord side. Leesman's research found that only about 1 in 10 occupiers classify their property owners as active or progressive in understanding and supporting their needs. Nearly half describe landlord efforts as "developing." Another 44% call them basic or limited.

Utilization is up. The relationship between landlords and tenants has not moved nearly as much.

What to Do

Get ahead of the renewal conversation before it starts. The most common failure: a CRE leader walks into a renewal with a badge-swipe report and a floor plan. The tenant shows up with a broker and a competitive set. The building had years to demonstrate it was worth staying in. It didn't.

The signals that predict renewal intent aren't occupancy numbers. They're engagement signals: event attendance trends over the last 12 months, growth in common area and social space bookings, how often tenants show up on days they aren't mandated to. If you can show a tenant that behavioral engagement in your building has increased quarter over quarter and the pattern concentrates in collaboration and gathering spaces, you're having a different conversation. If you can only show them occupancy is "healthy," you're in a negotiation.

For occupiers: if 84% of you say experience is the goal and 27% weight it in decisions, the fix isn't a new workplace strategy document. It's a direct conversation between real estate and HR about what the office is actually supposed to accomplish, in your buildings, for your specific people, in the talent markets you're competing in. Not in theory. In the next lease cycle.

The office is back. The 53% utilization number is real.

But the difference between a building that compounds value and one running on mandate momentum is whether someone decided to close the gap between what they say and what they decide.

Anyways. The metrics are improving. The strategy is the next question.