News & Trends

The traditional flight to quality strategy has focused on building class, technical specifications, design, location and infrastructure. These factors remain fundamental, but recent market research suggests that occupiers are using a broader set of criteria to evaluate office quality. Workplace performance and employee experience are becoming part of that assessment.

This change is closely linked to the way offices are being used today. Hybrid work is already established across many organizations, while companies are also asking employees to spend more time in the office. Recent industry research shows that being with colleagues is one of the main reasons for coming in. At the same time, location and the services available in the building can discourage attendance: about six in ten occupiers identify an inconvenient location as a barrier, while more than half point to a lack of adequate amenities and services.

This puts more pressure on the office to work well once people arrive. Employees need places for meetings, focused work, hybrid calls and informal interaction. A building can have a good location and strong technical specifications but still provide a poor workplace if these activities are difficult to perform.

From ‘Flight to Quality’ to ‘Flight to Experience’ in the Office Market 

This is the idea behind the shift from flight to quality toward what recent industry research describes as flight to experience.  Building quality remains the base. Hospitality, technology that supports hybrid work, useful common areas, accessibility and day-to-day services add another part of the equation. These elements influence how employees use the office and how occupiers experience the building.

Buildings that do not respond to these ways of working can lose attractiveness compared with alternatives that provide a better experience. This does not mean that every asset needs a complete renovation. Improvements to common areas, technology, services or workplace design can address specific problems without changing the entire building.

Latin America’s context and premium asset value 

In Latin America, this evolution takes place in a market shaped by economic and geopolitical volatility. According to the original research for this article, these conditions encourage more conservative and cost-sensitive real estate strategies and reinforce interest in consolidated locations and higher-quality assets.⁴ Premium buildings may also be better positioned to preserve occupancy and value when market conditions deteriorate.

The same research suggests that, in some Latin American markets, premium offices can work as a way for investors to preserve capital in periods of greater uncertainty. A relatively limited supply of high-quality office space in parts of the region may reinforce this preference.⁷ These points require additional regional evidence before publication.

Strategies for transforming the office market experience 

There is also a gap between the experience companies want to provide and what employees currently receive. According to a recent Americas occupier survey, nearly half of organizations rate their current workplace experience as average or below average compared with peers. More than half are making incremental improvements, while only about one in seven are pursuing a broader workplace transformation.

For owners and investors, this expands the way office quality can be evaluated. Location, infrastructure, building condition and technical specifications remain essential. Workplace design, technology, common areas and service determine how that asset performs during a normal working day.

For occupiers, the same logic helps distinguish between features that simply look premium and investments that solve a real workplace problem. In LATAM, flight to quality is increasingly connected to the building itself, the workplace inside it and the experience delivered every day.

References

1. Cushman & Wakefield, Flight to Experience, 2026. 

2. CBRE Research, 2026 Americas Office Occupier Sentiment Survey.

Companies in Latin America operate in a context where business conditions, headcount and organizational structures can change before a long-term real estate commitment ends. Hybrid work adds another source of uncertainty because office attendance is not evenly distributed throughout the week.

According to industry research, nearly three in four companies in Latin America operate under hybrid models, the highest proportion among the regions analyzed. When employees split their time between home and the office, demand for desks, meeting rooms and collaborative spaces can change considerably from one day to another.

This creates a practical problem for Corporate Real Estate. A company that plans its permanent space for the busiest day may carry unused capacity during the rest of the week. Planning only for average attendance creates the opposite risk: not having enough space when attendance peaks.

CRE leaders are already dealing with this issue. In a recent global survey, about one in three identified unpredictable or uneven attendance as one of their main workplace challenges. In the same study, nearly half identified flexibility of space and lease terms as the largest gap between what occupiers need and what the real estate market currently provides.

Why choose flexible office space over the conventional model

This is one of the situations where Flex Office can provide an alternative. The model combines more flexible contractual terms with ready-to-use space and, depending on the solution, integrated infrastructure, technology, maintenance and management. Companies can reduce the number of separate suppliers and processes required to open and operate an office.

The model can also reduce part of the initial investment required to fit out a conventional office. Depending on the contract, a larger share of the cost can be incorporated into recurring payments rather than committed upfront. The space can be delivered ready to operate and adapted to the organization’s requirements and brand, following a plug-and-play approach.

These characteristics can be useful for large corporations entering a new market, managing temporary requirements, expecting uncertain growth or preferring to outsource part of their workplace operation. They can also help a company add capacity without committing the entire portfolio to the same lease term or operating model.

The Latin American context adds another reason to consider flexibility. Economic volatility and regulatory changes can alter business plans while real estate commitments remain fixed. The relevant question for an occupier is therefore how much space is needed, how long that requirement is likely to last and how difficult it would be to adjust if conditions change.

A stable operation with predictable demand may still benefit from a conventional long-term office. Other requirements may be better served through shorter contracts, expansion or contraction rights, managed offices or a combination of permanent and flexible space. Flexibility can therefore be applied to the contract, the amount of space and the way the workplace is operated.

For owners, the original research also identifies an opportunity. Managed spaces may lease faster than conventional offices, helping reduce vacancy periods and potentially achieving higher rents. These claims require the supporting source to be added before publication.

The broader point is that flexible offices respond to more than contract length. They can combine space, services and operation under a model that allows companies to change capacity with fewer steps when their requirements change.

For companies in Latin America, that ability has a practical value: reducing the amount of time, capital and coordination required to expand, contract or reorganize the workplace when the business demands it.

References
1. JLL, Future of Work: Work Models in Latin America, 2024. Survey of companies across Latin America. 2. Leesman, Corporate Real Estate Leaders Poll 2026 — Mind the Gap, pp. 10–11.
3. Knotel, The Knotel Guide to the Managed Office, 2026. 

From modern office design to technology and HR strategies, what are companies worldwide doing to bring their teams together again in the workspace?

“How do I make my employees want to come back to the office?” This is a question we frequently encounter among our clients. And the answer involves many variables.

While it has been proven that remote work was successful in most cases, the physical office serves countless functions that can hardly be replicated in a virtual environment. In addition to fostering interaction among people, offices are a powerful tool for cultivating organizational culture, attracting and retaining talent, and creating an experience for employees and clients that aligns with the company’s stated values (such as sustainability, well-being, innovation, etc.).

However, to attract workers back to the office, communicating isolated policies and directives is not enough. Decisions must be made and changes activated that integrate the three most critical pillars: space, people, and technology.

Latest Trends in Modern Office Interior Design and Amenities That Make a Difference

In this regard, four archetypes have been identified for new workspaces. These respond to the different needs expressed by companies, redefining the role of offices within each organization and, why not, within the community.

The 4 Archetypes of the Modern Office: Innovation and Design to Attract Talent

1. The Matrix Model: Technologically Integrated Office Design

This is an environment that blends the physical and the digital, facilitating collaboration across time and distance between people on-site and those working remotely.

It offers a range of technical and specialized spaces, such as broadcast studios or presentation suites, providing seamless connectivity to the ecosystem for people spending time in the office. There is also a constant process of experimentation and piloting to achieve digital equity for all participants in hybrid meetings.

2. The Social Hub: Experiential Office Design

Heavily oriented toward face-to-face social interaction and collaboration, this model focuses on creating an attractive “destination of choice” for employees who now have more freedom regarding where they work.

Employees who spend at least part of their week working remotely expect a “super-experience” in terms of design, atmosphere, and human connection when they show up at the workplace.

Therefore, food and beverage are integral to a remodeled modern office, alongside client project rooms, collaborative workspaces, game zones, lounges, restaurants, and other amenities designed to enhance social activity.

3. The Shared Experience: Corporate Architecture Integrated into the Urban Space

This workplace enjoys a more permeable relationship with the local district and communities, as well as with the physical features of the urban or rural setting that provides its context. This is expressed through public lobbies, observation decks, art galleries, walking paths, food markets, and other public services carefully woven into the overall site strategy.

As part of caring for the environment, this model emphasizes sustainability, carbon reduction, and the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

There is also a clear trend here of “bringing the outdoors in.” This can be done literally by integrating the surrounding landscape into the office, adding coworking spaces to the building plan, or bringing in external catalysts—such as incorporating emerging startups into shared incubators to support corporate innovation.

4. The Development Space: Workspace Design Focused on Innovation

This model combines a focus on learning, mentorship, and creativity with a commitment to improving the mental well-being of all employees.

Innovation and learning are harder to replicate online. Returning to the office provides an opportunity to reconfigure the workspace to meet fundamental needs, offering an environment tailored to provide the right experiences and the proper level of support.

This approach manifests in environments as diverse as learning suites, rapid prototyping workshops, nap pods, prayer rooms, music rooms, editing suites, quiet spaces, social zones, and access to outdoor working areas. The goal is to allow both individuals and the organization to thrive.

In the process of applying these typologies to our clients’ office designs, the result is rarely a pure model, but rather a blend of them.

Finding which elements of these archetypes apply to each company’s business model, purpose, and objectives is a major challenge. It requires rethinking the why, the what for, and the how of the work experience. This implies a necessary review and analysis of where each company stands today and where it wants to go, understanding space as a catalyst for that change.

In this process, modern offices play a fundamental role, as they are the environment that facilitates interaction, innovation, and the constant evolution of the organization.

Inspire your team to connect, collaborate, and thrive. Partner with Contract Workplaces to develop a modern, engaging corporate workspace anywhere in LATAM. Get in touch with us today!

The natural evolution of the corporate real estate market, driven by technological, economic, and social transformations.

For decades, the office was conceived as a stable asset: a fixed, long-lasting place optimized for industrial-era efficiency. Today, this approach risks turning the office into a sunk cost and a barrier to new workplace dynamics. In many cases, the traditional office model no longer supports the business—it hinders it, limiting the company’s ability to attract talent in an increasingly volatile environment.

Simply adapting existing spaces is no longer enough. The world has changed, and maintaining competitiveness requires a deeper evolution. Rigid models, long-term leases, and underutilized spaces now coexist with organizations that need to adapt quickly, scale by project, and meet the workplace expectations of a new generation of employees.

In this context, the Office as a Service (OaaS) model emerges as a strategic response. This approach redefines the office as a comprehensive service rather than an asset the company must build and operate; it becomes a resource consumed on demand. The workspace stops being a fixed infrastructure and begins to function as a platform: a ready-to-use environment that integrates physical space, technology, and services in a flexible, modular, and scalable way. From furniture and daily operations to IT support, everything is managed externally, allowing organizations to focus on their core business.

What began as a solution for startups has now consolidated into a viable alternative for large corporations seeking operational agility, financial efficiency, and resilience against uncertainty. The “as-a-service” approach redefines the relationship between space, business, and people.

The “As-a-Service” Paradigm

The Office as a Service concept is the logical evolution of the corporate real estate market. Inspired by technology models like Software as a Service (SaaS), this model transforms real estate into an operating expense (OpEx). Instead of acquiring property, companies contract a comprehensive service that provides a functional, managed work ecosystem available on demand.

The model is defined by a core set of features that radically differentiate it from traditional leasing:

• Comprehensive Operations: The monthly fee covers not only the use of the physical space but also all the services required to run it: furniture, connectivity, cleaning, security, maintenance, and IT support. This frees the company from day-to-day facilities management.
• Contractual Flexibility: Commitments are short-term and adaptable. Companies can adjust their square footage—scaling up or down—based on business fluctuations without the penalties associated with traditional leases.
• On-Demand Access: The guiding principle is to pay only for what you use. This eliminates space underutilization—especially in hybrid work models—and its associated costs.

Within this paradigm, various offerings coexist, all sharing a focus on flexibility and service. Options range from corporate headquarters and coworking spaces to satellite offices designed to expand the talent pool.

The benefits for companies are clear. By redefining the workspace as a flexible service, they not only optimize their cost structure but also improve operational efficiency, agility, scalability, and adaptability. Furthermore, resource consumption and waste generation are reduced. This contributes to sustainability and strengthens attraction and retention efforts for a workforce that is increasingly conscious of environmental challenges.

Outsourcing office management allows organizations to focus their resources, time, and talent on activities that drive growth and value.

For real estate developers, Office as a Service represents a structural shift in the business model. It means moving from being simple providers of empty square footage to becoming managers of workplace experiences and integrated tech services, offering fully operational, customizable offices along with all associated amenities. The design must accommodate a wide variety of work styles and activities, featuring areas that can be easily reconfigured based on occupants’ needs.

It is the transition from selling bricks to selling productivity and well-being on demand.

Aligning Workplace Strategy with Environmental Goals

In today’s corporate agenda, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria have shifted from a secondary consideration to a strategic pillar. Workspace management represents one of the most effective and direct tools for an organization to reduce its carbon footprint and demonstrate a tangible commitment to sustainability.

The Office as a Service model contributes to these goals through several mechanisms:

• Physical Space Optimization: The principle of “using less” is fundamental. By reducing the occupied office footprint, energy consumption drops directly, fewer carbon emissions are generated, and waste production is minimized.
• Reduced Commutes: Enabling hybrid work through a network of flexible spaces reduces daily commutes to a centralized headquarters. Considering that transportation accounts for 60% of global oil consumption, the impact is significant. Some research indicates that remote workers can have a carbon footprint up to 54% lower.
• Shared Resource Efficiency: Similar to the Cloud Computing (IaaS) model that optimizes shared server use, space-as-a-service providers act as large-scale physical infrastructure managers. By operating centrally, they optimize the consumption of resources like energy and water, often incorporating renewable energy sources.

Adopting an Office as a Service model is both a statement of commitment to environmental responsibility and a strategic tool to move toward a more resilient and sustainable business model.

A Strategic Decision in the Face of Uncertainty

The shift toward “space-as-a-service” models is the natural evolution of the corporate real estate market, driven by technological, economic, and social transformations. It is the direct consequence of a business environment where predictability is no longer the norm and operational rigidity has become a strategic risk.

In this new context, the office can no longer be treated as a static asset that is optimized once and maintained for years. Its role has changed. Today, it is another variable in the business equation that must be adjusted with the same agility as teams, markets, and operating models.

Moving away from the paradigm of fixed asset ownership in favor of dynamic service access allows companies to decouple business growth from real estate rigidity. It is not just about cutting costs or gaining contractual flexibility; it is about regaining the decision-making power over when to grow, when to downsize, where to operate, and with what level of commitment—without infrastructure becoming a burden. It means building the operational resilience needed to navigate the economic cycles of the coming decade.

Organizations that remain anchored to traditional real estate models do not just face inflexible cost structures. They also limit their ability to attract talent, adapt to new ways of working, and respond quickly to changing economic scenarios. In this sense, inaction is not neutral; it is a way of losing competitiveness.

The physical office is not going to disappear, but it must redefine its purpose. It needs to stop being a place people attend out of obligation and become a purposeful destination: a space designed for collaboration, innovation, and culture-building, where teams choose to go because it adds real value.

Outsourcing workspace management is no longer just an operational optimization alternative. It is a strategic decision that allows organizations to focus on what truly matters: driving their business forward with focus, adaptability, and resilience in an environment that will keep changing.

Ready to transform your workplace into a dynamic asset? Contact Contract Workplaces today and let’s build an agile, scalable corporate office project for your business in LATAM.

A strategic view of space requires considering its entire lifecycle, where the initial investment is not an endpoint, but a first step.

Normally, a building’s opening is celebrated as the end of a project. However, this impression rarely aligns with reality: the actual use of the built environment reveals that the completed work is barely the beginning of a more complex process that unfolds over time, often in unexpected ways. A strategic view of space requires considering its entire lifecycle, where the initial investment is not the endpoint, but rather a first step. It is the beginning of a commitment to efficiency, performance, and adaptability.

In this context, the Facility Manager (FM) plays a decisive role: harmonizing the quality of the original design with a seamless operation that, over time, protects organizational resources and ensures the workspace remains relevant. Managing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) does not just mean cutting expenses; it also involves making smart decisions that allow the space to evolve while maintaining its functionality and purpose.

Various analyses have demonstrated an inverse relationship between an asset’s initial cost and its maintenance cost: a building with a low capital expenditure (CapEx) can lock an owner into high operating expenses (OpEx) for the rest of its useful life. Thus, while CapEx accounts for only 20% to 30% of a building’s total cost, the remaining 70% to 80% is allocated to maintenance and adaptations.

Therefore, a building’s true life does not begin with its opening; it begins with occupancy. That is when the forces of physical deterioration and functional obsolescence appear. Managing these processes requires a holistic vision from the FM: seeing it not as an intervention on an inert system, but as a dynamic performance adjustment aimed at satisfying the changing needs of occupants and organizational goals.

The Building as a Transforming System

Buildings are not static entities, neither in their use nor in their physical structure. On the contrary, change is inevitable and manifests through two types of influences: exogenous factors linked to the economic context or market pressures, and endogenous factors derived from user needs and natural wear and tear. Even if the original design did not account for flexibility, reality will eventually force transformations.

To understand this dynamic, one must consider that a building is not a monolithic unit, but a set of layers that evolve at different paces, generating internal tensions. A design that does not anticipate change quickly becomes a barrier to productivity, leading to what is known as “technical or functional obsolescence” due to technical limitations, premature failures, and changing trends.

Stewart Brand demonstrated that buildings are not static objects, but complex systems composed of layers operating at different speeds. A building’s efficiency depends on recognizing these tempos of transformation, which forces the decoupling of layers during design to facilitate maintenance and renovation.

To illustrate this logic, Brand proposes the “Six S’s” model:

• Site: The geographical context of the building. It is permanent and does not change over time.
• Structure: Its useful life ranges between 30 and 300 years. It is the most difficult and expensive layer to modify.
• Skin: The exterior envelope changes approximately every 20 years, influenced by aesthetic and thermal efficiency demands.
• Services: This includes electrical, plumbing, HVAC, sprinkler systems, elevators, and escalators. All of these wear out every 7 to 15 years and are usually the first to become technically obsolete.
• Space Plan (Layout): The interior layout can change every few years, especially in office buildings due to tenant turnover or organizational shifts.
• Stuff (Daily Use Items): Furniture, electronic equipment, etc., are constantly replaced due to wear and tear or aesthetic and functional decisions.

To these layers, we must add the occupants, whose expectations and needs change constantly.

Recognizing these tempos is essential. For instance, smart systems and IoT infrastructures evolve much faster than the building’s envelope. If these layers are rigidly integrated—to the point where intervening in one system affects the structure—the building loses strategic value and its maintenance becomes more expensive.

Workspaces must be understood as infrastructures capable of evolving to preserve their value throughout their lifecycle. In this scenario, the FM does not just step in to repair deterioration, but to manage the asset’s adaptability, allowing it to respond to new work models and technological advancements without losing its primary utility.

When Design Ignores the Passage of Time

When a design focuses solely on “day one” and omits the temporal dimension, the operational and financial consequences can be significant. This lack of foresight usually translates into hidden costs.

A rigid design, envisioned for a specific use without considering future scenarios, may require extensive interventions to adapt to new market demands such as hybrid work or technological changes. In many cases, these buildings stop meeting user needs long before their physical structure degrades, accelerating their obsolescence. In contrast, flexible and adaptable buildings extend their useful life and reduce operating costs.

On the other hand, when maintenance is not integrated from the design phase, preventive tasks tend to be postponed due to their technical complexity or cost, which can lead to critical failures, business disruptions, and more expensive emergency repairs. Similarly, prioritizing a lower initial cost at the expense of long-term energy efficiency typically results in significantly higher operating expenses.

In this sense, the absence of a design strategy oriented toward operability creates a gap between expected and actual performance, directly impacting workspace quality, productivity, and occupant well-being.

Because of this, integrating the FM right from the design stage is an absolute necessity. Once the building is up and running, correcting design errors is usually too late or financially unviable.

How to Design with the Future in Mind

The conclusion is clear: the true efficiency of a workspace is measured by its ability to evolve without losing value. A project’s success should not be evaluated by the image of its opening day, but by its performance over time, when it must respond to technological shifts, economic cycles, and organizational transformations.

Designing with the future in mind means adopting principles focused on operability, ensuring that the building can function safely, efficiently, and profitably from day one of handover and throughout its entire lifecycle. This involves:

• Anticipating Future Change: Designing structures and systems that allow for future expansions or adaptations.
• Prioritizing Flexibility: Utilizing modular construction solutions that facilitate space reconfiguration without generating waste.
• Integrating FM from the Start: Ensuring that systems are maintainable and that operational information is useful and accessible.
• Incorporating Digital Tools: Maintaining an updated digital model (such as BIM) to support asset management and facilitate decision-making.

Ultimately, a building that cannot learn or adapt is a building that begins to lose value from the day it is handed over. True sustainability is not limited to initial efficiency; it lies in the infrastructure’s capacity to remain useful, relevant, and efficient over decades.

Designing with this perspective is not just a technical decision, but a strategic one: it is what allows a building to maintain its value over time, instead of beginning to lose it the moment the keys are turned over.

Ready to build a workplace that retains its value over time? Contact Contract Workplaces today and let’s design your next corporate office project in LATAM with efficiency and long-term performance in mind.