CUSHMAN & Wakefield’s latest European Landlord & Tenant Survey, conducted with a total of 750 tenants and landlords across Europe, revealed that more than half the tenants have changed the way they are utilising their office space, with both desk-sharing and flexible working becoming increasingly popular.
Additionally, 60 percent of those surveyed anticipate that their space utilisation will change over the next 12 months, with open-plan and flexible working practices becoming considered more often.
The average floor space per worker in Europe has fallen from 12.8 to 12.4 square metres. Financial services tenants are leading this trend, with more than half having already reduced their floor space per person over the last 12 months.
In Slovakia, office space is typically the second or third largest expenditure in a company’s income statement and is therefore a core part of strategic discussions on cost management at the level of the company’s country manager or chief financial officer.
In central Europe generally, and in Slovakia specifically, there are similar tendencies by landlords to maintain the same headline rent but to re-negotiate incentive packages or incorporate stepped rentals.
Leases are usually long-term contracts and what is most important to the tenant, typically total costs over a period of time, often has a slightly different level of importance for the landlord, Cushman & Wakefield reported in March.
