Hybrid work is not a brand new working mannequin for Australian organisations. The larger query is what comes subsequent.
At Flex/26 Melbourne, office, amenities, actual property, HR, and know-how leaders got here collectively to discover how organisations can transfer from adapting to hybrid work to working successfully inside it. Throughout conversations about office technique, area utilisation, synthetic intelligence (AI), worker expertise, asset lifecycle administration, and portfolio optimisation, a standard theme emerged: office selections have gotten extra linked.
One of many clearest messages from the occasion was that the constructed surroundings now operates as an interconnected system. Individuals, areas, vitality, property, and know-how are more and more linked, which suggests selections in a single space can have an effect on price, threat, operational efficiency, and worker expertise elsewhere. Consequently, siloed administration fashions have gotten tougher to maintain as organisations put together for the following section of office evolution.
The market forces driving this shift lengthen properly past hybrid work. Audio system highlighted rising strain from rising worker prices, sustainability targets, increasing digital infrastructure, more and more linked buildings, and accelerating AI adoption. Collectively, these traits are pushing organisations towards a brand new working mannequin the place office, amenities, actual property, know-how, and worker expertise can not be managed independently.
Key takeaways
- Office technique is changing into steady. Hybrid work, altering worker expectations, and evolving enterprise wants imply organisations must often consider how their workplaces are performing reasonably than counting on annual planning cycles
- Linked information is changing into important for higher selections. Bringing collectively office, occupancy, amenities, actual property, and asset information offers leaders higher context for selections about area, operations, threat, and funding
- AI readiness is determined by operational readiness. AI may also help office groups establish patterns, cut back handbook work, and floor insights, however its worth is determined by dependable information, linked techniques, and clear governance
- Workplace worth issues greater than attendance alone. Australian organisations are more and more targeted on offering workplaces staff actively select to make use of, supported by robust experiences, facilities, and know-how
- Asset efficiency and office efficiency are linked. Upkeep, asset situation, sustainability efficiency, and constructing operations immediately have an effect on how reliably staff can use office areas and providers
- Cross-functional alignment will turn out to be more and more essential. Office, amenities, actual property, HR, and IT groups want shared info and goals to make quicker, extra knowledgeable selections concerning the office
Leaders are not area, know-how, folks, and property as separate priorities. They’re contemplating how every influences the others and the way higher info may also help groups make selections as circumstances change.
As organisations plan for 2027, 5 priorities from Flex/26 Melbourne stand out.
- Office technique is changing into steady
Office technique was as soon as constructed round comparatively predictable assumptions about the place folks labored, how a lot area organisations wanted, and the way workplaces could be used. Hybrid work has made these assumptions tougher to keep up.
Worker behaviour adjustments. Demand varies all through the week. Enterprise priorities shift. Rules evolve. Portfolios broaden, contract, and alter objective.
Market information mentioned throughout Flex/26 Melbourne highlighted simply how dynamic office demand has turn out to be. Peak workplace utilisation throughout Australian occupiers now averages 67% throughout the work week. Whereas considerably stronger than pandemic-era ranges, this determine demonstrates why organisations can not depend on static office plans. Capability, utilisation, worker demand, and enterprise necessities want ongoing evaluate.
For Australian organisations, that makes office technique much less of a periodic planning train and extra of an ongoing operational self-discipline.
The shift was mirrored all through Flex/26 Melbourne, together with conversations about market traits, office technique, area utilisation, and benchmarking. Reasonably than asking whether or not staff ought to be within the workplace, leaders are more and more asking what they want from the office when they’re there and whether or not their present surroundings helps these outcomes.
The rising adoption of versatile office fashions reinforces this development. Knowledge shared throughout the occasion confirmed that 53% of Australian staff now sit in unassigned seating environments, representing a 20% enhance since 2019. This enhance in office flexibility creates new alternatives for optimisation, nevertheless it additionally requires stronger visibility into how areas are literally getting used.
That requires groups to check technique with noticed behaviour repeatedly. Reserving, occupancy, utilisation, worker, and portfolio information may also help office leaders see the place assumptions not match actuality and regulate accordingly.
The result’s a office that may reply to altering demand reasonably than counting on plans based mostly on yesterday’s patterns.
- Office information must result in selections
Office groups have entry to extra information than ever. The problem is popping it into one thing helpful.
Organisations can accumulate info from desk and room bookings, occupancy sensors, entry management, upkeep techniques, worker platforms, constructing techniques, and actual property portfolios. When these sources stay disconnected, nevertheless, leaders should wrestle to reply fundamental questions on how successfully their workplaces are working.
The dialogue at Flex/26 Melbourne moved past merely accumulating extra info. Interactive roundtables targeted on office metrics and benchmarking, whereas periods throughout office and asset administration thought of how information can assist sensible operational selections.
A number of conversations strengthened that office information turns into Most worthy when it offers context. Occupancy information, asset efficiency info, office service utilization, actual property metrics, and worker expertise insights usually sit in several techniques owned by completely different groups. But selections more and more require understanding how these datasets affect each other.
The necessity for linked info is changing into extra pressing as office ecosystems turn out to be more and more digital. Occasion discussions highlighted the fast progress of linked applied sciences throughout industrial buildings, with billions of IoT gadgets producing operational information from property, constructing techniques, environmental controls, occupancy sensors, and office applied sciences. Whereas this connectivity creates unprecedented visibility, it additionally will increase complexity for office groups.
For 2027, the precedence is creating stronger connections between info and motion.
A utilisation proportion, for instance, has restricted worth by itself. Mixed with reserving patterns, occupancy info, area sorts, and worker behaviour, it could assist leaders perceive whether or not they have the appropriate areas in the appropriate locations.
The identical precept applies past office utilisation. Connecting asset situation, upkeep historical past, constructing info, and office demand may give amenities groups higher context for prioritising work and planning investments.
This linked method additionally helps higher trade-off selections. Adjustments to office facilities, service supply, asset investments, and portfolio methods usually have an effect on worker expertise, working prices, threat, and office efficiency concurrently.
The discussions additionally highlighted how office and amenities platforms are evolving to assist these extra linked decision-making fashions. Examples shared throughout the occasion included new approaches to information lake integration that convey collectively amenities, office, actual property, and asset info right into a unified operational view. By making beforehand disconnected information simpler to entry and analyse, organisations can spend much less time assembling studies and extra time figuring out traits, evaluating dangers, and appearing on insights.
The aim shouldn’t be one other dashboard. It’s a clearer view of what’s occurring and what to do subsequent.
- AI readiness begins with linked operations
AI was one other essential a part of the dialog in Melbourne, significantly as organisations contemplate how rising capabilities can assist office planning, worker expertise, and amenities operations.
The potential functions proceed to develop.
Occasion discussions mirrored a broader shift occurring throughout Australia’s workforce. AI is more and more altering how work will get achieved, shifting staff away from repetitive administrative duties and towards higher-value actions targeted on judgment, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving. For office leaders, this implies contemplating not solely how AI can enhance operations, but additionally how workplaces can assist altering workforce expectations.
AI may also help groups analyse office patterns, establish traits throughout giant datasets, cut back repetitive administrative work, and make info simpler to entry. Over time, it may additionally assist extra dynamic selections about how folks, groups, and areas come collectively.
However AI can’t compensate for fragmented or unreliable info.
If office, asset, occupancy, and worker techniques function independently, AI has solely a partial image of the surroundings it’s being requested to analyse. Organisations subsequently want to consider AI readiness as an information and operational problem as a lot as a know-how problem.
The broader office ecosystem mentioned at Flex/26 Melbourne reinforces this level. AI more and more is determined by information from office platforms, asset administration techniques, constructing applied sciences, occupancy instruments, and worker functions. When these sources stay disconnected, organisations restrict the standard of insights AI can generate and the outcomes it could assist.
Individuals additionally highlighted how quickly adoption is increasing. In line with information shared throughout the occasion, almost 84% of Australian workplace staff already use AI at work, growing demand for AI coaching, digital office capabilities, and know-how environments that make info extra accessible and actionable.
The dialog additionally prolonged past particular person AI instruments. Leaders mentioned the rising want for technology-native workplaces with AI embedded into workflows, office functions, and operational processes.
Classes targeted on amenities and asset administration offered examples of what this evolution appears like in apply. New AI-powered capabilities are making it simpler for groups to work together with office and amenities information utilizing pure language reasonably than counting on advanced studies or specialised analytics experience. As an alternative of constructing customized studies, groups can ask questions, floor traits, establish dangers, and discover portfolio information via conversational interfaces.
These developments are significantly essential for amenities and actual property groups, the place precious operational info usually stays locked inside advanced enterprise techniques. By lowering boundaries to information entry, AI may also help extra stakeholders take part in decision-making whereas sustaining governance and management.
Reasonably than treating AI as a standalone initiative, organisations are more and more trying to combine intelligence all through the office ecosystem.
Which means establishing trusted information, connecting related techniques, defining governance, and figuring out which enterprise issues AI ought to assist remedy.
Importantly, leaders emphasised that modernisation mustn’t come on the expense of governance. As AI capabilities broaden, organisations should steadiness accessibility with controls round information high quality, safety, permissions, and compliance. The simplest deployments shall be those who make info simpler to eat whereas preserving confidence within the underlying information.
The organisations greatest positioned to achieve worth from AI in 2027 will not be these deploying essentially the most instruments. They are going to be those who have created the operational basis vital to make use of intelligence successfully.
- Workplaces must earn the commute
Hybrid work has additionally modified the best way organisations take into consideration office expertise.
The workplace is not the automated setting for each exercise. Workers can full many particular person duties remotely, which raises the bar for what an workplace must ship.
The dialog is subsequently shifting from workplace attendance to workplace worth.
Analysis highlighted throughout Flex/26 Melbourne confirmed that 65% of Australian occupiers establish enhancing worker expertise via the office as a key precedence. On the identical time, 77% cite office facilities as a vital consider workplace selections. Collectively, these findings reveal that organisations are more and more targeted on creating workplaces staff actively select to make use of reasonably than merely measuring attendance.
For a lot of organisations, the strongest causes to convey folks collectively are actions which can be tough to breed remotely: constructing relationships, collaborating on advanced issues, studying from colleagues, strengthening tradition, and connecting throughout groups.
Creating these experiences requires greater than altering an attendance coverage.
Office leaders additionally face the problem of supporting a number of generations within the office concurrently. Occasion discussions highlighted how office methods should accommodate a workforce that features Era Z, millennials, Era X, and child boomers, all with completely different work preferences, know-how expectations, and collaboration types.
On the identical time, worker expectations proceed to evolve alongside know-how. As AI adjustments how staff work and the place they derive worth, workplaces should more and more assist actions that profit most from in-person interplay, together with teaching, innovation, mentorship, relationship constructing, and sophisticated collaboration. The office expertise is changing into a complement to digital work reasonably than a alternative for it.
Office leaders want to know the worker journey, from deciding when to come back into the workplace and discovering the appropriate area to navigating the constructing, collaborating with colleagues, and accessing office providers.
Expertise performs an essential function when it removes friction from that journey. Reserving, customer administration, office providers, and different techniques ought to make it simpler for folks to make use of the office reasonably than including one other layer of administration.
House additionally must mirror what staff are coming in to perform. That may imply trying past desk counts and contemplating whether or not the office has the appropriate steadiness of collaboration areas, assembly rooms, targeted work settings, and social areas.
Actually, discussions all through the occasion prompt that greater than half of future workplaces will more and more function locations for collaboration, social connection, and crew engagement reasonably than solely particular person job work.
In 2027, office effectiveness will more and more rely on whether or not the workplace helps purposeful in-person work, not merely how many individuals go via the door.
- Office efficiency extends past area
One of many essential themes at Flex/26 Melbourne was that office efficiency can’t be separated from the property and infrastructure supporting it.
Audio system repeatedly emphasised that buildings ought to be seen as interconnected techniques reasonably than collections of impartial features. Office areas, vitality techniques, property, digital applied sciences, and worker providers affect each other, that means failures or inefficiencies in a single space can shortly have an effect on price, threat, and office expertise elsewhere.
This broader perspective additionally extends to sustainability and price administration. Discussions highlighted the numerous function buildings play in world greenhouse fuel emissions, reinforcing the rising significance of vitality effectivity, asset optimisation, and operational visibility. As organisations pursue sustainability targets, office and amenities leaders are more and more anticipated to steadiness environmental objectives alongside utilisation, price, and expertise goals.
A office can have the appropriate structure and powerful worker demand, however the expertise shortly deteriorates when rooms are unavailable, tools fails, constructing techniques underperform, or upkeep interrupts vital areas.
The session on asset lifecycle administration highlighted the connection between asset selections and broader office efficiency, whereas the Archibus dialogue prolonged that view throughout facility operations and the constructing lifecycle.
A number of product and roadmap discussions demonstrated how amenities administration itself is evolving. Office and amenities platforms are more and more targeted on simplifying how info strikes between groups whereas sustaining acceptable governance and management. Examples included unified work request processes, enhanced building-data visibility via BIM integrations, improved person profile administration, and AI-generated summaries that assist groups evaluate and prioritise upkeep requests extra effectively.
These capabilities mirror a broader trade development. As amenities groups handle rising portfolios, growing compliance necessities, and extra advanced constructing environments, there may be rising demand for options that cut back administrative effort whereas enhancing visibility into operations.
For amenities groups, this creates a possibility to maneuver past reactive upkeep and have a look at property in a wider operational context.
Asset situation, upkeep historical past, utilisation, prices, and lifecycle info may also help groups resolve the place to direct assets and when restore, alternative, or different intervention makes essentially the most sense.
Connecting that info with office demand provides one other layer of context. Groups can higher perceive not solely which property require consideration, but additionally how these property have an effect on the folks and areas counting on them.
Rising planning approaches are additionally serving to organisations align office demand with operational realities. Discussions round neighbourhood planning and organisational hierarchy information highlighted how groups can higher perceive the place folks work, how groups collaborate, and the way areas assist enterprise outcomes. Linking workforce and workspace information offers a extra full view of each utilisation and office effectiveness.
That connection between office and asset intelligence will turn out to be more and more essential as organisations search for methods to enhance effectivity whereas extending asset worth.
Actual property leaders face comparable pressures. Occasion discussions highlighted growing demand for lease optimisation and portfolio visibility as organisations reassess area wants in a hybrid surroundings. With office prices persevering with to rise and plenty of organisations nonetheless missing clear visibility into lease obligations and portfolio efficiency, data-driven actual property selections have gotten a strategic precedence reasonably than an administrative train.
What these priorities imply for 2027
Taken collectively, the conversations at Flex/26 Melbourne level towards a office mannequin constructed round linked decision-making.
The office is more and more being managed as an built-in system the place folks, areas, property, know-how, and operational processes repeatedly affect each other.
That shift is going on towards a backdrop of broader market transformation. AI adoption is accelerating, office expectations proceed to evolve, sustainability necessities are growing, and organisations face rising strain to optimise actual property investments. On the identical time, linked applied sciences are producing extra operational information than ever earlier than, creating each alternatives and challenges for office leaders.
Organisations that recognise these connections shall be higher positioned to optimise utilisation, enhance worker experiences, assist AI initiatives, and make smarter funding selections throughout their portfolios.
Expertise investments will more and more must reveal measurable enterprise outcomes reasonably than merely adoption. Leaders will need to perceive whether or not investments enhance utilisation, cut back operational friction, strengthen worker expertise, enhance asset efficiency, or assist higher portfolio selections.
Knowledge maturity will matter for a similar motive. Organisations that may join info throughout office, actual property, amenities, and asset operations can construct a extra full image of efficiency and reply quicker when circumstances change.
AI raises the stakes additional. Dependable, linked info offers AI extra context to assist helpful selections, whereas fragmented information limits what organisations can realistically anticipate from it.
Most significantly, these priorities can’t stay remoted inside particular person features. Office, amenities, actual property, HR, and IT selections more and more have an effect on each other. Cross-functional alignment is changing into a part of efficient office administration.
From office administration to office intelligence
Flex/26 Melbourne confirmed how far the office dialog has moved.
Australian organisations are not merely determining hybrid work. They’re coming into a brand new working period for the constructed surroundings, one outlined by linked techniques, clever operations, altering workforce expectations, and growing enterprise complexity.
Throughout office, amenities, and actual property discussions, one message remained constant: intelligence is changing into important for managing complexity and threat.
What was significantly notable at Flex/26 Melbourne was how the dialog has shifted from merely digitising office and amenities processes to creating these processes extra clever. New capabilities targeted on AI-assisted evaluation, built-in enterprise information, automated operational insights, and extra accessible reporting reveal how organisations are starting to rework info into motion.
The following section of office know-how won’t be outlined by accumulating extra information. It will likely be outlined by serving to extra folks perceive that information, act on it quicker, and make higher selections whereas sustaining the governance and operational self-discipline required at enterprise scale.
Organisations that may protect current investments whereas making a basis for future capabilities, together with AI, sustainability initiatives, office expertise enhancements, and portfolio optimisation, shall be higher positioned to adapt as circumstances proceed to evolve.
The roadmap examples shared throughout the occasion strengthened a broader trade route. Organisations are searching for methods to modernise facility administration, office operations, and actual property planning with out sacrificing governance. Whether or not via AI-assisted analytics, built-in information environments, unified workflows, or extra clever planning instruments, the target stays the identical: make advanced office info simpler to know and act on whereas sustaining the controls required for enterprise environments.
Australian organisations are asking tougher questions on the way to make hybrid work work higher: how a lot area they want, which experiences staff worth, the place property require funding, what their information is telling them, and the place AI can meaningfully enhance selections.
Answering these questions requires greater than particular person instruments or remoted datasets.
It requires connecting folks, locations, property, and data so leaders can see how the office is performing as an entire.
As organisations transfer towards 2027, the flexibility to show office info into actionable intelligence shall be central to creating workplaces that may adapt to altering worker expectations, operational pressures, sustainability necessities, and enterprise priorities.
Prepared to show office information into higher selections? Uncover how Eptura connects office, folks, and asset operations to assist your organisation enhance visibility, optimise assets, and put together for what comes subsequent. Discover Eptura’s options and see how linked office intelligence can assist your priorities for 2027.
Continuously Requested Questions
By Craig Maroney
Craig Maroney is Vice President, APAC, at Eptura, with greater than 20 years of expertise in office technique, amenities management, and company actual property. He has led office transformation initiatives for big organisations throughout Australia and often contributes to trade conversations on hybrid work, office know-how, and the way forward for work.
