Customer stories · Healthcare
A US healthcare technology company reopened with 68% less office and 150 desks for 200 people.
After a year with its headquarters closed, a medical lab and diagnostics company reopened a smaller section of the building on shared desks, with Kadence managing who comes in and when.
The situation
Before Kadence
- A headquarters closed by the pandemic and left mostly unused for a year
- A decision to reopen one section of the office, 68% smaller, and save on real estate by moving 200 returning employees onto 150 shared desks
- No process for shared desks, before or at reopening: people took a desk and kept it for the day, which was never going to hold
- Four questions to answer: how to rework the office for hybrid, how to get the most from a smaller space, how to make it easy for visitors to book, and what tools the new model needed
What changed
With Kadence
- Employees able to book a desk for any day they choose to come in, see who else has booked, and find teammates and book nearby
- Office days by choice, two a week, with departments deciding what works for them; the Services department uses team days on Tuesdays and Thursdays for in-person meetings
- Visitors from other sites and travelling executives booking a desk on the move before they arrive
- Auto desk release returning a desk to the pool when the person who booked it does not check in, or checks out early
- Real-time desk usage, so the team knows who has booked, who has not shown up, and which areas are busy or under-used
Shared desks with a process behind them
Reopening at 68% of the previous size only worked if 150 desks could serve 200 people, and that depended on a process the company had never had. With Kadence, employees book a desk for the days they choose to come in, see who else is coming, and book next to teammates. Departments set their own rhythm within a two-day-a-week guideline: the Services department, for example, schedules team days on Tuesdays and Thursdays so its in-person meetings land on the same days. Recurring desk bookings grew 25% month on month for six months, which the team reads as people both returning and getting into the habit of booking before they come in.
“When someone is coming in from out of town, or when executives come in, it was incredibly easy to utilize Kadence to reserve a desk while travelling.”
Keeping a smaller office available
Getting people back was the short-term aim; the longer one is to get the most out of the downsized office while keeping the experience good for the people in it. That means tracking desk usage in real time so 200 people can rely on 150 desks, knowing ahead of time who has booked and who has not checked in, and seeing which areas are popular or under-used so traffic can be evened out. Auto desk release does most of the work: a desk that is booked but not checked into, or vacated early, goes back into availability for someone else. In the busiest parts of the office that stops high-demand desks sitting empty, which matters more with less space to spare.
More stories
Next step
See what Kadence would do with your floors.
Thirty minutes with a workplace strategist. Bring a floor you are unsure about.