What is a destination office?

How it works

The starting point is what people cannot get at home: time with colleagues, space for group work, good equipment, learning and social connection. A destination office gives more of its floor to collaboration zones, meeting rooms with reliable video, social and hospitality areas and quiet rooms, and less to rows of assigned desks.

Design is only part of it. What people find when they arrive matters as much as the fit-out: knowing their team will be there, finding a desk or room without friction, and having a reason to come in, such as a team day, an event or a lunch. Programming and coordination turn a well-designed floor into a place people seek out.

The idea is closely linked to flight to quality, where occupiers move to fewer, better-located and better-equipped buildings. Organizations judge whether it works by voluntary attendance, peak-day occupancy, event participation and employee feedback, rather than by compliance with a mandate.

How to measure it

Track voluntary attendance by team and weekday after changes to space or programming.
Measure use of each space type to see which parts of the office people actually seek out.
Track event RSVPs and attendance.
Ask employees what would make the commute worth it, and compare the answers with usage data.

Examples

A bank keeps its hybrid policy and invests in a major refurbishment of its headquarters, with multi-level villages, open staircases and an indoor garden.
A company replaces two floors of assigned desks with a café, project rooms and bookable focus booths, and runs a weekly community lunch.

Benchmarks

Citi is investing £1 billion in a full-scale revamp of its Canary Wharf headquarters in London, to make the office somewhere people want to be rather than enforcing strict attendance.
Kadence: Why Citi is sticking to hybrid work while rivals push for RTO

Common mistakes

Spending on design without fixing basics such as booking, video in meeting rooms and knowing who will be in.
Building amenities nobody asked for instead of asking employees and checking usage data.
Calling the office a destination while enforcing attendance so strictly that people would come in anyway.

How Kadence helps

Kadence helps make each visit worth it. People see who is coming in and book desks and rooms from the Kadence apps, Microsoft Teams or Slack, Workplace Events with RSVP (WorkOps Pro) gives people reasons to gather, and Workplace Insights shows which spaces are used, so leaders can put investment where people actually go.

Workplace events · Workplace analytics · Hybrid working coordination

Frequently asked questions

What makes an office a destination?

A destination office offers what people cannot get at home: colleagues to work with, space for group work and good meeting rooms, amenities and social areas, events, and an easy experience from booking to arrival. It is worth the commute because of who will be there and what people can do there.

What do employees want from the office?

Employees most often come in to see and work with colleagues, so they want to know their team will be there. They also want reliable meeting rooms and technology, places for both focus and collaboration, good amenities, and an easy way to find a desk or room.

How do you entice employees back to the office?

Give office days a purpose, coordinate team days so colleagues overlap, make booking and arrival easy, invest in the spaces people actually use, and run events and social moments. Measure voluntary attendance and ask employees what would make the trip worth it, then act on the answers.

Is a destination office the same as a smaller office?

Not necessarily, but they often go together. Many organizations reduce total floor area while improving quality, moving to fewer, better buildings with more collaboration and social space. The aim is an office people choose to use, whatever its size.

Workplace experience (WX) How employees experience the office and its services, from finding a desk and colleagues to hosting visitors and getting help.
Flight to quality The shift of office demand toward the best-located, best-equipped buildings, while older, lower-quality space loses tenants.
In-person collaboration Work people do together face to face, and the practice of measuring whether office time brings the right people together.
Return to office (RTO) An employer requirement that remote or hybrid staff spend more time in the office, either full time or on set days.

Kadence editorial team · Last reviewed September 30, 2026