Is Bowling with Your Boss Worth It?
A surprising 96 percent of companies now hold off-site employee events. What is making them so popular, and are they worth it?
Many workers may still be irked about coming into the office part-time or full-time. But when it comes to heading to an off-site event, they are apparently all in.
To the surprise of naysayers who think employees don’t want time together, new figures show that off-sites are nearly ubiquitous in the corporate world. Just 4% of companies don’t host them, compared to 16% pre-pandemic, according to a 2025 report from Emburse, an expense-intelligence-software firm. More than half of organizations now hold one or two large off-site events annually, a trend that experts say makes sense at a time when global work engagement rates are the lowest in years. “I’m not surprised,” says David Napeloni, vice president of client services in the Life Sciences practice at Korn Ferry. “It creates cohesiveness for the foreseeable future.”
But even if they are showing up, not all employees are on board. Many express frustration about the double burden of missing out on days of family or personal life, then having to catch up on work when they return. Some arrive with a “this better be useful” mentality. “Employees might have a little ambivalence,” says engagement expert Mark Royal, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. This can be mitigated, he says, by emphasizing the benefits of attendance, including the opportunity to be heard and seen, connect with rarely seen colleagues, and access leadership.
For the companies, meanwhile, the events can challenging to organize, especially as various costs have soared since the Middle East conflict. “I’ve had clients who were unwilling to spend the money or reluctant to have folks with pencils down,” says Jenna Young, head of creative for the Culture, Change and Communications practice at Korn Ferry.
The companies say they are hoping off-site events will build the kind of alignment, trust, and culture once seen in the day-to-day workplace, before hybrid arrangements became more standard. Experts say that many schedules are deceptively simple—meals, workshops, socializing—especially for senior global leadership teams, where the agenda is humble: getting to know each other well. “They’re about building trust in very basic and not-complicated ways,” says Kim Waller, senior client partner in the Organizational Strategy practice at Korn Ferry. Amid daily noise that often drowns out the signal, leaders must make big choices without the support of data—which makes trusting their peers paramount.
Firms are particularly keen to use off-sites to build the sort of corporate purpose that drives job satisfaction, which is tied to long-term employee satisfaction and sense of belonging. Companies are trying to create a way for workers to feel they’re part of the organization, especially earlier-career employees who crave time with colleagues.
Given the costs, experts say firms can run analyses on ROI, gathering data around the purposes of the event. For example, if the goal is employee engagement and technology adoption, firms can collect data on engagement and tech usage before and after the off-site. Experts advise keeping costs lower by pairing up with other companies to host off-sites, allowing team bonding and partnerships to develop while saving significantly on costs. “It gets two things out of one,” says JP Sniffen, practice leader at the Military Center of Expertise at Korn Ferry.
Above all, experts suggest that any off-site be built around a bombproof intent and objective. Otherwise, the event can be a waste of time. Sure, bringing together far-flung staffers is great for morale and culture, but that alone doesn’t justify the cost, says Paul Fogel, a sector leader in the Software practice at Korn Ferry. “As long as there’s a strong mission and purpose, off-sites are great—but that’s a hell of a caveat,” he says.
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