Ottawa digital advertising agency Jackpine has implemented an open-concept floor plan where employees all work around a big table. [Photo © Samantha Lem]
By Samantha Lem
Offices in Ottawa are increasingly catching on to the open office craze, ditching their traditional cubicles in exchange for a modern, wall-less floor plan.
While experts say these workspaces dissatisfy employees, some businesses that have made the switch, like digital advertising agency Jackpine, say it’s made big improvements in fostering a “community” among employees.
Since moving to an open layout last June, Jackpine’s CEO Liam Mooney says it has made employees “more productive and engaged in their work.”
Jackpine is a small office tucked away atop a sushi restaurant in Chinatown. The inside of the company reflects the artistic character of the neighbourhood. A wooden bar lines the long windows looking onto Somerset Street W., and giant posters and Chinese store signs decorate the walls.
The most striking feature of the office is the large table that extends from one end of the room to the other. This table, with Mooney sitting at the head, is the nerve centre of the office. It’s where most of the 12 or so employees create ideas and work on projects.
“Meetings are terrible. A lot of older, established companies have a habit of meeting all the time,” he says. “What’s happening here is we have one big meeting all day long. If someone has an idea for a project, all we have to do is stick our heads over our monitors or stand up.”
Emma Cochrane, Jackpine’s designer, was in charge of renovating the space. She says the key was to understand people’s different needs.
That’s why she decided to transform the boardroom in the back into a recreation room, where employees can grab some privacy or take a break from the studio, she says. People can kick back on the red sofa or a lounge chair, and flip through a magazine, while starting up the record player or chatting with fellow employees.
“We wanted to create a space where it’s comfortable to work but also to hang out,” she says. “You can’t just design a space based on what’s most efficient or else it won’t work.”
It’s not only start-ups that are implementing open floor plans – other organizations, like HUB Ottawa, rely on this work environment, as well.
HUB Ottawa relies on an open-concept office in order to foster a network among its members. Photo by Samantha Lem
HUB is one of the city’s few co-working facilities where individuals or teams can use the organization’s shared office space. HUB is geared towards people, ranging from professionals to artists to freelancers, who are working towards a social cause. Since its inception in 2012, it has grown its membership to 300 people. Memberships can go up to $375 per month for an individual and $450 per month for teams.
Like Jackpine, there aren’t any cubicles at HUB, just shared tables and bars.
An open-office concept is the only way HUB can achieve its goal of fostering a community, says Heather Grand, HUB’s director of community. The tables and furniture are moved around about once a week to keep the space inspiring and interesting.
Although there are some private meeting rooms, Grand says that because HUB’s focus is on getting people to connect with one another, members primarily work at one of the many large tables.
“The space lends itself to more creative work, so we find that people sitting in different areas or desks can meet other organizations, mentors and collaborators,” she says. “The office is very transparent, and an actual connection can happen that way.”
Open-concept offices aren’t limited to start-ups, either. The federal government is moving its department buildings towards open floor plans. In 2011, the Department of Public Works and Government Services launched a program called Workplace 2.0, which aims to renovate many of the federal government’s buildings across the country, creating more open-office space while also reducing the amount of floor space per worker.
This change was needed to respond to the needs of the modern worker but also to save costs on rent, according to a 2011 presentation by Public Works.
The down side of open workspaces
But although these environments may improve teamwork and employees’ well-being, research suggests they can have negative consequences.
Many workers are dissatisfied with open offices, according to a 2013 study by the University of Sydney. Researchers surveyed more than 40,000 people in 303 office buildings across Canada, the United States, Finland and Australia.
The study’s results revealed that workers in open offices mainly complain about noise distractions and lack of privacy.
In open workspaces with no partitions, nearly half (48 per cent) of workers complained about the lack of sound privacy. This number increased in partitioned open offices (59 per cent for high partitioned cubicles and 58 per cent for low partitioned cubicles), suggesting that workers found noise to be more disturbing when they couldn’t identify the source.
“In general, satisfaction level with workspace environment was the highest for those in enclosed private offices,” wrote the authors.
These findings weren’t surprising for Sean Lyons, a business professor at the University of Guelph who studies inter-generational differences in the workplace.
These open workspaces can be intrusive, depending on a person’s work preferences, he says.
“No one can be forced to work in a way they’re uncomfortable with and expected to be productive,” he adds.
Due to these tensions, Lyons says he doesn’t expect open offices to become mainstream – at least not until baby boomers leave the workforce, as “they’re more resistant to these kinds of changes.”
But once Generation Y starts to dominate the workforce, it’s then that open offices may become the norm because what millennials highly value in the workplace is fun and forming friendships with co-workers, he says.
“When you put those things together, it cries for a workspace that allows people to interact and have fun,” says Lyon. “There’s a recognition that we spend so much of our lives at work, so we shouldn’t look at work as dead time between living your life,” he says.
The main way companies can offset the issues of noise and privacy, says Lyons, is by providing flexibility in the office.
“There has to be that traditional quiet space where people can work on their own and close the door, and some communal space if people want to do that,” he says.
At Jackpine, Mooney says he recognizes noise can sometimes be an issue. It’s not unusual to hear multiple voices talking all at once or music playing loudly.
Although people’s different habits can get bothersome, Mooney says these are only “minor issues.” Ultimately, if someone needs some time away from the bustling shared table, they can retreat to the recreation room or one of the private rooms in the office.
“There comes times where there are a lot of voices, but I’d rather have those moments rather than total quiet,” he says.
So what’s one remaining issue Mooney still has yet to solve in his office?
“There are instances where people can be a little fascist with their music selection, that gets on people’s nerves sometimes,” he says, laughing.
