26 BCBusiness may 2014 illustration: graham roumieu
1. sign up your colleagues for tough
mudder, but don't give them the full
details until event day. not many people
would willingly expose themselves to
10,000 volts of electricity.
2. buy a foosball table for the office.
you'll be just like one of those hip
tech startups.
3. start a slo-pitch team, but know
that beer is the glue that holds a team
together.
4. surreptitiously bust the elevator so
you can all enjoy a team stair climb each
morning.
5. start a lunchtime jogging group.
if your office doesn't have showers, just
tell maintenance to stock up on paper
towels for the bathroom.
6. it's never too early to enlist training
buddies for the 2015 sun run. just
11 months to go!
v i s u a l l e a r n i n g
Getting Physical with
Your Co-workers
plans. Most recently, she worked
as lead designer on 11 floors of an
insurance company's downtown
Vancouver corporate headquarters,
removing all walls. "Nobody was
allowed to have a closing door," says
Hollett. "It's their policy throughout
all their headquarters throughout
Canada." There is still a hierarchy, but
rather than big bosses having closed-
door offices, they have bigger open
spaces with more furniture.
Hollett adds that her company's
client list includes insurance
companies, gaming corporations and
forestry heavyweights, all increasingly
embracing open plans. "I think big
corporate has changed," she says.
"There's a real shut-down, closed-
minded vibe about the old-school
offices."
Hollett acknowledges that noise
levels, interruptions and loss of
privacy are concerns with open
layouts, but says combatting these
changes depends on finding balance in
the space, using design elements like
sound-absorbing flooring and mixing
shared sound-proof areas into the
open layouts for meetings and private
calls. "Those can still be created
without having drywalls put up and
it being really closed off," she says. "It
can be glass."
Increased collaboration may not
outweigh the downside of increased
disruption in open plans, but in
employers' eyes that's clearly not
worth losing sleep over.
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HOt deskIng
logging into any computer
workstation that is available at
any time throughout the day.
HOtellIng
reserving a workstation ahead
of time or when you arrive at
the office in the morning.
telecOmmutIng
Watching House of Cards in your
pajamas with your computer in
your lap.
Three terms you need
to know about the
future of office work
p25-29-Intel_may.indd 26 2014-04-09 3:12 PM
