Deloitte Opens Radical New Office At Halifax’s Queen’s Marque
HALIFAX — Last month, Deloitte Canada opened a new office on the Halifax waterfront, in the recently completed Queen’s Marque building.
In the aftermath of a pandemic that upended many of the traditional office conventions, Deloitte is using the new office as a testing ground; its choices in the city will inform how the company designs offices across the rest of the country.
But what they’ve chosen to do in Halifax also offers a glimpse into what Deloitte, and other large employers, think the future of office work is.
In many ways, it’s a radical departure from traditional, pre-Covid-19 ideas.
Hybrid, hackable, and collaborative
Sheri Penner, Deloitte’s Managing Partner for Atlantic Canada, says the Halifax office is organized around a much different set of priorities than Deloitte’s old spaces.
The new office is packed with collaboration spaces and technology-enabled hybrid working spaces. Sixty-five percent of the office is dedicated to collaborative work (compared to 5 percent in the company’s old office).
That includes everything from “hackable” multi-purpose meeting rooms, special booths designed for video calls, a hybrid “forum” that can facilitate large meetings with both in-person and digital attendees.
There are no assigned desks or offices. Instead, employees are free to find a space that works best for them.
They can choose from “work bars” with high-top tables, an outdoor terrace that overlooks the harbour, a quieter “library-style” section meant for more focused work, or even the company’s in-house café.
Office ‘not the end-all and be-all’ of work
The more flexible spaces, the hybrid meeting rooms, the library: they’re more than fancy technology for a fancy new office.
As it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, Deloitte is shifting to a new model of work that aims to redefine what an office is.
Penner says that means shifting not just how Deloitte’s offices are set up, but the role it plays in their employees’ work life.
“We basically say there are three places to work: at home, at the office, or at a client site,” she says.
Only a few years ago, working from home was something people usually only did under very specific circumstances, or when they had an airtight excuse.
Now, Penner says, Deloitte wants its employees to work from home any time it’s easier.
“We’re kind of pushing a bit more the other way to say the office is not your end all and be all for work. When you come to the office, you should be getting something additive out of it,” she says.
“In fact, we don’t really want you to travel and create emissions and, you know, disrupt your personal life if you’re not going to have a better experience at the office than your home.”
‘Not just a space with a desk’
Right now, Penner says, about 60-70 percent of Deloitte’s 200 Halifax employees envision themselves working partly from home and partly from the office. The rest either want to work always from home or always from the office.
She says Deloitte is bullish on its new office concept but it’s still aware that bringing people together in the same space has advantages. As employers move to more hybrid office models it will be vital for them to deeply consider what it means for their workforce.
“We have to find ways to capture that connection piece, maybe more deliberately than we had to in the past,” Penner says.
She thinks about things like Deloitte’s apprenticeship program, for example, and how not being in the same physical space might impact it.
“You think about the accounting side of our business… these accountants and tax people working late into the night next to each other learning that way. And that is the model—that is a big part of what we do. And so can you recreate that?” she says.
Penner says the key to Deloitte’s new strategy is to reframe what an office is, to create an environment that’s “not just a space with a desk.”
Eventually, she guesses, that won’t even be called an office, but probably something like a “hub.”
Ideally, the office—or whatever it’s called—will be a vibrant place where employees find value and want to spend time.
Deloitte even holds occasional pop-up events in its new office to entice employees to come down in person. Penner says it works. Even if an event is in the afternoon the office will be fuller than normal the entire day.
“I think that in the future, hopefully, people are like ‘I love my job, the culture of Deloitte is great because I do get to connect with people and live my life at home. But when I go to an office or a hub… the hub is very cool. I get that shot of connectivity and culture,’” Penner says. “It should be the best of both worlds.”
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].