HootSuite may be on its way to becoming one of the worlds social media giants, but its new global headquarters on East 8th has a bit of a summer camp feel.
Wood-covered walls evoke a forest where an owl might live. Tents yes, real tents are used as quasi-private meeting spaces. Picnic tables and ping pong tables are a fun way to unwind in the cafeteria. A sleeping cabin has three cots for power naps.
Where are the kayaks?
HootSuite spent $2 million transforming the former CSIS office into a space for its 300 employees with lots of room for growth. The vast majority of people work in large, open spaces over two floors. No walls, no doors, no cubicles, just big long tables festooned with computers. The companys founder, Ryan Holmes, has a corner office but it has a glass wall and no door.
As bare as the work spaces may be, however, theres a yoga room, a fitness room, free beer or wine on Fridays, free coffee and snacks, and a relaxed, casual atmosphere as compensation. A rooftop picnic area is being planned. Oh, and for last years Christmas party, HootSuite took over Harrison Hot Springs for a weekend.
Perhaps, creating an atmosphere that harkens back to his unplugged youth is Holmes way of finding calm amidst the demands of a six-million-user empire.
At one of Sam Sullivans Public Salons, Holmes told the story of growing up off the grid near Vernon. His parents eschewed electricity so when young Ryan won a computer a school, he had to hot wire the family car to power up his prized Apple computer. Spend too much time on the computer at night and his parents would have to use jumper cables to start the car in the morning.
Those days of being willingly unconnected are long over for Holmes who remains committed to keeping HootSuite in Vancouver. Vancouver is an amazing place where we can find amazing talent, he said during a recent media tour. There are over 500,000 Canadians living in the San Francisco area. Thats a crazy diaspora of the best and brightest. We should have figured out a way to keep them working here.
Just as the University of Western Ontario became an incubator of Research in Motion employees, hed like to see local universities do more to let grads know that they can stay in Vancouver lifestyle and work at one of the countrys most dynamic companies.
Creating a happy work environment is part of HootSuites strategy for making Vancouver a tech mecca (although there was a bit of a online contretemps over HootSuites use of unpaid interns. Tips for applying for a job at HootSuite here.)
Happy employees are keen and inspired and passionate about where they work, says communications manager Sandy Pell.
The average age of employees? Twenty-nine.
As the former Vancouver home of CSIS, Canadas spy agency, the office that Hootsuite leases from the city came with a few surprises:
the windows are bulletproof
there were a lot of hidden rooms in the basement with funny signs, says communications mgr. Sandy Pell
they found bullet holes and casings when they started renos
