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Remember that corner office? From hierarchy to collaboration, how office design has changed

Jeff Snyder of Capital Office Interiors takes us through decades in the biz

Vanessa Chiasson

February 14, 2025

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There aren’t many people who can get nostalgic about a fax machine, but Jeff Snyder is one of them. When Snyder joined Capital Office Interiors as a young salesman in 1994, he was handwriting estimates and sharing them by fax — the cutting-edge technology of the day. Now, fax machines are all but obsolete, and they’re just one of a number of massive changes in the business world that have affected office design. In many ways, Snyder, who is now the vice-president of sales and solutions with Capital Office Interiors, has been well-prepared for a career of witnessing change, starting when he was barely a teenager. He sets the scene: “Mr. Llewellyn. Clayton Park Junior High School in Halifax. 1986. He had this thing written on the chalkboard: ‘Knowledge doubles every 20 months.’ That was almost 40 years ago. That has continued to accelerate. So why do I always tell that story? Because you don't know what’s going to happen in 10 years, let alone 20 years.” Mr. Llewellyn was smart to predict an ever-changing world. When Capital Office Interiors was established by Mike McCarthy in 1974, the office environment did not include computers. What it did have was traditional, conservative layouts and corner suites furnished to clearly communicate who the boss was. Snyder says, “When you think about how organizations were set up, I would say it was in a very hierarchical fashion in those days. I think that’s been a change over the last 50 years. Not to say that hierarchies have gone away, especially in a government town.” As more and more desks needed to accommodate computers, offices had to adapt to the new tech and optimize the environment for workers. Enter giant modular panels, influenced in part by the arrival in Canada of Ikea and its Scandi-inspired design. Then, things changed again. The computers got smaller — a lot smaller — and expansive desks fell out of vogue. Computers also became portable and the idea of isolating workers in stark cubes lost ground to a more open, collaborative approach, the inevitable influence of the tech generation. Snyder recalls, “I used to handwrite quotes, and then what would happen is I would give it to an admin person to enter into the computer. It sounds so archaic, and that changed very quickly, from the time I started, within a few years. And then we all had our own computers.” He adds that, in the early years, “The work was much more manual and we needed space to accommodate that” but now things have shifted to a more collaborative approach. “Now we have a greater focus on inclusion and equity,” says Snyder, “and that had a big impact on space … The personal computer probably democratizes things to a degree… So we started to see less private offices and more of these cubicles.” In fact, while the federal government is one of Capital Office Interiors’ oldest and biggest clients, it was the local tech scene that required the company to collaborate with a new kind of client. “They did things a little differently,” Snyder recalls. “They were taking cues from some of the large, newly formed internet companies that had ideas of how work should happen. And it was a little more youthful; it was more team-oriented. It was dynamic. And we started to help them create spaces that kind of match that.” That creative energy left a lasting impression. Snyder recalls, “The concept of work in a lot of offices was still tied, in a way, to individual workstations … but we started to see more collaborative areas … I remember visiting the Nortel campus, and they had something that resembled a work cafe where you could eat and socialize … They experimented with really small, private work pods, almost before their time, so things like that … were early days of creating different spaces where people could do their best work.” He remembers the contrasting fashions sported by the sales teams that worked with government clients versus those that worked with the high-tech sector. The first group would be frowned upon if they didn’t show up wearing a suit and tie, while the second group would be laughed at if they did. Over the past five decades, the expansion and contraction of the federal civil service has also brought challenges. Over the years, the government has introduced new policies that require significant office space for administrative purposes, such as the introduction of the GST in 1991. The country has weathered recessions, enjoyed fiscal prosperity and experienced changes in government, all of which have influenced how people work in the public service. And, of course, COVID-19 ushered in a new world of hybrid work. Its influence isn’t going away anytime soon, Snyder says. “People got used to working in certain ways, creating spaces that allow you to engage in different workloads at the place of work, where you have different spaces to choose from. That's what we're really seeing.” Snyder says he and his team look at ways clients can maximize their design flexibility so their furniture can grow and adapt as they do. They also prioritize working with manufacturers that design products with “backward compatibility” in mind, meaning that today’s modular wall will still function when combined with older models. “I think we surprise people sometimes. ‘I thought I was here looking at a desk.’ Well, that’s the end result,” he says. “I like really getting into the core business issues that have space implications. It’s super fun.”