The Office Group approached Open Ear, asking us to establish a brand soundtrack in their flexible ‘Club Rooms’ work spaces. The Club Rooms are a communal working environment catering to independent start-ups and small businesses with high growth potential. Prior to working with Open Ear, the Club Rooms were very quiet spaces, providing no privacy for members' conversations. This lead to phone calls taking place in corridors, reception areas and other inappropriate spaces.

Open Ear conducted a three month consultation with members and the Office Group team, establishing from members if (or how) they would like music to be introduced. The overwhelming response in favour of music gave the Office Group impetus to begin working with Open Ear on an ongoing basis.

Open Ear created a soundtrack for The Office Group, factoring the responses from the clients, the Office Group brand and visual design and, crucially, the function of each space as an environment for working. The soundtrack caters to most tastes, contains a mix of instrumental (non-intrusive so as not to distract) and more familiar songs (recognisable to promote comfort), and focuses on sounds which have warmth, smoothness and are unlikely to jar or interrupt one's train of thought. The playlists adjust according to the time of day and each day is segmented so that the flow of music creates the appropriate energy at all times.

A survey by research body Mindlab in 2014 showed that 88% of people were at their most accurate - and 81% at their fastest - when music was playing.

Recently, Open Ear have introduced several seasonal/guest-curated playlists. ‘Motown Mondays’ give members a feel-good kickstart to the week, while ‘Funk and Soul Fridays’ creates an appropriate pre-weekend atmosphere. The introduction of higher energy playlists have also soundtracked the fitness and workout side of TOG.