A Kinder, Gentler Workplace.

• Author: BONHAM, NICOLE A.

Whether it be Feng Shui design, the concept of ergonomics, scented air, natural light or gurgling water, existing in this increasingly wired and technology-based market might well require a gentle push backward--away from progress--toward tools and principles that have been around for ages.

Do you work from a well-lit, pleasingly colored oasis? Or, like most of us, do you shuffle and rustle your papers from an okay-but-not-great chair, at a desk not exactly right, under chilly fluorescent lights and with yesterday's files piled in a quick corner?

If you fall into the latter group, among compatriots who would eagerly trade an autographed Dilbert strip for a simple desk lamp with a diffused bulb, you are among the legions of workers nationwide who spend much of their lives-more than half-at the office, too often amid surroundings little better than a cheesy motel room.

If this is you, your most coveted score is likely not that Kool-Aid-colored iMac, but a leafy, oxygen-generating plant, a graceful shade of paint on the walls, a window or maybe even-heaven forbid-some nature sounds. At least incandescent lighting.

While the hard-charging labor push of the 1990s is shifting-USA Today reports more people than not (54 percent to be exact) say long hours at the office DON'T pay off, that personal life is, well, more important. Despite this, we will still end up spending a particularly gruesome portion of our lives at the workplace. For those shortsighted, matte-gray walls, racks of fluorescent lights and fields of modular cubes remain the answer-cheap and easy. Some would even call the no-frills design style "efficient."

But for employers wishing to get a little something extra from their labor pool, to perhaps recruit that elusive game animal of the 21st Century (the well-qualified, educated and earnest employee), the market is heavy with tools and tips for making your office a veritable oasis where people will love to work.

Wind and Water

Arguably, the hottest new (and, paradoxically, the oldest) form of office design to hit the mainstream these days is Feng Shui, Chinese for "wind" and "water." On the surface, it's a trendy design principle incorporating the elements of nature. Beneath the knockoff river stones and designer essential oils, it's an ancient discipline defining the relationship between self and place.

And where could that be more important than at the office, where we spend an inordinate amount of time, where we struggle to...