Working Outside the Box

2010-05-12 (수) 12:00:00

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The monotonous cubicle farm, the hallmark of corporate culture, may be getting phased out, and not just because the ranks of the jobless have swelled. If you’re lucky enough to be employed, you may find yourself in a changing work environment: It’s more transparent, free-flowing and collaborative.

The new office paradigm is the opposite of the veal-fattening pen, where workers toil in isolation. The advertising giant Grey Group is one of the many companies that have switched to an open layout, moving its 1,200 employees, most of whom had offices, to six floors instead of 26, reported The Times. Now, there are three offices, and the creative and production departments lack cubicle walls.

“We’ve created a faster environment, one that is more open and collaborative,” Tor Myhren, the chief creative officer of Grey New York, the largest subsidiary, told The Times. “This space reflects what’s happening in the digital world.”

Walls are not the only things to disappear in offices; chairs are, too. Medical researchers have found that people who stand at work tend to be healthier than those who sit. And in the last few years, several office supply companies have begun selling desks that are tall enough to work on the computer comfortably while standing.

Nichole Stutzman, creative manager for the ergonomic furniture company Anthro, noticed that people tend to stand when they want to get something done, wrote The Times. “We have a lot of designers here, and when they’re trying to draw or do something creative, I start hearing the desks go up,” she told The Times, referring to convertible workstations .

So, beware the chair. And the walls. And also not having enough interaction with your co-workers, a problem that freelance workers or those with work-from-home jobs confront. For them, the concept of co-working solves that. Co-working companies set up an office space and rent out the desks to anyone who needs one. For a fee, it’s a quiet place to work with office amenities like conference rooms, copiers, printers and Wi-Fi, but more importantly, an instant community, wrote The Times. People work independently , but there is the opportunity to share ideas, socialize and even network.

Marissa Lippert, who runs Nourish, a company that offers nutrition and lifestyle counseling, works out of In Good Company Workplaces, a co-working space in Manhattan for women entrepreneurs where a basic plan costs $300 a year. “It’s the best of both worlds,” she told The Times. “You run your own schedule and company, but you have the benefits of a corporate culture.”

The concept of a temporary, freeflowing space seems to have carried over into career shaping . Economists believe that there are a growing number of people who prefer their lives as independent contractors as opposed to having a fixed corporate position, wrote The Times.

Michael Sinclair worked at a marketing and strategy consulting firm near Atlanta until he was laid off last year. He started to sell himself as a consultant and got several part-time projects. “I just saw you really can’t rely on a company,” he told The Times. “I think too many people, even in this day, still think you can rely on a company for security.” He would rather rely on himself, he said.

“I see this as the way more people will work in the future.”

ANITA PATIL