Setting up your home office for safe and efficient working

More flex­i­bil­i­ty, reduced or no travel, and a better work-life balance – there are many reasons why working from home can be a good idea. Busi­ness­es do profit as well because regional con­straints fall away and they’re able to choose can­di­dates from a larger pool of ap­pli­cants. But in order to work ef­fi­cient­ly and safely from home, employees should consider a few different things. Find out all you need to know about setting up your home office in this article.

In the US, people do not generally have a right to work from home. Whether you are allowed to work from home is entirely at the dis­cre­tion of your employer. Where home working is agreed between employer and staff, a company must ensure that they can ad­e­quate­ly track the hours their employees have worked and provide the necessary tools. The term telework refers to work that is done remotely or from home. The US federal gov­ern­ment did sign the Telework En­hance­ment Act in 2010 to allow for greater flexible working among its workforce. However, the act only applies to gov­ern­ment agency employees and does not guarantee that in­di­vid­u­als will get to work from home. Instead, it requires executive agencies to establish telework policies, provides a statutory de­f­i­n­i­tion of telework and requires training and other pro­vi­sions to be in place.

By de­f­i­n­i­tion, mobile working is not the same thing as telework or home working, because it is not tied to a specific location. Instead, mobile workers can choose to work from anywhere – whether a café or another country.

Generally, employers have a legal duty to ensure the safety and health of their staff if they’re working from the office. The legal re­quire­ments of a home office en­vi­ron­ment are not as clearly defined. However, ap­pro­pri­ate safety measures must be provided by an employer where a par­tic­u­lar job requires them. This may include car insurance or IT safety pro­vi­sions to ensure that data is not ac­ces­si­ble to outsiders from a home network. If you typically use a computer to do your work, your employer should provide access to a virtual private network so you can access files and data safely.

If you plan to work from home long-term or regularly, you may want to set up a dedicated home office. But what do you need to look out for?

Naturally, it’s not always possible to set up a separate office for your daily work and it may also not be necessary. However, it’s rec­om­mend­ed to make enough space available to perform your duties. The US De­part­ment of Labor offers various rec­om­men­da­tions on setting up the right work­sta­tion including the use of ergonomic chairs and other ergonomic office equipment.

To clearly dis­tin­guish your workspace from your private space, it’s a good idea to separate the space using room dividers such as shelves or plants. You may also consider the location of windows when planning out your home office. Ideally, place your desk parallel to a window to avoid the sun shining in your eyes or re­flec­tions on your computer screen.

The er­gonom­ics of your workspace are an important con­sid­er­a­tion when designing your home office. You should aim for an optimal balance to ensure physical and mental wellbeing whilst allowing for efficient work per­for­mance to take place. In­di­vid­ual physical factors such as body height and weight should be factored in here.

Ergonomic factors may include, for example:

• Arrange­ment of office equipment such as a desk and chair
• User-friend­li­ness of your hardware and software
• Outside in­flu­ences such as air, sunlight and noise level

A work place is designed well when your upper and lower arms and legs are at a 90-degree angle to each other. Your feet should be placed parallel and flat on the floor. If that’s not possible, you can add a footstool. Your palms and elbows should be level with your computer mouse and keyboard. The distance to your computer monitor should be at least 50 cen­time­ters. The height of the monitor should be con­fig­ured for the upper monitor line to lie just beneath the visual axis.

An ergonomic office at home considers in­di­vid­ual needs, a matching desk and chair, and the right arrange­ment of all your working tools. One of the aspects that often gets neglected is lighting. Ergonomic lighting is composed of various com­po­nents. While work place lighting should consist of pre­dom­i­nant­ly natural light, the ideal skylight is even and bright. You can optimize your set-up by adding lights. A desk lamp should not be missing from a working from office set-up for even il­lu­mi­na­tion of your working area. A luminance of at least 500 lux is often rec­om­mend­ed.

When you’re setting up your office at home, you should consider the various sources of possible risks. For example, by ensuring your elec­tri­cal cables are arranged in a neat and tidy manner, you’ll minimize the risk of tripping. Cables shouldn’t be strewn across the floor unsecured. Cable ties and ducts allow you to combine multiple cables and get them out of the way. A cable tray is usually installed beneath a desk to store power supplies, multiple sockets, and bundled cables.

When you remain seated for a long time, mo­not­o­nous movements can become a risk for physical strain. To stimulate your cir­cu­la­tion, release certain muscle groups and prevent muscle tension by getting enough physical movement in your home office. You can create more optimal con­di­tions for your posture by adjusting the height of your desk. It’s also advisable to change between sitting and standing while working. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you could set up an office at home by placing certain tools further away from your desk. In that case, you would need to get up to take a phone call, print or scan documents, for example. Generally, anything that adds movement and diversity to your day-to-day is a welcome and mean­ing­ful addition.

A well-equipped home office requires software and hardware, and a range of com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools to speak to col­leagues and access files on a shared drive. Pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions solutions such as Microsoft Exchange provide a broad spectrum of functions to col­lab­o­rate with team members. Es­tab­lished Office ap­pli­ca­tions like text and spread­sheet pro­cess­ing, and pre­sen­ta­tion ap­pli­ca­tions can be accessed by all members in a team no matter where they are based.

Most corporate data are sensitive. To ensure that remote-working employees can access files securely, a VPN is often a must. The virtual com­mu­ni­ca­tions network enables data transfer using special en­cryp­tion and au­then­ti­ca­tion methods. Once es­tab­lished, its usage is un­com­pli­cat­ed. It may be worth checking with your IT de­part­ment about ad­di­tion­al tools when setting up the home office.

When you’re working in an office, small issues can be quickly discussed and resolved with co-workers. Col­leagues often spend their lunch dis­cussing business topics. For team com­mu­ni­ca­tion at home to work just as smoothly, com­mu­ni­ca­tion platforms are essential. Project man­age­ment software is a useful addition to organize strong col­lab­o­ra­tion between teams.

In order to store or allocate large amounts of data, cloud solutions have proven ideal. Team members are able to access files from anywhere. Features such as automated syn­chro­niza­tion ensure that data is always kept up-to-date across any device type. For example, the HiDrive cloud storage allows people to create and manage their own accounts with syn­chro­nized reading and writing rights.

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