How To Move Your Office To Your Home

With Internet broadband finally reaching speeds that are acceptable for business use and many communication skills moving online, there’s never been a better time to relocate your office space to either a room in your home or a purpose-built summer house in your garden.

You can install the most luxurious hammock and relax with your tablet or laptop computer connected to the Wi-Fi in your home and your customers or teams of employees around the country need never know that you haven’t travelled with half a million other commuters into your city centre office space.

Work less or more from home?

Many employers are concerned that employees working from home will get up late, consume a long breakfast, watch daytime television, finish early and claim a full day’s pay. The reality is that many employees will put in longer hours because they are saving the travelling time for each journey which means they are fitter and have less stress when they begin work. By not having to wear a suit or uniform to work, people can work in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Employees will miss some of the social aspects of working in an office complex, but coffee breaks may be shorter and without office gossip to take over working hours, it’s easy to concentrate on the important tasks and clear the day’s work, and a short trip to a superstore for the week’s shopping won’t affect the work schedule.

Where a company has its employees working in an office at their home, they may be able to save a considerable amount of money by having those workers only visit the office once in a while and perhaps using a hot-desk arrangement. The company will save money on expenses, but will perhaps be more worried about the security aspects of allowing employees access into the company’s server for work purposes, from outside the building.

Technology has changed everything

Faster broadband speeds and social media software, coupled with online video conferencing, means that the differences between being office bound and working from a corner of a room in your home, are easily manageable.

Creative people will find that they are able to work without being disturbed and if this means they wish to change their working hours during a day or week, as long as the results remain consistent and don’t reduce, what does a company have to lose?

The modern office in a city centre is trying to pin people to their desks so that employees can be more effective during their working hours, by using modern technology to inspect and clarify and employee’s work ratios compared to their colleagues. Similar software can work within an employee’s home.

For self-employed people, working from home provides a great bonus in enabling entrepreneurs to control their initial expenses before turnover reaches a suitable level to expand.

A home office may allow a parent to reduce their childcare costs by being at home and available for their child where necessary. A family may be able to spend more time together instead of waiting for people to return home from a long day’s commute.

Both the home-worker and the business owners will detail what is expected from both sides so that there are no misunderstandings about how the working from home process will work, and while the employer may always expect more, the employee will be able to increase their standards of work.

Damien Higgins is very productive in his home office. He writes for water cooler rental firm Eden Springs.