Home office: at work at home instead of at home at work

When done right, working from home can be a step forward

Viewed by some with scepticism as an invitation to Dolce Vita during working hours, and celebrated by others as a revolution in working life that promises a better quality of life. Either way, working from home has changed the reality of work. Modern communication technology has made it possible to work professionally within your own four walls. Smartphones, tablets, the all-encompassing cloud and fast internet connections have made physical presence at the workplace at least partly unnecessary. But what should you do when the topic of working from home – or, to use the old-fashioned term, “teleworking” – comes up?

Integrate work conveniently into everyday life at home and continue to pursue professional goals with maximum productivity? Whether these advantages can be achieved in a work context depends on various factors. But what experience can you rely on here?

Pros and cons: pitfalls and opportunities of everyday working life at home

Weigh things up! That is the first and most important tip in the search for the right solution for your individual work situation. Because working from home is not the best solution for every type of person. Anyone who chooses it should above all have a good measure of self-discipline: housework, the kids, spontaneous visits from friends are just a few of the many big and small distractions lurking around every corner.

It takes a very healthy sense of duty, for example, to tell dear friends that their visit falls within your regular working hours when they appear at the door with cake in a basket, intending to surprise the newly minted home worker with the best of intentions. Situations that would seem completely absurd in an office building suddenly have to be defended in rooms that are normally reserved for private use. And anyone who thinks that raising children and the working day can easily be combined is often proved wrong. But working from home can also bring a great many advantages.

These are fairly obvious: no more annoying commuting, no more time-consuming and nerve-racking traffic jams after work, no more train delays, packed underground trains or frozen car locks in winter. At least not the kind that raise your stress levels before the working day has even begun and ruin the day from the outset, especially for those to whom morning is not exactly their favourite time of day.

Keyword circadian rhythm: people’s internal clocks demonstrably tick differently. While a “night owl” finds it easier to work in the evening, an “early bird” hits a slump at that time – but gets off to a much more efficient start to the working day. Then there are the time-consuming aspects of office life, all those unnecessary rituals and polite hallway chats, which simply disappear. In short: when it’s time to work, work gets done. Last-minute tasks dumped on you by the chaotic colleague next door are just as unthinkable at home as any kind of dress code. Whether in socks or tracksuit bottoms: the laptop by the window doesn’t ask for a tie. Breaks no longer have to be spent in a cold concrete courtyard with a weak cup of vending-machine coffee, but can be used for gardening, cooking, jogging or road cycling – and even dentist appointments, six-monthly tyre changes or trips to the hairdresser can fit into a lunch break without costing holiday days or overtime credits. And the biggest advantage of all: a home office is possible in any household.

Practical considerations

This raises the question of how it can be put into practice. It goes without saying that not every line of work can be moved into the comfort of home. Just as a surgeon will always need to operate on the patient, a social worker will still need to work in schools or youth centres. However, when a doctor is writing invoices, ordering medication or preparing reports, they can theoretically do this from home as well. The same applies to outreach workers, who can write their reports at home. In creative professions – communication design, architecture, authors or photographers – and technical ones (system support, programming), almost everything can be done from home apart from details or meetings that don’t fit into a video conference. In all cases, however, an internet connection is the technical basis for the work, and the faster it is, the better.

Working from Home – Practical Implementation

Internet connection, technology and a little IT know-how

Today, almost everyone already has this essential basis for working from a home office: a router that provides internet access throughout the house. The device itself usually comes from the telecommunications provider and has interfaces for network cables as well as antennas for wireless home networks, also known as Wi-Fi. On one side of the router is the home network, which is connected either directly or via a switch to one or more computers. On the other side, a broadband internet connection (DSL, VDSL) ensures fast data downloads and uploads as well as communication with the main computer at the company, which is itself connected to the internet. So what do devices in the home office need to be able to do at a minimum?

Roland Karl is the owner of Munich-based TraininX Computer-Service GmbH and advises companies and private individuals every day on all kinds of IT-related topics. The subject of “working from home” also comes up regularly for him. In his shop in Obersendling, he takes the time to explain the basics. “The equipment you need depends entirely on the type of work that has to be done,” he says right at the start. “First of all, I have to ask myself what kind of data I’m dealing with,” Karl explains. If it involves Word or Excel files, then of course those programs must be able to run on the home PC or laptop. In principle, any standard computer is sufficient to save documents or data via the internet to a server that colleagues at the company can access. He gestures towards the various computers and laptops in the showroom: “Absolutely everything you see here is perfectly adequate for that.”

Companies also often work with a database located on the company server. The freelancer or home worker accesses the server from home. “They then simply open an input screen and use it to change individual data records on the server.” However, the dimensions of that screen, which is usually displayed in the browser, are specified by the server and are the decisive factor in this case. “It is important that the monitor at home provides the required resolution and can display the screen in full.” Hardly any computing power is needed for this kind of database work – that is the server operator’s responsibility, as the actual processing takes place on the server. “Strictly speaking, all you need at home is a suitable monitor, mouse and keyboard, plus a mini computer,” says Karl, pointing to a plastic box – barely larger than a packet of cigarettes. It contains enough power to run a home office.

Considerably more powerful equipment is needed, for example, by architects working with CAD software. “Programs like these usually require a lot of computing power,” says Karl. By contrast, the architecture firm’s server only needs enough capacity to store the edited files.

Interior design: Choosing the right room

Between the minimum setup of a mini computer, monitor and mouse and a three-computer setup including network drive and printer, there are several possible space requirements. Lucky are those who have a spare room within their own four walls that they can turn into a study. Experts agree that a lot can be done right – and a lot wrong – when choosing a workspace. For example, the study should be neither a windowless back room facing the courtyard nor a busy walk-through room that the whole family uses for one activity or another. Ideally, the home office should be flooded with light and well ventilated, neither too large nor too small – and it can certainly feel a little cosier than the average office in a company complex.

Not everyone is in a position to set aside a whole room for work. If you live in a two- or three-room flat, you may be able to integrate your office into an existing room instead. But be careful! A dark little corner with shelves on either side, a tangle of cables on the work surface and a wobbly wooden stool in front of it is just as bad for motivation as a makeshift workspace in the kitchen that has to be set up and taken down again. Your desk should be accessible at all times – without having to do the washing-up first or carry the sewing machine back to the cupboard. “If you’re going to do it, do it properly” is the motto when it comes to integrated workspace solutions. Fortunately, there are now plenty of innovative pieces of furniture designed for exactly this purpose. They help turn, for example, an unused section of wall beneath a skylight into a pleasantly lit workspace: modern bureaus that you can simply fold shut at the end of the day and that come with integrated cable channels and LED daylight lighting . Of course, with a little imagination and a few bottles of furniture polish, even Grandma’s old kitchen table can be transformed into a stylish workstation.

The less space you have, the more creative your home working solution needs to be. If you find it difficult to integrate a suitable work surface into your home, it’s worth contacting an interior designer – or experienced friends who have already furnished one or two flats. Often, it only takes a small tweak in a completely different part of the room to free up enough space for a proper home office. One cardinal mistake, however, lurks right at the start: if the desk is to be installed in the bedroom, it absolutely must be visually separated from the sleeping area. After all, who wants to look at the next day’s work while falling asleep – or even wade through a sea of paperwork that has turned into a carpet of scattered sheets?

Choosing furniture

From modern secretary desks that, after work, look like a designer shelving unit resting against the wall, to the classic desk with a height-adjustable worktop: the furniture industry has the right pieces ready for almost every need. While just about anything can serve as a desk as long as it has a top, enough space for a laptop, perhaps a printer alongside it and plenty of cables underneath, it pays to take a closer look when choosing a chair—for the sake of your back alone—when deciding what you want to place your backside on for eight to nine hours a day.

Here too, specialist retailers offer just about everything, from the height-adjustable executive chair to a simple office chair with an adjustable backrest – even office chairs whose look and function are inspired by motorsport can be found in the wide range. The main things to consider are that the chair is comfortable and can adapt at least a little to the needs of the person working in it. A seat that tilts or a backrest that moulds to the spine certainly won’t hurt.

It all sounds incredibly technical, and it used to look that way too. These days, however, office furniture suppliers have also realised that many employees work from home on individual or several days, and have designed furniture whose intended use is no longer immediately obvious. While the design tends to be more modern than traditional, it fits well into contemporary homes.

Lighting

One point that, according to common expert opinion, is most underestimated is lighting (see also the article Office lighting: Bright bulbs for bright minds). Simply placing an old desk lamp on the desk as a possibly decorative, but by no means professional light source is definitely not enough. Anyone setting up a home office should pay attention to two things – regardless of whether they are turning the attic into an open-plan office with a stylish lounge area and several workstations, or adding a separate work corner to the bedroom. First, enough natural daylight should fall on the work surface and, second, there should be enough artificial light sources available to switch on depending on the time of day and the amount of incoming light.

More specifically, the work surface should be positioned at a ninety-degree angle to a window so that during the day the light falls onto the desktop from the right or the left. Artificial light should come from several light sources on the ceiling and be distributed as evenly as possible throughout the room. To ensure that the light is reflected evenly into the parts of the room facing away from the windows, the surfaces of the office furniture should be kept in a light, matt shade wherever possible. To explain this more clearly: individual spot-like light sources create uneven lighting conditions – if they also come from the front or behind, they are reflected in the monitor and cause glare that the person working constantly has to avoid. This leads to poor posture and tension – and ultimately the work suffers as a result. LED lamps with a “daylight” colour temperature are recommended and are now available from large furniture stores for under 5 euros. Also recommended: stationary daylight lamps with enough power on the desk to provide direct task lighting in dim conditions.

Tips and tricks

Then there’s the wretched tangle of cables: printer cables, Ethernet cables, perhaps a scanner, charging stations and a phone – all the devices you need for everyday work have this annoying habit of being tethered by a cord. Their leads tend to gather in thick knots under the desk and slowly wrap themselves around your feet. If you want to avoid this kind of sneaky entanglement, a cable management system is highly recommended. This can be built into the furniture, but it can also be made yourself from a shoebox using plans from the internet. As an alternative, tubing normally used as concealed cable conduit has also proved effective. It is inexpensive, available by the metre from DIY stores and every bit as good as “professional” cable organisers. To keep USB cables apart, even simple clothes pegs have proved useful, holding the cable to the edge of the desk. Paper clips work too and also look stylish.

Keeping things tidy is half the battle when working from home too – and the smaller the workspace, the more essential it becomes for staying focused and getting things done. Before lots of little piles turn finding the right note into a nightmare, it’s better to give up a few square metres of wall space for a pinboard, where the whole mess can be neatly fixed in place with pins, magnets or adhesive strips. That not only creates order, but also gives you a quick overview. Papers from completed projects can then be stored neatly in cardboard boxes, stacked into an attractive tower of boxes – and sorted through regularly.

Last but not least, your personal touch should of course not be overlooked, if it has not already been reflected in your choice of office furniture and materials. A few brushstrokes of your favourite colour on the wall can turn your work corner into a pleasant spot that also becomes a visually distinct workspace. An old picture frame with a holiday photo or your favourite album cover on the desk adds another personal touch to the workspace – and fresh flowers or a potted plant do their bit to make the workspace blend stylistically with the rest of the home. However, in the home office as in the open-plan office, less is more.

Weighing up personal preferences

Anyone who moves their workplace into their own home can enjoy more than just pleasant benefits. According to the German Institute for Economic Research, employees working from home rack up around twice as much overtime. While colleagues in the office can leave work behind, the boundaries between work and private life tend to blur when working from home. A comfortable office chair seems to invite extra hours.

To prevent this from happening, a high degree of self-discipline is needed. During core working hours, distractions should be kept to a minimum so you can focus on what really matters. Those who take on this challenge can meanwhile enjoy the often-cited advantages:

• easier work-life balance for work and family
• flexible working hours
• time and cost savings on the commute to the office

Advantages of working from home

To find out whether this wide range of benefits can also enrich your own working day, it is worth looking beyond the theory. Anyone who decides, even on a trial basis, to move their work into their own home will quickly develop a feel for the individual advantages of working from home. It may be an opportunity to organise at least part of your working time more freely in future. Those who shy away from taking this step will, for the time being, miss out on the benefits of working from home.

Lack of productivity when working from home?

How productive you ultimately are with your working time in the home office does not depend solely on a pleasant working environment with a desk, computer and office chair. In fact, many employers are reluctant to use the well-known benefits of working from home as the basis for a new working model, as they fear a drop in their employees' productivity.

Experts, meanwhile, point out that establishing fixed routines in the working day and setting clear goals for each individual day matter more than the lack of social pressure caused by not being observed by managers and colleagues. Many employees who highlight the benefits of working from home even feel that the quiet working environment enables them to achieve more. That is why it is worth embracing this change, at least temporarily.