Home office: at home in the office instead of in the office at home

Properly implemented, home office can be a step forward

Some view it skeptically as an invitation to dolce vita during working hours, while others celebrate it as a revolution in working life that promises quality of life. Either way: Home office has changed the reality of work. Modern communication technology has made professional work within your own four walls possible. Smartphones, tablets, the all-encompassing cloud and fast internet connections have made physical presence at work at least partially unnecessary. But what do you do when the topic of home office – or, to put it in old-fashioned terms, “teleworking” – comes to the table?

Want to comfortably integrate work into your everyday life at home and continue to work on your professional goals with maximum productivity? Whether these advantages can be achieved in the context of work depends on various factors. But what experiences can you build on?

Pros and Cons: Pitfalls and opportunities of everyday working life at home

Weigh it up! is the first and most important tip in this search for the solution for the individual work situation. Because working from home is not the best solution for everyone. If you decide to do this, you should, above all, have a fair amount of self-discipline: housework, your loved ones, spontaneous visits from friends are just a few of the many large and small distractions that lurk in every corner.

It takes a very healthy sense of duty, for example, to tell dear friends that their visit falls during regular working hours when they show up at the door with cake in their basket and want to surprise the new home worker with the best of intentions. Situations that seem completely absurd in a commercial building suddenly have to be defended in rooms that are normally reserved for private use. Anyone who thinks that raising children and working life can easily be reconciled will often be proven wrong. But working from home can also bring a lot of advantages.

These are actually obvious: no more annoying commutes, no more time-consuming and nerve-wracking traffic jams after work, no more train delays, crowded subways or frozen car locks in winter. At least none that cause an increased level of stress before work starts and also ruin the day for those for whom morning is not their favorite time of day.

Keyword biorhythm: It has been proven that people's internal clocks tick differently. While the “night owl” has an easier time with evening work, the “early bird” falls into a performance slump at this time - but he starts the working day much more efficiently. The time-consuming aspects in the office, all the unnecessary rituals and polite conversations in the hallway, are also eliminated. In short: If there is work to be done, work will be done. Last-minute work being imposed on you by your chaotic colleague next door is just as unthinkable at home as any kind of dress code. Whether in socks or sweatpants: the laptop by the window doesn't require a tie. The breaks don't have to be spent in the cold concrete yard with a thin cup of vending machine liquor, but can be used for gardening, cooking, jogging or racing bikes - even dentist appointments, semi-annual tire changes or visits to the hairdresser fit into a lunch break and don't take up vacation days or overtime credit. And the biggest advantage at the end: Home office is conceivable in every household.

Concrete considerations

Which raises the question of practical implementation. It goes without saying that not all work areas can be relocated to the comfort of your own home. Just as the surgeon always has to operate on the patient, the social worker will continue to have to work in schools or youth clubs. However, if the doctor writes bills, orders medication or writes findings, he can theoretically do this from home. The same goes for the street worker who can write his reports at home. In creative professions - communication design, architecture, authors or photographers - or technical ones (system support, programming), almost everything can be done from home, except for details or meetings that don't fit into a video conference. In all cases, however, an internet connection is the technical basis for working, the faster the better.

Home Office – The practical implementation

Internet connection, technology and a small IT customer

Nowadays, everyone has this basis for almost all office work at home: a router that provides the house with Internet access. The device itself usually comes from the telecommunications provider and has interfaces for network cables and antennas for wireless home networks, also known as WiFi. On one side of the router there is now the home network, which is connected to one or more computers either directly or via a switch. On the other hand, a broadband Internet connection (DSL, VDSL) ensures fast data download and upload and communication with the mainframe computer in operation, which in turn is connected to the Internet. What do the devices in the home office have to be able to do at least?

Roland Karl is the owner of the Munich-based TraininX Computer-Service GmbH and advises companies and private individuals on all sorts of IT-related topics every day. The topic of “home office” also comes up regularly for him. In his shop in Obersendling he takes the time to clarify the basics. “The equipment required depends entirely on the type of work that needs to be done,” he says right at the beginning. “To do this, I first have to ask myself what type of data I am dealing with,” says Karl. If these are Word or Excel files, these programs would of course have to run on the home PC or laptop. In principle, any ordinary computer is sufficient to save documents or data over the Internet on a server from which colleagues in the company can access them. He points to the various computers and laptops in the exhibition room: “Really everything that is here is completely sufficient for this.”

Companies often work with a database that is located on the company server. The freelancer or home office worker accesses the server from home. “He then simply opens an editing mask and uses it to change individual data on the server.” However, the dimensions of the mask, which is usually displayed in the browser, are specified by the server and in this case are the decisive size. “It is important that the home monitor provides the required resolution and can fully display the mask.” You hardly need any computing power for database work like this - that's the responsibility of the server operator, since the actual computing work takes place on the server. “Strictly speaking, a suitable monitor, mouse and keyboard and a mini computer are enough at home,” says Karl, pointing to a plastic box – barely larger than a cigarette pack. There is enough power in it to run a home office.

Architects who work with a CAD program, for example, need significantly more powerful equipment. “Such programs usually require a lot of computing power,” says Karl. The architecture firm's server, on the other hand, only needs to have enough capacity to store the processed files.

Interior design: choosing the right room

Between a cigarette pack computer, monitor and mouse in the minimum case and a three-computer network including a network drive and printer, there are several options for space requirements. Happy is anyone who has a spare room in their own four walls that they can convert into a study. Experts agree that there is a lot that can be done right and a lot that can be done wrong when choosing a job. For example, the study should neither be a windowless room facing the backyard nor a busy walk-through room that the whole family uses for some activity. Ideally, the in-house office should be flooded with light and easy to ventilate, not too big and not too small - and should definitely have more comfortable vibrations than the average office in a company complex.

Now, not everyone is able to carve out their own room for work purposes. Tenants of two- or three-room apartments may also be able to integrate their office into existing rooms. But be careful! A dark corner with shelves on the left and right, cables tangled up on the work surface and a wobbly wooden stool in front of it is just as detrimental to the desire to work as a workstation in the kitchen that requires assembly and dismantling. The work table should be accessible at all times - even without having to do the dishes or carry the sewing machine into the room. “If you can, then you can” is the motto for integrated work solutions. Luckily, there is now a lot of innovative furniture designed for exactly this purpose. They help, for example, to turn the unused piece of wall under the skylight into a pleasantly lit workplace: modern secretaries that you can simply close after work, which have integrated Cable channels and LED daylight lighting have. Of course, with a little imagination and a few bottles of furniture polish, grandma's old kitchen table can be converted into a stylish work tool.

The less space there is, the more creatively the work solution for the home needs to be devised. If you find it difficult to integrate a suitable work surface into your own apartment, you should contact an interior designer - or an experienced friend who has already furnished one or two apartments. Often it's just a small tweak in a completely different place in the room that creates enough space to accommodate a veritable home office. However, a cardinal error lurks right at the beginning of the journey: If the desk is to be installed in the bedroom, then it must be visually separated from the sleeping area. Who wants to see the next day's work as they fall asleep - or even wade through a pile of papers around it that has become a carpet of leaves?

Furniture selection

From modern secretaries that rest on the wall like a designer shelf after work, to classic ones Desk with height-adjustable worktop: The furniture industry has the right pieces for almost every need. While pretty much anything can serve as a table that supports a tabletop and has enough space for a laptop on top, possibly a printer next to it and lots of cables underneath, when it comes to a chair you have to pay close attention to what you want to place your most important things on for eight to nine hours a day, just for the sake of your back.

Here too, specialist retailers offer height-adjustable Executive chair Pretty much everything from simple desk chairs with adjustable backrests - even office chairs whose appearance and function are based on racing can be found in the wide range. The only thing that needs to be taken into account is that the chair is comfortable and can adapt at least a little to the needs of the person working. A seat that tilts or a backrest that adapts to the spine doesn't hurt.

It all sounds incredibly technical and it used to look that way. However, word has now gotten around among office furniture suppliers that many employees work from home for one or more days and have designed furniture that is only partially visible in their intended use. Although they are usually more modern than conservative in design, they fit well into modern homes.

Lighting

One point that is most underestimated according to common expert opinion is lighting (see also the article “Lighting in the office: bright bulbs for bright minds”). Simply placing an old desk lantern on the work table as a decorative, but by no means professional, light source is by no means enough. Private office furnishers should pay attention to two things - regardless of whether they are turning the attic into an open-plan office with a sophisticated lounge area and several workstations or the bedroom with a separate work area. Firstly, there should be enough natural daylight on the work surface and secondly, depending on the time of day and the incidence of light, there should be enough artificial light sources to switch on.

To be more precise, the work surface should be at a ninety-degree angle to a window so that light falls on the table top from the right or left during the day. Artificial light should fall from different light sources from 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 work furniture should, if possible, be kept in a light, matt color. For a better understanding: Individual, spot-like light sources create uneven lighting conditions - if they come from behind or in front, they are reflected in the monitor and cause reflections that the worker has to constantly avoid. This results in poor posture and tension - ultimately the work suffers as a result. LED lamps in the light color “daylight” are recommended, which are now available from large furniture stores for less than 5 euros. Additionally recommended: Stationary daylight lamps with enough power at the desk to provide direct work light in dubious conditions.

Tips and tricks

The question remains about the wretched tangle of cables: printer cables, Ethernet cables, possibly scanners, charging stations and telephones - all devices used in daily work have the habit of hanging on the wire. Your cords tend to gather in thick knots under the desk and sneakily wrap around your feet. If you want to be immune from such insidious bondage attacks, a cable duct system is recommended. This can be integrated into the furniture, but you can also build it yourself from a shoebox using blueprints from the internet. Hoses, which are normally laid under plaster as cable ducts, have proven to be a useful alternative. They are inexpensive, available by the meter at hardware stores and are in no way inferior to “professional” cable collectors. Ordinary clothespins that hold the cable to the edge of the table have also proven useful for keeping USB cables apart. Paper clips also work and look stylish too.

Order is also half the battle at home - the smaller it is, the more vital it is for concentrated progress. Before lots of little piles make searching for papers a nightmare, it's better to sacrifice a few square meters of wall space for a pin board where the whole mess can be neatly attached with pins, magnets or adhesive strips. This not only creates order, but also a quick overview. Papers for completed projects can then be easily stored in cardboard boxes, stacked into an attractive tower of boxes - and sorted out regularly.

Last but not least, the personal touch should of course not be neglected, as long as it has not yet been reflected in the choice of work furniture and materials. A few brush strokes of your favorite color on the wall turn the work corner into a friendly spot that also visually becomes a work island. The old picture frame with a holiday picture or your favorite record cover on the desk gives the workplace another personal touch - and fresh flowers or a potted plant do their part to stylistically match the workplace with the rest of the apartment. However, in the home office as in the open-plan office: less is more.

Weighing up personal preferences

Anyone who relocates their workplace to their own four walls can not only look forward to pleasant advantages. According to the German Institute for Economic Research, employees who work at home accumulate around twice as much overtime. While colleagues in the office can leave work behind them, in the home office the boundaries between work and private life become blurred. The comfortable one Office chair seems to invite extra work.

To prevent this from happening, a high degree of self-discipline is required. During core working hours, distractions must be minimized in order to focus attention on what is most important. Anyone who takes on this challenge can enjoy the frequently cited advantages:

• easier reconciliation of work and family
• flexible scheduling of working hours
• Time and cost savings when traveling to the office

Home office benefits

In order to be able to see whether this diverse landscape of advantages can also enrich your own everyday work, you need to take a look behind the theoretical facade. Anyone who decides to relocate work to their own four walls, at least as a test, will quickly get a feel for the individual home office advantages. Maybe this is an opportunity to organize at least some of your working hours more freely in the future. However, if you shy away from taking this step, the advantages of working from home will initially remain hidden.

Lack of productivity in the home office?

The productivity of your own working time in the home office ultimately depends on more than just a pleasant working environment with a desk, computer and office chair. In fact, many employers shy away from using the well-known home office advantages as an opportunity for a new working concept because they fear that their employees' productivity will decrease.

Meanwhile, experts point out that establishing fixed routines in everyday work and setting clear goals for each individual working day are more important than the removal of social pressure caused by the lack of observation by bosses and colleagues. Many employees who point out the advantages of working from home say they are even able to achieve more thanks to the quiet working environment. It is therefore worth making this change, at least temporarily.