Work from home is nothing new for us, but amid Covid 19 outbreak we are forced to WFH now. It is our responsibility to exercise social distancing to break the chain and at the same time we need to support our company and our customers.
I have been doing the WFH from more than a month now also cancelled all time official and personal trips. I had already set up my home office since I used to WFH few days i n a week. Often, I tent to work long hours so it was important to make sure that I have a comfortable working experience at my home office.
Occasionally, we work from home, but it is different situation now. I think this situation will continue for another two or three months if I analyse the situation correctly. So, it is important that you need to have necessary facilities at home for you to work 8 or more hours continuously. Let me list down some of the important tips to get you better working environment at home.
Uninterrupted Internet: Essential, we need to make sure that we have internet connection with enough bandwidth, and it should be uninterrupted. We attend meetings using skype and MS team. At the same, you need to have uninterrupted power supply at home. You may be using laptop with battery lasting for hours, but your Wi-Fi router may go down without the power. I suggest you utilize an inverter/UPS if you do not have power backup at home. If your apartment has a generator, you may still buy a small UPS to power your router which will ensure that you get un-interrupted internet during the delays of generator start and stop. I have 30-45 seconds of delay to get the power backup. So, I use smaller capacity APC UPS which gets me around 10-15 minutes of backup for my router. You can optionally arrange another internet connection to be on safer side. Since I do not have another reliable broad band connection available in our apartment, I use a wireless dongle that can be used with any SIM card. You can use this in worst case scenarios where your broadband is down for few hours.
Ergonomically designed home office: It is important to have a seating arrangement which help your a comfortable seating posture when you work for longer hours. If you sit behind a desk for hours, you’re not doomed to a career of neck and back pain or sore wrists and fingers. Proper office ergonomics including correct chair height, adequate equipment spacing, and good desk posture can help you and your joints stay comfortable at work. You may refer this URL to understand it better.
I use a chair that gives me support for my back and head, you can order one in online portal like pepperfry. I use a laptop stand I bought from amazon some time ago to keep my head straight. Also, I am using additional keyboard and mouse as laptop is kept on the stand to get a comfortable seating with that, though my keyboard is bit noisy. One thing I don’t like is the cables running here and there 😊 even though I try to hide it behind the laptop.
Good Headphone: We use Skype and MS teams for collaborating with our team. We must use a good headset with noise cancellation. If you need to attend several meetings daily, you may use wireless head set so that you can move in the room to stretch your legs when attending meetings. I use a wireless Plantronics device and I found it really useful as I attend several meetings on daily basis.
It is very important to protect us while we support our company and clients on challenging times. I hope these tips could help you in coming days.
Stay Home.. Stay Healthy.. Stay Safe. Let’s break the Chain and fight against Covid 19.
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