Home design

WORKSTATION AND CLEAN DESK PRINCIPLE
The practicality of working from home is another area that FMs need to approach. Although flexible working was on the up before 2020, this may be a new concept to many workers and employers alike. Do employees have all the necessary technologies and products to work from home effectively? Flexible and remote working calls for flexible solutions so here are a few suggestions to provide your employees with to make their lives a little bit easier (especially if they’re splitting their time between home and the office, or don’t have a dedicated space at home to work).

Following the Clean Desk Principle, ensuring employees have a functional and organised workspace will be FMs’ biggest challenge. It’s easy for workers to develop bad habits, perhaps from the early stages of lockdown – makeshift workspaces with paperwork which was grabbed last minute from the office strewn over the desk.

According to the Fraunhofer Institute(ii), 10 per cent of productive work time is lost through searching for equipment and paperwork. Organisational drawer boxes help to manage paperwork and files without the need for conventional and let’s face it, outdated filing cabinets that are impractical for home working. Desktop drawer boxes which are lightweight, easy to assemble and more functional for the home office, can help organisation through colour-coded drawers.

There’s nothing worse than spending time untangling wires just to be able to charge your laptop. Once employees have created their workspace, encourage them to tame the cable spaghetti with cable management solutions which can bundle cables together to keep them tidy yet accessible.

Space may be small and limited for your employees so keeping their desk area clear and organised leads to less distractions and increased concentration. We’ve all heard the saying, ‘tidy home, tidy mind’! Products like these help to minimise the stress of organising a permanent workspace, especially if your staff have to share their working space with home life duties, e.g. dining table.

EMPLOYEE WELLBEING
The most important factor in this new transition into remote working is to maintain staff satisfaction. Facilities Managers are no longer only responsible for ensuring staff have the correct equipment, they need to support workers with flexible and ergonomic solutions to make this shift to home working as seamless as possible.

Simple reminders to take breaks and make a cup of tea will make a big difference to your employee’s working day and checking in from time to time keeps staff connected and more confident to ask for support. The hardest challenge for employees will be to create mental distance between home-working and home-life, but companies and businesses have seen a lot of success by embracing flexible working over lockdown, enough so to keep this in their business structure.

SUMMARY
We are all currently facing a big challenge, but there are some key tips and tools to get FMs started in their ‘new’ roles. FMs can play an important part in bridging the gap between traditional office working and enabling businesses to fully embrace home working whilst maintaining productivity and staff morale.

To recap, Facilities Managers can adopt and facilitate proper home working solutions by providing staff with:

Ergonomic solutions

• Monitor mount to help maintain proper ergonomic positioning and/or provide employees with a second screen to boost productivity, especially if they are used to having this in the office.
• Advise staff on choosing the correct environment in their home.
• Setting up their office side on to a window will expose them to the sun which helps to regulate the body’s circadian rhythm and boost performance.
• If this is not possible, supply staff with human-centric lighting which replicates the motion and light of the sun.
• Arrange for staff to have time saving and organisational products.
• Drawer Boxes keeps all files and folders in one place, perfect for home offices as they are light and compact.
• Cable management boxes and clips to keep workspaces cable free, especially if workers are sharing their workspace with home living.

Keep in touch

• Keeping in touch with staff will make them feel connected and more confident to ask for support if they need it.