Four Keys to Home Office Safety and Functionality – The opinions expressed by the author in this and all guest blogs are not necessarily those of Gainesville Restoration and Remodeling.
Four Keys to Home Office Safety and Functionality
As an entrepreneur, working from home can allow you to continue to serve your clients while maintaining a safer environment for yourself and your family. Your home office can allow you to meet with clients remotely or in-person to provide outstanding customer service for these individuals and company representatives. Creating a safe and attractive home office environment may require some adjustments on your part. Here are four key considerations to keep in mind when equipping or upgrading your home office this year, brought to you by Gainesville Restoration & Remodeling.
Implementing SaaS for Accounting
Software as a service (SaaS) options allows you to access an extensive array of tools that let you manage accounting, estimating, and invoicing procedures from your home office. This can reduce the need for face-to-face meetings with customers and vendors, which can significantly reduce your risk. A relatively small SaaS investment can pay off in increased productivity and less time spent traveling to and from meeting sites. As a bonus, these tools can also take some of the drudgeries out of the process of accounting, which is often cited as the one task most small business owners loathe. Many SaaS invoicing and payment systems are designed specifically to minimize in-person contact while streamlining the accounting process for you, your vendors, and the clients you serve.
There are also services that provide contact-free ways to handle elements of your business. ZenBusiness, for instance, allows you to easily register your Florida LLC with the state, which prevents you from having to visit an office in person. What’s more, you’ll be able to legally do business within the state of Florida.
Managing Remote Connections
Virtual meetings and conferences are an integral part of the modern business environment. Forbes recommends investing in supplemental lighting, an external webcam, and an external microphone to ensure your Zoom, Skype, or Teams meetings go more smoothly. Forbes also recommends using a virtual background or decluttering your home office to reduce distractions for you and the other participants.
It’s generally a good idea to upgrade your Wi-Fi connection and internet speed to accommodate the added bandwidth necessary for video calls. Zoom recommends a bandwidth of at least 600 kbps for one-on-one video calls. For larger groups or higher-quality videos, you may need much more bandwidth to achieve stable connections with clients and customers.
Protecting Your Health
If you do intend to entertain clients in your home office, it’s generally a good idea to go over the best practices for protecting your guests and yourself from infectious diseases. Some of the safety measures most recommended by the CDC include:
- Wearing masks during in-person meetings and offering disposable masks to guests
- Maintaining a six-foot distance between you and your visitors
- Providing hand sanitizer for clients who visit your home office
- Opening windows to improve ventilation when possible
- Installing UV air purification systems in your HVAC ductwork to kill microbial organisms
- Suggesting Zoom, Skype, or Teams virtual meetings as alternatives to most in-person visits
By implementing these measures on behalf of yourself, your family, and your guests, you can often achieve a solid level of protection during in-home visits from your customers or vendors.
Improving Your Home
Investing in a fully functional and well-equipped home office can improve your productivity and morale immediately. Your home office can also provide some welcome benefits when it’s time to sell your home. Be sure to take before and after photographs of major home office upgrades to track these improvements and to allow you to realize the greatest return on your investment when you’re ready to sell.
These four keys can add up to improved productivity and added functionality when working from home. By upgrading your home office, you can protect your health while maintaining open lines of communication with your most valued clients.
Gainesville Restoration & Remodeling can help you with roof repairs, as well as install a completely new roof to your home. To learn more, email Chris@paynegrp.com today.