In these times of new coexistence, many things have changed in our way of living, and one of them is the way we work. Many companies willingly, or after government’s incentives, have taken measures to avoid contagion in their personnel: from reducing the number of workers and shifts to sending many others to work at home.

According to Workana, a job offers and demand website for freelancers, 43% of Americans work from home and around 3 million do home offices in Latin America because of the pandemic. While a study published by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) indicates that only 5.2% of the working staff currently residing in the European Union (EU) claim to work from home. This study determined that in 2018 a slightly higher proportion of women used to work from home (5.5%) than men (5.0%) and that this was the case in most EU member states, but with greater differences observed in France (8.1% of women, compared to 5.2% of men).

The efficiency of this new way of working depends on several factors: a good distribution of the work by those in charge, an efficient organization of workers and the implementation of suitable and functional designs of workspaces that increase the productivity to reach the goal. That is why the Home Office as they are called are spaces that need our special attention.

At first impression, it may seem very pleasant to perform our home to work, but doing it for a long time can cause us a series of discomforts such as extreme fatigue, stress and headaches, mainly due to lengthening working hours more than necessary and not have time to do other activities that should also be considered important by us such as doing sports, cooking, playing with the children or spending time with the family.

All this together with the fact that, if we consider, but above all we feel, that the environment that we have chosen as our home office is full of distractions that will not allow us to concentrate, we are facing a problem that we have to solve at its roots and transform our workspace in the ideal place with all possible comforts and with our personal touch.

To turn your home into the perfect office, we advise you to follow the following steps:

1. Your ideal space. – It is the starting point and the most important. If you have a study or work area, the problem is already solved, and if not, a good alternative is to convert a room into that space that you need. But, if you have no other choice, you can prepare a space in a room, for this you must consider the use you give to that room and how you organize your activity.

2. Light is life. – An important factor in deciding the location of your home office is light. During the day, the lighting should be natural and as intense as possible (so that we wake up completely), while the computer should be placed in the opposite direction to the windows, so that when the evening falls the reflection does not force us to change position. In the case of artificial lighting for the night it must be intense and directed to what we are doing.

3. Oxygenate your mind. – Your space should not be near an appliance that produces cold or heat so that you do not have improvised changes in temperature or generate odors. And if you chose to be near a window for lighting, use it also to maintain a constant stream of air that is renewed all the time you are in the space so you can stay focused. In addition, your home office can and should have plants that function as oxygen factories and give it the necessary green touch. And in times of coronavirus, good ventilation slows down the proliferation of viruses and bacteria.

4. Invest in your comfort. – If some money has to be invested, it has to be in the proper choice of the chair and desk that will be part of our office. The chair of preference that is ergonomic so that our line of vision is correct in front of the monitor and our back does not suffer. While the desk or table should be the right size and height.

5. Decorate to function. – When decorating our workspace, we must consider above all the functionality we want to obtain. It has been proven that being in a pleasant place makes us feel comfortable and therefore work better. Remember that everything we choose for our home office must be useful, but it must also have a certain aesthetic while remaining realistic with what we have or can achieve. Functionality is not at odds with design, but neither should design prevail over functionality.

6. The walls are our best allies. – To get the most out of our space (especially if it is small) we must not forget that the walls are always in our favor. Blackboards, boards, hooks for our notes, letters or documents will make our empty walls help us to be more organized and therefore efficient.

Designers and architects have realized all these new realities and are already creating spaces that generate well-being in the form of home offices. In the construction business, clients are no longer looking for spacious rooms with all the comforts for guests, but they want to have a smart room that can function as a home office, a music studio or an exercise room, expresses the firm CORE Real Estate.

On the other hand, there are already many hotels and tourist places in various countries that have already detected this need and have created home office options. For example, the NH Hotel Group, which operates more than 360 hotels in America and Europe, presented “NH Room Office” a few days ago, a proposal adapted for those who require a fully equipped workspace, but also with the services of a hotel.

So, architects get ready to create that dream home office that your client wants. For this, R3Dstudio proposes solutions adapted to the new needs generated in interior spaces.

Sources:

Archdaily: 35 solutions for flexible workspaces in the home.

MDZ: Home Office forever?

ElObservador: Room Office: Hotels turn suites into offices