COVID-19 and Small Business HR & Staffing

The Importance of a Healthy Home Office Culture… And How Employers can Help Improve It

Written by Renee Wainwright

Office culture changed last year with people still working from home a few days a week. Some may have a small office space at home where they do their day-to-day work-related tasks and engage remotely with their team.

Shifting to remote working hasn’t always been easy, many employers were able to respond quickly to the changes, taking emergency measures to transfer as much of the office culture from the workplace to the home. Now that the dust is beginning to settle, employers can finally begin to look beyond these emergency measures. They can start looking into more stable, long term changes to support workers as they create a comfortable office culture at home.

Improving office culture – even in a home setting – should always be a priority for employers. A good culture that helps employees to feel comfortable and supported boosts productivity and creates a satisfying and nurturing employee experience. Delivering an exceptional employee experience is vital to staff retention. Now is the time for employers to look at the emergency measures that they implemented at the start of the work-from-home revolution, and introduce new ideas to improve their staff’s home office experience.

Keep reading to learn about our top tips and tricks.

  1. Upgrade equipment

The current situation: In 2020, many employees moving to WFH (Work from Home) took equipment from the office including chairs, computers and screens but these items might not have been  suited to the employee’s home office set-ups.

What to do: Now that things are settling down, it’s time to ask employees what they need to remain productive and comfortable in their own home setting. They may require a new ergonomic chair for example, or a more compact desk that fits their home office. Big firms like Google and Shopify are already doing this, and are providing a small stipend to allow workers to purchase what they need.

  1. Encourage organization

The current situation: At first, the most important thing was for employees to complete their tasks. Home office setups might not have been perfect, but employers were initially focused on simply making sure that workers had access to all the documentation and data that they needed. Now, it’s time to focus on organising documents and data.

What to do: Ensure that employees understand the importance of good organisation in the home, and create a document that can help them to better arrange their workspace. You may want to recommend that items that aren’t needed are moved and kept in storage units until workers are back in the office again. You could also provide essential on-desk storage solutions, like pen holders and filing boxes.

  1. Introduce flexible working hours

The current situation: When workers moved from the office to working from home, many took their existing day-to-day routines with them. At the time, this was the easiest option; to continue as before. Over time, many employees realised that their old routines weren’t working well in a home environment.

What to do: As an employer, it’s important to acknowledge that working from home is not the same as working in the office. Regardless of how focused a worker is on the task at hand, there are different distractions at home, including deliveries, the fridge, mess, children, and pets. Where possible, allow workers to create a sensible routine for themselves while working from home. This may not look like the 9-5 that defines office life.

  1. Communicate

The current situation: Right now, your employees are probably communicating with each other using the same methods that they used in the office. This could be emails, instant messaging, or in-document collaboration. Going forward, you may need to implement alternative communication methods

What to do: It’s time to look at collaboration and communication software. It can be challenging to incorporate real-time communications into a remote environment, but digital solutions like video conferencing (Zoom), chat rooms (Slack), and to-do lists (Trello), can help you and your team to easily stay connected during the pandemic.

  1. Support health and provide opportunities

The current situation: Day-to-day production and continuation of core operations were the main focus when WFH took off. Employers had to enable workers to complete their tasks safely and effectively from their homes. Now it’s time to start looking beyond the core business and look at some other aspects of office culture.

What to do: Consider the support and benefits that were available to employees in the workplace – perhaps an opportunity to shadow another worker to expand knowledge, monthly awards, and company lunches and drinks. Now consider how these benefits could be extended to the home. Zoom meetups are a good idea, along with online training courses and guided meditation added to health plans.

It’s Time to Change

While no one can predict the future, what is clear is that remote working isn’t a temporary trend. Working from home is fast emerging as the safest way for businesses to maintain operations, and both employers and employees are already reaping benefits.

Working from home isn’t going anywhere, so it’s vital that employers are adapting to the new landscape and doing what they can to help their valuable human resources build and develop a comfortable home office culture that will create an exceptional employee experience for all.

“The opinions expressed by BizWitty Contributors are their own, not those of BizCover and should not be relied upon in place of appropriate professional advice. Please read our full disclaimer."

About the author

Renee Wainwright

Renee Wainwright is the Mobile Storage Manager at GoBox whose years of experience in the industry allow her to provide customised and tailored mobile storage solutions to suit residential, business and corporate customer’s storage and moving needs.