Your company has just joined the bandwagon of organizations that are requiring their employees to work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, as of today, it isn’t known when this work arrangement will end.
If you have never worked from home before you may not have the right equipment to complete your day-to-day responsibilities. It’s time to do a quick assessment of your living quarters and determine what you need.
Here’s a step-by-step guide that should help.
Evaluate your home office space
First and foremost, evaluate your home situation and space requirements.
Do you have a spouse that will be working from home, children that will be present or even an aging parent who will require your attention? If the answer is no, you may be able to set up your office on your kitchen or dining room table. If the answer is yes, you’ll want to know the answer to all of these questions:
- Do you need a room with a door? If there will be a fair amount of noise from others, the answer is probably yes.
- Do you have a desk and comfortable chair already available to you? If not, you will need to purchase or arrange to have your employer deliver one to your home.
- How much are you on the telephone? Are the conversations long? Can you use your cell phone? Understanding this will determine how you will communicate with your clients and prospects during this crisis time. You may want to use Zoom or Skype as an alternative or limit conversations to only those that are most critical.
- How much time are you on the computer?
- If you spend time physically making sales calls, is there a good place in your home where you can have video chats?
- Will you be bringing a lot of paperwork home? Do you have a place to store it?
Working on the computer from home
Depending on your normal in-office setup, you’ll need to prepare your home in a number of ways in order to take place of your work desk.
You will want to rent a large monitor and possibly a stand so it’s at your eye level. You may need two-three monitors if that’s what you’re used to working within the office. A desktop, keyboard, and mouse are also required. Depending on what’s available at your home, a wireless keyboard and mouse may be optimal for your situation.
Do you do a lot of printing, scanning, and copying? If so you’ll need an all-in-one printer. You’ll want to rent a unit that provides printing, scanning, and copying in one device.
Handling business on the phone from your house
Need to be hands-free at home? Of course, you do.
At the very least you’ll need a compact, Bluetooth wireless speaker with a built-in microphone for conference calls. However, if you’re really serious about conference calls, you’ll want to rent teleconference equipment for unmatched audio quality and expansion capability of up to 4 phones.
Plus, this system frees up your hands to type notes into the computer and save a lot of time.
Speaking of computers, you’ll also need a laptop or desktop rental that has your operating system and apps loaded onto it.
Coping with a noisy environment
Think about what you’re going to need to put yourself in that office mindset. If you have noisy kids, spouses, or roommates–you’ll need something to drown that out. Wireless noise-canceling headphones will tune out distractions, thus keep all kid, spouse, and parent conversations from interrupting your train of thought.
If you might have to work at the library, coffee shop or visit clients occasionally–a laptop works best for mobility.
Important products to have in stock at home:
- Hand sanitizers. Put one next to your computer and in every room. Use it often throughout the day.
- Hand soap. Be sure to wash your hands often.
- Disinfecting wipes. Clean off your work area, keyboard, and phone at least once a day.
- Printer paper for those employees with a printer
- Stapler and file folders.
- Stamps and envelopes if you’ll be mailing things out from home, such as invoices or client correspondence.
Home Office Rentals with Randy Moore
Are you looking for rentals for your temporary home office? You’ll have peace in mind in knowing Randy Moore has worked with a number of companies during these difficult times. If you’re interested in protecting your business and employees during the coronavirus outbreak, Rentacomputer.com and our Tech Travel Agents can help keep your business running.
Rentacomputer.com has a large stock of equipment that is ready to deliver that includes laptops, desktop computers, servers, tablets, smartphones, WiFi hotspots, teleconferencing equipment, and more. Not only can we deliver your rentals, but we also offer custom configuration and setup so you know everything is in working order.
Furthermore, Randy can answer any questions you have about office equipment rentals–in any capacity, for any type of office. Contact Randy today at 1-800-736-8772 ext. 225 or fill out a fast, easy online quote form. You can also connect with Randy on LinkedIn!
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*We are a Business to Business (B2B) rental firm. All rental orders must be placed by an authorized representative of a qualified business. First-time business customers are screened for compliance to ensure the order is legitimate and authorized. In short, you must be a business that has been established for a minimum of 2 years with an email address connected to a corotate domain and a ship to address that also meets our requirements. To see the full requirements, visit our Requirements to Rent page.
