A number of employers and employees discovered and continue to discover the advantages, pitfalls and future possibilities of remote work from day to day. The home office will most likely become a much more common standard in the future than it has been so far, even at the request of employees. Although employees are comfortable working from home, for example they will not have to commute to the office, they also find that being on the couch for weeks on end and hunched over to answer emails causes physical and psychological problems.

How to prepare for working from home from the point of view of a healthy workplace and technology? So that not only you, but also remote participants get the best possible experience from the work performed.

CAMERA

You must have had several video conference meetings from home or office environment. Have you ever wondered about the proper settings and quality of your laptop’s integrated camera? If you use the laptop’s integrated camera, there are a lot of things that can be improved. The integrated camera in the laptop is limited by the camera’s field of view, FOV.

If you are sitting, usually the lid of the laptop with the camera is slightly lower than your head. You can achieve better ergonomics with the laptop by placing the laptop on a table (not on your lap) and supporting it with a special stand. Using the camera in the laptop for home office can be considered as an emergency measure, better get an external monitor and camera that you can customize to meet your individual requirements. Place the camera on the top edge of the external monitor or on a tripod. A small change in the camera angle can have a huge impact on how others perceive you, so try everything out before a live meeting to check what everything looks like. 

LIGHTING

Have you ever heard of chiaroscuro? If you paint, photograph, or shoot videos, you will probably guess that this is a term for using the contrast of light and shadow to achieve a sense of volume. You need to look good during a video conference, so it is desirable to set the right ambient lighting conditions. The worst thing you can do is sit down with your camera set against the window. Therefore, position your camera to take advantage of as much natural light as possible. For best results, sit slightly off to the side or facing an outside light/window.

We recommend using an external camera which is able to evaluate artificial or natural light and adjust everything automatically. If you find yourself in a space where there is no window or only limited natural light, make sure you have a lamp available, test everything beforehand. The lamp must be set correctly in relation to the face, you avoid a bad impression of the overall quality of your video. 

SOUND

Do you know it? Awkward pauses or excuses that you cannot be heard. Sound is essential for communicating with remote participants. Poor sound and frequent interruptions overall damage the impression of your presentation and message. In connection with good sound, think of the following things. Make a test connection and check the volume. It is best to call someone and test everything for real, but you can check everything “in your UC client” or “in your communication software”. There you will find a microphone set-up test with recording so you can naturally check how the other party will hear you.

The advantage of personal verification is that you call someone and you can immediately ask how they can hear you, whether there is a delay in the voice or whether there is no surrounding noise, etc. This way, you will have enough time to remove any deficiencies before the online presentation itself. If you use one of the communication platforms (Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Meetings, Zoom, Google Hangout meet...), just check everything in the application settings.  

ATTENTION: if you replace the headset during the working day or week or sometimes connect via an external microphone, we recommend that you verify everything well in advance before the online video conference. Do not forget to make sure your phone is on silent and will not make any sound during the live call. People often ask why they should use a headset when they already use standard headphones to listen to music.

Imagine that you are connected to a video conference, but at the same time you have children playing next to you in the room. With the headset, you can minimize ambient noise thanks to the built-in microphone near the mouth. If you are in a video conference, keep the sound off and only turn it on when you are actually talking!  

We recommend using a headset primarily because it has advanced technologies such as ambient noise cancellation or ambient noise shielding for the speaker. These are irreplaceable features that create a professional and secure impression of your voice for remote participants. 

MOUSE AND KEYBOARD

Ergonomic mouse and keyboard reduce the pressure on the forearm, reduce the load on the fingers and significantly increase comfort when working.

BACKGROUND

Having the opportunity to hold video conferences from the comfort of your home is great, but you need to keep in mind what remote participants will actually see. What does that mean? It is important to pay attention not only to lighting and sound, but also to what is happening behind you. If you are setting up a video call in the kitchen, for example, while your kids are running around, they will definitely be seen in the background. Therefore, keep the surrounding space clean and tidy. Create an atmosphere that exudes professionalism.

If it is not desirable for participants to see your natural environment (from a study full of distractions: books, clutter, privacy), set a background blur, use a custom wallpaper or create your own corporate brand background, e.g. with your company logo. 

If you are interested, we can design a package of technologies for working from home to match your individual needs. Contact our business consultants.