Create your telework space at home and don't die trying

If you want to be productive working from home, you need to tackle several fronts. Starting with choosing the right place, being careful with the decoration of that environment or in the choice of a comfortable chair.

There are many details to take into account. At Monapart we sell y we rent We provide you with essential tips on how to set up your telework space at home and help you to create it properly.

How to create your telework space at home and not die trying?

You need 3 things: to have a job, a place to set up your business, and a place to work. home-office and a house containing that room or space. Logical, isn't it?

In terms of context, we could add that we need a global pandemic to affect the planet. Why? Because until Covid-19 came along, we did not know how to take advantage of this way of working. The digital tools already existed, but they were only used by a few. Even today, with the pandemic, there are sectors that still do not dare to let go of the 9am to 5pm working hours paradigm.

The European Commission showed in 2020 that the IT and "knowledge business services" sectors were the biggest users of telework before the pandemic.

According to these data, the use of telework varies according to sector and position. Senior managers and professionals were segments that already frequented teleworking, but for the vast majority, the explosion of teleworking due to the pandemic was new and sudden.

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, makes the following points:

"We all know that the work will never be the same, even if we don't yet know all the ways in which it will be different."

His reflection is very interesting because it raises two issues:

1. The pandemic has normalised telework and confirmed it as a validated working model. In other words, it works.
2. Because it begs the question: Will we go back to the office and, if so, how often?

At the moment it is difficult to answer, but one thing is certain: the need to create a telework space at home is becoming increasingly necessary and, to some extent, urgent for some.

What is the importance of having a good teleworking flat?

Let's start backwards and forwards, and think about the house that will also house our office. When it comes to choosing, the flat we have our eye on must offer a space that is suitable for our needs:

• Promote productivity.
• Avoid distractions.
• Ensure a degree of working comfort.

A giant desk, two monitors and an ergonomic chair are great for our office, but they don't cover up smells, annoying noises from neighbours or damp stains on the walls, to illustrate the situation a bit... This doesn't mean that to create your telework space at home you need a mansion with an infinite number of rooms... A small room is not a problem if it has natural light, open spaces, clean, tidy and quiet.

In short, the aim will be to create a teleworking space that manages to simulate the old office. However, it will be within the place where we go about our daily lives. It must be an environment that helps us to abstract from domestic issues to focus on work. And this is a very important point: We must separate our daily life from our working life, otherwise, we run the risk of falling into what is known as the Home Office Burnout. What does this mean? Getting burnt out, tired or fed up of living in the same place where you work. And we are not just talking about the physical separation of the workspace, we also need to be very conscious of setting limits on working hours and routines at home.

Working at home, more than teleworking: the role of trust and the hybrid office model

Once upon a time, when your boss sent you to work at home, it was a privilege and a rather peculiar thing to do. With the advent of COVID-19, the obligation to go to the office seems to be slowly disappearing. Companies have had to adapt, opting out of corporate buildings, trusting their employees and leveraging technology to facilitate remote work productivity.

It has been proven that not only can it be done, but it is often even more profitable. Employees feel better, are productive and work more efficiently. On the other hand, it generates benefits that are highly valued by employees:

• They avoid travelling to the workplace.
• It creates the feeling (pleasant, by the way) that your superiors trust you.
• It provides the freedom to adapt the working day to personal needs. 

However, this is perhaps too optimistic a view... Telework was originally conceived by a team in Hamburg, Germany, in the 1950s to facilitate communication and the flow of ideas. But a growing number of studies suggest that telework undermines precisely the very things it was designed to do [Konnikova, Maria (7 January 2014). The open-office trap. The New Yorker]. While "open offices" often foster a symbolic sense of organisational mission, making employees feel part of a more relaxed and innovative company, they damage attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, employee satisfaction and feed a sense of detachment from the company.

That said, the paradigm shift seems already in place and immovable. Jeanna Lundberg, co-founder and CEO of Respaces -an marketplace of physical locations for coworking- reflects on the future of workplaces:

"Covid-19 taught us the importance of flexibility and trust, from an economic, sustainability and health perspective. As companies dare to explore options beyond the 'one size fits all' office solution, we can begin to share spaces in a new way."

Let us recap:

• While for some, a laptop on the kitchen table may be a postcard image of teleworking, for others, a laptop on the kitchen table may be a... 
• From a global point of view, teleworking involves more complex issues than toast and computers.
• We are facing a paradigm shift. In this context, remote working is a fundamental link, but it is not definitive, it is not the end point.
• We are in the midst of the transition to hybrid work environments, where offices are transformed into collaborative and innovation hubs.
• Creating a telework space at home is no longer a stop-gap to an extraordinary situation such as the pandemic, but a foretaste of the future of working environments.

What does the ideal telework room look like?

In the meantime, and until the transformation takes place, the work for the time being is in the mode home office. Defining the right place to create a home workspace will depend on several factors:

1. Think about the purpose of your home office. If you plan it as a daily workplace that will replace your traditional office, it will be convenient to create a separate environment from the rest of the rooms. Make it stand out as the unique and exclusive place to work at home.
    
2. Define what you need in your workspace and choose your space.How big should your desk be, what about storage space, will you be using a printer, how important is silence for your work, do you need space for a library, do you plan to hold physical meetings? Consider these questions according to the type of work you have to do and choose the place in your home that best suits your answers.
    
3. Invest for comfort. Especially in the well-known must-have trio: chair + desk + lamp.

Times are changing. And so do the ways of living and working. We, as a real estate agency, are the ones who have not changed. renting y selling beautiful and charming homes where you can install that space to telework with comfort and concentration. Contact us and we will help you find your ideal space.