Business Management Skills

It’s not exactly a new concept this, arguably common choice, to work from home. As such, one would suppose that seeing an opportunity, residential products, services, design and even homes would have begun to adapt to the ever increasing requirements of a growing body of budding customers who wish to work from home. These people who are working in an Internet Business through online jobs have a requirement for an environment that matches their lifestyle and their work needs too.

It’s true, there are a number of products on the market that are produced for those people who Work From Home but it’s fair to say that the offer is patchy and it takes a level of skill in construction, IT and ergonomics to generate a suitable domestic environment from which one could run an internet business. Most people only manage to offer a small amount of the facilities necessary to be comfortable and fruitful.

The brief for a home office set up should be largely similar to that of a normal office or corporate workspace. A resident employee requires power, data and a place to sit and a surface to work on as a bare minimum. Add into that the requirement for social interaction, ad hoc meetings, team work and areas for detailed working and the brief starts to look very similar.

The easy and least productive answer to meeting these needs is to provide a desk, seat, laptop, telephone and data cable. On the face of it these pieces of kit will provide the necessary vehicle in (or on, or through) which people can deliver their output. The real question is how does one provide for the rest of the criteria and how do we use developments in construction and technology to support the requirements for people who work in Online Jobs?

Firstly, let’s deal with the workplace itself. Does it need to be a desk? In a ordinary domestic situation would a desk be an appropriate piece of furniture ? Technology gives us laptops and telephone headsets and the ability to work anywhere on any furniture. Add to that wireless printing and a web cam and really the office, as was, is now built completely around the person as opposed to a location.

Of course, in these days of corporate responsibility, the idea of using a laptop for long periods of time would give Human Resource and Insurance teams an issue, but the fact is that what we have through technology is a new idea and what we would expect to see is new furniture solutions to solve the ergonomic issues.

Secondly, there is the issue of privacy, sound and environmental comfort. A voice conference in a home full of playing children is not conducive to productive work. Will we begin to see new homes provided with separate space for working? Possibly dealt with as an extension, a loft or even a stand alone unit outside.

Whatever the answers the market is there already and the design industry has yet to react to it.