Positive Home Workplace

Top tips for a positive home workplace

With the Coronavirus sweeping the globe and social distancing being practised by the majority of people, there has never been more people working from home than right now. This massive shift in our daily routines coupled with the worry this infection is causing could be a recipe for poor concentration and productivity during your work from home time.

At Blue Jelly we design and deliver Positive Workplaces that people love working in. They increase productivity, improve staff retention and reduce absenteeism, so we wanted to share a few tips on how you can create a Positive (home) Workplace.

Culture

Office culture is super important for keeping you motivated and happy at work. Whilst working from home why not create your own culture in your remote workspace.

1. People have a big impact on culture so stay in touch with everyone from your team whilst you are all working remotely. Platforms like Teams and Slack are great for keeping those lines of communications open. At Blue Jelly we have found this invaluable this week. We are such a close team so keeping connected has kept us collaborating and working as a team whilst still living in our Blue Jelly culture/bubble.
2. Music is a big part of our workplace culture; it can lift the mood of the office and help people concentrate. We always have a radio on at Blue Jelly HQ, so if this is what you are used to then get yours on at home or check out playlists on a streaming site like Spotify. Check out this playlist that has kept our remote workers motivated this week.

Wellbeing

Having everything to hand, sitting at proper workstation with an ergonomically designed chair, 2 monitors and having the right amount of space to work in may seem like a distant memory, but here are a couple of things you can do.

1. Making do with a workstation (dining table and chairs) that isn’t necessarily designed to be sat at for 8 hours might leave you with aches and pains. To overcome this we recommend you get moving more than you did before; you could walk around your home while on calls or walk around the house or garden for a few minutes each hour. You could even have a little dance whilst listening to music when no one is watching!
2. Having no commute gives you more time back in your day, so why not make use of it by completing a home workout, going for a walk or spending extra time with the family and creating memories. If you live alone arrange a group video call with family or friends using FaceTime, Whatsapp or Zoom and have a virtual get together. Creating opportunities to socialise will help to lift your mood and keep you productive.

Environment

Whilst your home is a familiar environment, it’s not your usual place of work, which might mean it’s tricky to motivate yourself and stay focused. But being at home means you can control the temperature – so no more arguments over the office air-con.

1. A lot of workplaces have windows that cannot be opened, take advantage of being able to open your windows at home. Get them open first thing in the day, it provides a steady flow of fresh air into your workspace which helps to increase concentration. You could also introduce some plants as they clean the air which will also help with concentration.
2. Working at home might mean you can sit closer to a window and have more natural lighting during the day, this is really beneficial for us as it reduces fatigue and keeps you more alert. If you do need to introduce lighting, then you can customise the lighting level by using lamps you have at home, even your lava lamp could come in handy.

Technology

There hasn’t been a time where technology has been so heavily relied on for a business to keep running. From remotely accessing your files to having video calls with colleagues and clients, right now the telecommunications industry is keeping the world going.

1. Try to limit the number of devices using your Wi-Fi network at any one time. This means you will be able to work quicker and any calls or video conferences you have will run smoothly without displaying the dreaded ‘poor connection’ message.
2. This is a great opportunity to show your team that you can still work together to get the job done. Who knows, this period could see a more flexible working pattern implemented once things return back to normal?

We would love to see how you are keeping yourself motivated and what your home workstations look like during this Coronavirus pandemic so please share photos of your workspace and use #PositiveHomeWorkplace!