With companies around the world increasingly shifting to a distributed workforce model, businesses need to examine how they can support their employees with this change. The seamless transition between home and office workspaces, between digital and physical files, and between deskbound and mobile devices can be achieved by considering both the physical and digital environment of your employees.
Physical Supports are Essential to Maintaining Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction
Businesses can benefit from practicing ergonomics or the science of arranging things so that people can interact with objects optimally. The most essential requirements for good home office ergonomics are appropriate furniture, sufficient lighting, and careful workspace organisation. All of these are crucial to helping employees avoid physical fatigue, pain and strain.
Workers should use adjustable swivel chairs equipped with armrests and lumbar support that allow them to sit with their knees at a right angle and with their feet resting on the floor.
Desks that permit them to arrange their monitor so that its top is at eye level and to position their keyboard and mouse so that they can be used while keeping the arms and the wrists in line with the elbows are highly recommended too.
Workers should use soft lighting and minimise glare by acquiring anti-glare screen protectors and computer eyeglasses. They should also give their eyes a break by following the 20/20/20 rule—that is, they should spend 20 seconds looking at something 20 feet away for every 20 minutes spent looking at the monitor.
Workers should arrange their desks into zones with items arranged closer based on how frequently they’re needed throughout the day. For example, things like the mouse and keyboard can be placed closest on the desk so that they can be reached without effort or strain while rarely used references can be placed much farther away.
Digital Supports are Key to Boosting Employee Performance and Productivity
The most crucial resources that workers need—apart from a fast and reliable Internet connection—would be:
By providing employees with the physical and digital supports that they need to thrive in today’s flexible workplace, companies can enhance their business continuity while also elevating their organisational resilience.
A cloud-based platform that provides employees with a virtual desk that they can access whether they’re in the office or at home is key to the success of the hybrid workplace. At the same time, the platform needs to be secure enough to ensure that workers are protected from accidental data changes and deletions—or even damaging data leaks.
Employees need to be able to retrieve and edit their work documents wherever they happen to be, using whatever devices they happen to have at their disposal—whether it’s a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone. They also need access to the wide range of business tools and apps that are frequently needed to carry out work today.
Workers need collaborative tools that can reduce rather than compound their workload. Instead of additional meetings, messages and tools, employees need solutions that can actually make teamwork easier and leave them with more time to focus on value-creating work.
How we can help
Fujifilm Business Innovation provides businesses with the solutions that they need to equip their employees with the highest levels of digital support. For more information on how we can support your office’s transition to the world of hybrid workplaces, check out the following resources:
