3 Tips for Setting up Your Home Office

So, you've weighed up the pros and cons and have decided to work from home. This has the potential to be an exciting change in your recruiting career, but you need to make sure to set up an efficient home office going to get maximum productivity out of your work day. Before you hit the ground running take some time to focus and really organise your workspace. Below are some handy tips to get you started and to help you stay focussed:

Personal space vs. office space

Everyone works differently and the beauty about working from home is you can set up your own office to suit your needs. However, you should think carefully about where you are going to set up your office space. You might be lucky enough to have a study to work from, but if this isn't the case you need to find somewhere equally quiet with a desk and room for you to work comfortably.

Separating your office space from your living space will help you be more productive throughout the working day. Furthermore, as you can come away from that area associated with work you will feel better about working from home. If this means purchasing a separate laptop and phone just for work – so that you are not tempted to keep an eye on emails – then it’s worth the investment to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

Get connected, stay connected

Most importantly you need to be able reach your clients and candidates and they need to be able to reach you. To maintain those important relationships and make working at home a success you’ll benefit from having the right technology to keep you connected with the outside world. Invest some time and maybe even a bit of money before you get started to create the most efficient working environment.

• Reassess your broadband and phone package to make sure it is fast enough to cope with your work load and that your phone calls won’t hike up your bills.
• Make sure you have free video calling technology such as Skype. If you can’t meet clients face to face this will be important for interviewing.
• A cloud based CRM system would be beneficial to keep in touch with clients candidates and, if you are still working within a team, your colleagues.
• Make sure your mobile phone is up to date with the latest communication Apps. Keep in touch when you are on the go with free messaging services such as Whatsapp or Tango and add your work email to Apps such as Microsoft Outlook’s.
• Keep on top of any social media posts with sites such as Hootsuite – entering all your posts on to this platform will also take away the temptation to procrastinate on social media sites. Click here for your guide to setting up Hootsuite.

Stay focused

Once you have set up your home office the next challenge for you is keeping up a good of level productivity. Make the most of the hours you have by preparing schedules for the next day or week and daily task lists will keep you on track. Of course one of the perks of working at home is having more flexibility, but you’ll find that a routine will keep you focussed. Be prepared to self-motivate to stay in that work mind set. For example, if you feel like you are stuck in a rut take a walk or whatever you do to relax and get yourself back on track. You can make a success of working from home if you stay focussed on your short and long term goals.

Images - Alejandro Escamilla