In many regions of the world there are now contact restrictions due to the corona pandemic. You are still allowed to go to work and go shopping, but otherwise “#stay home” is the trending topic these days – and many companies are arranging home offices. But what is it actually and what do I have to bring with me?
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What Is Home Office?
In short, working from home is moving the office to home. Sure, this may not work for some professions, but most office jobs can be done without major restrictions. You don’t even really need a lot of equipment to convert to home office ad hoc.
Especially Software
Basically, you only need what you already have in terms of hardware – a computer, possibly a second screen , perhaps a mouse and keyboard, and Internet access. Finished. Much more is usually not necessary, although of course that depends on the specific job in each individual case.
It gets more interesting with the software. Companies that have already moved “to the cloud” have an advantage, because here the setup is basically limited to entering a few passwords, for example in the Google or Microsoft account (G Suite or Office 365).
Often, however, you also have to access data in the company that is not stored in the cloud. This can be solved relatively easily with a VPN. Some IT departments even pursue a completely different solution: work directly on a server. This is possible via remote warning, for example via VNC. In this case, the local computer degenerates into a “dumb terminal” (loosely translated as “stupid screen”) and only shows what is being generated at the other end of the line. Apart from the VNC viewer (and possibly VPN), the configuration effort is completely eliminated in this way – and the platform of the local computer is largely irrelevant, since the clients for the services exist for almost all operating systems.
Meetings Become Virtual
While many employees can probably get over, to put it nicely, not being able to see their colleagues (and the boss), there are meetings that work better when you sit across from each other or talk to each other. You don’t have to do without this in the home office either – the telephone (cell phone, possibly with call forwarding) also works at home. And meetings can also be held via webcam, for example with Google Hangouts or Skype. A conference is also possible thanks to the ability to communicate with several participants