Have you ever considered working safely from home? How do you keep yourself safe while working from home? This article on FittingChairs is for you!
Overview
While working from home has become popular in recent years for a variety of reasons, it’s essential to make your home office safe and secure to work.
Working remotely has advantages such as saving time commuting, having more flexibility, and being able to spend more quality time with family and friends.
But have you considered ensuring your safety and security in your home office?
Set yourself up for success at work by keeping your home office safe and secure by doing the following:
- Maintain your situational awareness.
- Get to know your neighbors.
- Close your doors.
- Protect your windows.
- Work in front of the door
- Wearing headphones while working should be avoided.
- Make use of a VPN.
- Do not allow visitors to use your primary internet connection.
- Purchase a sliding webcam cover.
- Purchase a basic home security system.
- Use cameras to see what’s going on outside.
- Keep your self-defense weapon close at hand.
- Prepare an emergency plan.
Health and safety aren’t something many people consider when it comes to their home office. However, you will know the importance of staying safe while working from home.
Read on! We’ll go over each of these points above to show why working safely from home is essential!
Why It’s Important To Be Safe While Working From Home
It’s essential to stay safe while working from home. Because if you are unlucky, there are a lot of bad actors out there who want to take advantage of people who work from home.
Whatever jobs you choose for working from home, ensure that we are setting ourselves up for success in our work while also keeping ourselves safe and secure.
Not only should we be concerned about our personal information or network security, but also about our personal safety and security. You know, the invasions can occur when people fail to take precautions.
According to the FBI, 60% of burglaries occur during the day, when residents are not expected to be home. On the other hand, a Jacksonville State University research stated that the majority of burglaries occur between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
So, if you rent, you are more likely to be the victim of a break-in. It’s critical that you conduct your own due diligence to ensure your safety while working from home.
How To Stay Safe While Working From Home
It can be advantageous for both business owners who want to work remotely as well as employees who prefer to work from home. It can reduce overhead, improve efficiency, and in employee retention. But it exists its own set of challenges.
Whether you’re working from home due to social distancing policy, you’re a freelancer, job flexibility to work remotely, you always need to stay safe.
Not only that, your employer also handles all of the things related to safety and security. So, implement policies to ensure everyone’s safety, and take care of the technical details to ensure the security of your network and internet service.
But, detaily, how to stay safe when working from home?
Maintain Situational Awareness
The first thing you should do is ensure that you maintain situational awareness. It requires being alert and observant of what is going on around you.
- What is going on around you.
- What do you notice about what’s going on in your neighborhood?
- Is there a lot of foot traffic from neighbors?
- Is there anything suspicious in your neighborhood?
- Do you see any new people in your neighborhood?
To stay safe, keep an eye out for unusual activity like above. This includes keeping an eye out for people who are lurking outside your door, peering into windows, or driving slowly by. Also, it can be broken glass or damaged doors.
Anyway, these things simply means being aware of what is going on in your home while you are working from home.
Meet Your Neighbors
Getting to know your neighbors is one of the best ways to ensure your safety.
Getting to know your neighbors if you live in an apartment complex is essential for creating a safer home environment.
This will help you determine who you can trust and who you should avoid.
On the other hand, it will also help to build community, and as the good ones learn your schedule and habits, they will consider alerting authorities if anything unusual occurs.
Lock Your Doors
Other tips on staying safe while working from home is setting an locked door. It is the simplest security system to breach.
Of course, burlars intend to enter through an unsecure entry point, such as an unlocked door or an open window. So, you cannot leave your doors unlocked simply because you are at home.
Windows are easy to overlook, especially during the warmer months of the year. However, if you needt working safely from home as possible, keep your doors and windows locked at all times.
If you’re going to open them while working, make sure you keep situational awareness so your safety isn’t dangerous.
Cover Your Windows
It is critical to have natural light in your home office workspace. Setting up window coverings that keep prying eyes out while allowing life-giving light in.
If you want to stay safe, make sure your windows don’t expose your home to prying eyes by exposing it visibly.
Don’t let passers-by easily peer through a window and see your home office setup, TV, or any of your valuables, especially yourself!
If you have horizontal blinds, keep them closed or covered with shears so that no one can see through the individual slats.
Work Facing The Door
The safest position for you to be in your home office is facing the door. If you want to improve your vision to keep you safe, don’t back to any kind of entrance, and this includes the door to your home office.
If you can’t face your door while working from home for whatever reason, you can use a mirror in front of you to see what’s going on behind you.
Plus, facing the entrance to your home office is good feng shui practice.
Avoid Wearing Headphones While Working
That sound directly into your ear canals is risky because it can damage your ears permanently.
Not to mention, if you’re wearing headphones, you won’t be able to hear anything around you, which may distract you from problems inside your home.
If you’re wearing earbuds for the audio quality for online meetings or the microphone so people can hear you better, it’s a good idea to turn them off in between calls so you can be alert and aware of your surroundings.
How to stay active while working from home? Refer these useful guides to get more!
Don’t Allow Guests On To Your Main Network
In most cases, using a strong password on your wifi network is sufficient to prevent others from accessing your data.
However, if you’re concerned about someone else snooping through your browsing history or stealing your personal information, a VPN will assist you in maintaining your privacy.
To begin with, you do not allow people who are not members of your immediate family to access your primary network.
You can use a guest network. You can keep your primary network secure while not allowing your cousin visiting for the week to consume all of your bandwidth binge-watching Netflix while you’re trying to work.
Any other traffic on your home network should be routed through a guest network where they do not have full access.
Use a VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) is an important privacy tool that encrypts all of your internet traffic to protect your privacy. If you are concerned that your ISP is tracking your online activity, this could be a useful resource.
In some cases, your employer may require you to use a VPN to access your company’s internal resources.
If you work outside of your home office in coffee shops, hotels, or other places where public wifi is available, you should definitely protect yourself by using a VPN.
Invest In A Sliding Webcam Cover
A good rule of thumb is to keep your camera covered when not in use. Although hackers can easily gain control of your webcam, it still works.
There are numerous sliding webcam cover options available or you can simply cover your camera with tape and a simple piece of paper or a post-it note.
This way, even if the virtual video meeting app – whether Google Hangouts, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or something else, even defaults to having your webcam in the “on” position , you aren’t actually shown on the screen until you’re ready to go.
This gives you more time to make sure you’re presentable and there’s nothing in the background that you don’t want displayed on the call.
Get A Basic Home Security System
A home security system does not have to be prohibitively expensive. Basic home security can be installed for around $150.
Even the most basic home security system can notify you if someone enters your property without permission and deter intruders by sounding an alarm or flashing lights.
They can also notify you of power outages, physical attacks on your home, such as someone attempting to smash your door down with a hammer, and even cut landlines and wifi outages.
It’s also a great security solution that will give you a lot of peace of mind by ensuring your home is safe and monitored while you’re away.
Use Cameras To See Outside
In terms of tips for working safely from home, knowing what’s going on outside your home is also an important part of working from home for safety and security.
It’s best to use cameras to monitor your home’s exterior, including windows and doors. Motion sensors are useful because they detect movement anywhere within their detection range.
They are really useful if you suspect someone is breaking into your home without your knowledge.
You can even use a ring doorbell camera to keep you informed about what’s going on outside your door, and also hold porch pirates accountable and provide authorities with valuable evidence.
In case you want to know more about useful tools and equipments, don’t ignore this article with many guides for working from home productively!
If You Have A Self-defense Weapon Keep It Nearby
If you’ve been trained to use a firearm, keep it with you at all times when working from home during the day.
That also means you must practice using your weapon and rehearsing scenarios in which it may be required. You know, it’s an essential way for working from home safely.
If a firearm isn’t your thing, there are other deterrents to consider, such as self-defense pepper spray, a stun gun, or a keychain alarm like a Birdie.
The main point is that if you have to use a self-defense weapon against an intruder, you must ensure that you can stop that person quickly and effectively.
Have An Emergency Plan In Place
How to work safely from home? It is critical to have an emergency plan in place. You may not have expected to need to do this because you’re working from home, but it works sometimes.
It is critical to have a plan in place in case of a fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, or another disaster.
- What will you do if a fire breaks out?
- What will happen if there is a flood?
- What will you do if there is a theft in your home?
You should also consider what attitudes or supplies you will need in the event of a disaster so that you can respond appropriately.
This list may include items such as perishable food, water, flashlights, first-aid kits, blankets, batteries, and other necessities.
The most important aspect of working from home safely is to trust your instincts and implement the trusty measures above to ensure you can focus on doing your work and staying productive without worrying about scenarios.
Follow FittingChairs to know more tips on working from home productively!
