Most Employees Don’t Like Their Home Office Set-up — Here’s How to Fix This

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Several years after the pandemic forced a mass shift to remote work, many people working from home?still don’t have the right set-up to work comfortably. Research from Logitech finds that most employees are struggling with video (89%), audio (85%), or ergonomic (77%) issues in their work-from-home office.

In addition, 64% of workers have poor or inadequate light in their homes and 58% struggle with distracting noises in their homes while on calls. Taken together, these issues could be having an outsized impact on remote worker productivity and engagement.

In fact, a recent study from Steelcase across 10 countries finds that ergonomic discomfort is a top issue that hurts people’s ability to get their work done from home. In a?review of 250 case studies, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries found that companies that implemented good ergonomic solutions (resulting in more efficient workstations) increased employee productivity by 25%.

While some organizations took steps to equip their workforce at the onset of full-time remote work, Logitech’s research reveals there’s been little change in the status quo. For example, fewer than 40% of IT decision-makers say their company provides external webcams, headsets, or other accessories that optimize audio and video performance — even at organizations where employees have been meeting remotely for years.?

Faced with a lack of support from their employer, workers are trying to understand the challenges they experience working from home, as well as the solutions that might benefit them. This has placed an unintended burden on employees and their managers. Furthermore, most people are struggling unnecessarily with issues that are fairly easy to solve with today’s business-grade devices.

Proactively equipping workers with the tools and equipment they need is one of the easier ways to address challenges that have stemmed from a suddenly transformed world of work. In today’s article, I’ll describe the 4 steps you can take to improve the work-from-home environment for your team members.

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