5 Useful Work From Home IT Gadgets & Hacks to Have

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have made the abrupt shift for employees to work from home. As such, setting up a home office with the essential technology is important for work comfort and productivity at home. Below are some of our recommended work from home tech and home office tips.  

1. Laptop Stand

Every employee who works on their laptops should buy a laptop stand. Its adjustability can position your laptop at a comfortable height and angle which promotes good ergonomics. A healthy screen position is slightly tilted backwards for 10 to 20 degrees from an upright position, while the top of the screen should be paralleled or slightly lower than the horizontal height of the eye. To avoid chronic shoulder, back and neck pain, sit in an upright position while working. With a laptop stand, you no longer need to hunch over your laptop to compensate for the lack of proper eye-level height. 

2. Conference Speaker 

When working from home, consider an enhanced audio setup by having a conference speaker beside your laptop or desktop computer. It has a powerful built-in microphone and speaker to make phone calls more comfortable and efficient. Because of its design to capture sound from a far distance, you can move freely around your room as you make and receive calls. The sound quality of a conference speaker is louder and clearer than a smartphone. In fact, you have to put your smartphone close to your mouth even if you have set it on speakerphone. 

3. Wireless USB Adapter

The strength of your Internet connection can make or break your productivity when working from home. To enhance your home Wi-Fi connection, plug in an inexpensive wireless USB adapter to the USB port of your laptop or desktop computer. Basically, a wireless USB adapter overrides the computer’s built-in wireless functionality, which gives you a faster, more stable connection to the surrounding available network signals. If you plan to use your network for online gaming and entertainment streaming, choose an adapter with a high rate of 500 Mbps data transfer or more. 

4. Take Advantage of Google Workspace 

To ensure you are on the same page with your colleagues, digital collaborative tools, storage space and sharing applications are essential. These are the working from home hacks every employee should have. You can find and use such cloud features on Google Workspace to store and share your work files, photos and videos with relevant parties. Most likely you have Google Workspace as most companies subscribed to this cloud platform for business use. Explore all the applications and features on this cloud platform to get your work done faster and organise your files into folders. If you are a freelance worker who does not have a Google account, you can create one for personal use to access Google Drive for free which includes 15GB of storage. 

5. Install an Antivirus Software

Due to the social and economic instability in the midst of the pandemic, there is a target shift from individuals and small businesses to large corporations, governments and critical infrastructure. Cybercriminals are rapidly developing new tactics to steal sensitive company data and cause disruption. As a working professional of major organisations, it is of utmost importance to have the work devices of such individuals protected and secured. Having antivirus software helps to protect computers from malicious viruses and programmes which jeopardise the company’s security and to an extent, damaging the devices themselves. 

Be sure to equip yourself with these tech gadgets or other IT hacks that will make your remote work experience. more productive and secure. For more lifestyle and tech tips, read our CARE blog articles today.