Working from home is a dream come true for anyone.
You no longer have to spend money on commuting or gas. You don’t need to skip breakfast, complete your hours of sleep, and more amazing things you can think of.
However, as much as this is an excellent working set-up, it also comes with disadvantages. One of them is that your work is not very secure.
Unlike in corporate set-up, there are guards and IT personnel that would help ensure everything is safe. But at home, you’re the one who needs to find ways to ensure this.
You would have to create your home office security, and there are the seven best practices to do that:
Think about the location of your home office
Now that you’re working in a home office, you should start to consider the location of your workspace. Think about the things you need to accomplish.
- Will you be meeting clients?
- Will you have employees?
- Do you need to manufacture products?
- Are you a full-time remote employee?
The space you would need would highly depend on the nature of your job. The bigger the job, the bigger space is necessary.
If you’re meeting clients, you might need a separate room and have easy access to the outside. If you have employees, you might need to have a whole office area made. If you’re a full-time remote employee, you can place a work desk in the corner of your room, and that’s your work area.
You should also consider the sensitivity of what you do. If your job requires you to process sensitive documents, working in the dining room or public area where most family members pass by won’t do.
Consider installing household cameras
What more can make your home more secure than household security cameras, right? By installing them in the areas of your home, you can capture anyone that would try to sneak in your home or your home office.
If you go to an alarm system store to discuss installing security cameras, it is recommended to place these cameras in the following areas:
- Front door
- Back and side doors
- Garage or driveway
- Yard
- Main Stairway
- Common Areas
- Your Home Office
Basically, you can place security cameras anywhere except in areas where people require privacy. You should also optimize it so you can maximize the use. If you need to hire an expert, do so.
Reinforce your home office windows
Next, you should also reinforce your home office windows to ensure that no one can sneak in through that and take some confidential stuff.
We recommend laminated and tempered glasses as your best choices.
These two are hard to destroy, perfect in protecting your things from thieves. Added to that, none of these can affect your home aesthetics negatively.
Secure your Internet connection
As most people are now using the internet, cyber attacks have become very rampant. This is why you must secure your home internet connection. Here are some great ways to do that:
- Changing the default name of your home Wi-Fi
- Your password must be unique and strong
- Enable network encryption
- Disable network name broadcasting to the public
- Keep router’s software up-to-date
- Turn on your wireless router’s firewall
- Use VPNs
You can also ask for advice from an IT professional regarding all this stuff.
Stash your physical documents away
If you are printing documents, make sure you stash them away correctly. Maid Sailors Office Cleaning Service NYC advises to keep them in an organized manner. Only you should know where it’s placed.
If you have kids in the house, you can opt for a drawer that can be locked so your kids won’t access it.
Some documents can be very confidential and must only be for your eyes, so make sure that you don’t leave them anywhere inside the house for others to see.
Shred sensitive documents
If there are sensitive documents that already need to be thrown out, don’t just put it directly on the garbage bin. You must shred it first to ensure that it’s no longer readable.
Here are some documents that you might want to throw away but needs to be shred first:
- Papers that contain your sensitive records like signature, contact details, and account numbers.
- Documents from work (research and development, sales, supplier and customer information, accounting, IT)
- Financial documents (receipts, statements, credit applications, investments, stocks, property transactions)
- Utility Bills
Separate work and personal devices
As you are now working from home, you shouldn’t use company equipment for your personal tasks and vice versa. This way, there won’t be mixed identities that may occur.
For example, you can use your laptop or desktop for more work-related tasks while using your phone for personal stuff.
This will make it easier for you to concentrate on work, too, and help protect your work-life balance.
When you’re working from home, you shouldn’t only think about convenience. You must also ensure that you’re protecting company data entrusted to you. And you can do that if you follow the seven best practices enumerated above.