Quote:
Originally Posted by FurnaceFace
If you are working for a large enough company, see if your benefits include an ergonomic assessment. My wife took advantage of this and it was great. Insurance company will send a rep to your house and measure things up, and order products for you that are required. It was a bit like Christmas the week or two after the assessment was completed and things started arriving: Keyboard tray, keyboard, monitor risers, foot rest, number pad, chair, monitor. It was crazy.
As was noted above lighting is a good thought and making the room comfortable where you want to work in it. For her home office we painted and put up some decorative wallpaper she liked. We also organized some things like shelves and storage spots.
My office was less involved but being in the basement lighting was a consideration. The one really good thing I got was a usb/Bluetooth speakerphone. It helped make a day of meetings more comfortable as I always find after a couple of meetings my ears/head are hot from over the ear cans or tired of ear buds. I did get a set of bone conduction earphones but that was after I stopped working. I could see them being really good though. The speakerphone was my fav though.
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The ergonomics assessment reminded me of a friend's situation.
He wasn't allowed to work from home because he had to have his house assessed for health & safety reasons. He lived in an older house and the stairs from his main floor to his den in the basement weren't wide enough. Therefore he either had to setup an ergonomically sound desk in his living room or kitchen or renovate the stairs in order to work from home in a safe manner.
... since his company had to do layoffs he asked to be laid off because he refused to work in office and he refused to pay to renovate his house to be allowed to work from home. He collected SERB and found a new job a few months later. When he was later asked to go back to work at his former job he told them he found other employment because he felt like they didn't want him.
He's still working from home at his new place of employment and they didn't require him to do health & safety checks on his house. I guess they had to check many things, like the person's work area include chairs and the person's path to get into their work area, including accessibility to washrooms and water, etc. etc. A bit overreaching if you ask me.
Does anyone else working from home have to go through this process to ensure their house is a safe place to work? Seems ridiculous to me.