Companies are happy to invest in the right personnel, but IT equipment shouldn’t cost too much. As a result, talented people struggle with unsuitable tools outside the office.
“We don’t send mechanics out with a worn-out screwdriver instead of a quality power drill”, sighs Koen Van Beneden, Managing Director for HP in the Benelux. “But paying two hundred euros more to give someone a good screen at home is apparently too much. Meeting rooms are also full of inadequate equipment, and people waste time.”
Van Beneden can get worked up about this and finds a sympathetic ear among the conversation partners at the round table on hybrid work, organized by ITdaily. Also at the table are Femke De Vleeschouwer, Chief People Officer at Teamleader, Peter Van Hoof, Operations Director of BIS|Econocom, Kristof Willems, Head of Product Management for Samsung Benelux and Elizabeth Callens, Product Manager at Barco.
We don’t send mechanics out with a worn-out screwdriver instead of a quality power drill
Koen Van Beneden, Managing Director HP Benelux
Get Help
“It’s partly the company’s responsibility to select equipment that is good”, says De Vleeschouwer. “That doesn’t mean someone always needs the most expensive equipment.” However, selecting the right tools is not self-evident.
Van Beneden agrees: “Get help with this. There’s a lot to learn from other companies. All too often, a company orders several thousand of the same screens for everyone, after which half of them are never taken out of the box because they’re not suitable.”
(Limited) Choice
What the right tools are, depends not only on an employee’s role but also on their home situation and preferences. People won’t install a large and ugly screen in their minimalist living room at home. How the best setup for home should look quickly becomes a personal story.
According to the experts, letting everyone choose just anything brings other problems. After all, the IT department remains responsible for hardware support. Van Hoof sees a solution: “The IT department can help, for example by providing pre-selected setups in different flavors. This simplifies management.”
The Ergonomic Importance of a Screen
How different the ideal home office can look is evident from the situation of those present. Willems has a classic setup: “I use a large curved screen, from Samsung of course, adjustable in height. Many people spend a lot of hours in front of the screen, so an investment offers great added value.”
“With hybrid work, more people are sitting behind the screen longer than ever before”, he adds. “Especially at home, where there might not be an adjustable office chair, it’s so important to at least use a good monitor that’s at the right height.”
Van Hoof completely agrees with this. “I’ve recreated the setup from the office”, he indicates. “If I were to work just on the laptop all day, I’d have to go to the physiotherapist in no time. Our company also provides a modest budget to purchase equipment for home.”
If I were to work just on the laptop all day, I’d have to go to the physiotherapist in no time.
Peter Van Hoof, Operations Director BIS Econocom
From Laptop to Space Center
De Vleeschouwer herself prefers to work at the office, so she doesn’t often work from home. “So I don’t have an extensive setup, because that doesn’t offer added value for me. At Teamleader, employees can take equipment home and get a budget of 1,000 euros to provide things themselves. If that equipment is something the company can’t use, the agreement is that they take it over if they were to leave us.”
Van Beneden calls himself an extreme case. “I actually have three setups at home, one of which has two 43-inch screens and a third vertical display. HP provides budgets for employees to choose home office equipment, but to be clear, I had to pay extra to recreate my personal NASA Space Center”, he laughs.
Working in the Garden
Callens keeps it more modest. “I have a screen at home, but also a Clickshare and a Logitech for online meetings, mainly for testing. If I have to attend a more passive meeting, I often choose to use my laptop and follow the meeting from the couch or in the garden”, she admits somewhat reluctantly.
This move to the garden is met with applause. “You probably follow such a meeting more attentively there than behind your desk,” Van Beneden suspects. This brings us back to individual preferences: ultimately, it’s up to a company to support employees as best as possible in what makes them productive.
“There’s also a big role for managers of small teams in this”, De Vleeschouwer believes. “They know their employees and their needs best, after all.”
Ingredients for a Good Strategy
How a home office should look cannot be captured in a single description. During the round table, several guidelines are discussed on which there is consensus. There is unanimity about the role companies should play in supporting their employees, as well as the fact that this role is still too often inadequately fulfilled.
Choice should be central, but infinite choice is not a good idea either. Everyone can agree on defined options, especially when these options combine IT needs with the wishes and expectations of employees in different roles. This way, IT maintains the capacity to provide support, and home workers can choose equipment that not only suffices to do the job but also fits their home situation.
Doing nothing, or investing in a large one-size-fits-all approach to equipment, is certainly not an option. This approach results in tense shoulders and unopened boxes full of irrelevant screens and webcams.
This is the first editorial article in a series of three on the theme of hybrid working. Click on our theme page to see all articles from the round table, the video, and our partners.