After COVID, working from home has permeated and taken what looks like a pretty permanent hold over office culture.

Given this shift, it’s important to talk about your setup– gear can make or break your home office setup. Whether you work at home full-time or only a couple of days a week, you want to create an environment that fosters productivity and comfort.

So, let’s talk about some swaps you can make to your setup…

Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the discipline concerning human interactions within a system, namely the work environment. The aim is to reduce or entirely avoid pain and increase efficiency and comfort.

In modern work culture, many of us spend a lot of time at our desks, which can be detrimental to our long-term health. Especially when working from home, where perhaps our home furniture wasn’t prepared for the sudden shift to this workstyle, and where you don’t need to get up to go and speak to a colleague, or pop to the kitchen to make a round of teas, it is far too easy to become sedentary.

However, if we consider our setups and if we orient our spaces to prioritise wellness, we inadvertently prioritise productivity, and therefore the longevity of our working lives without pain. With all of that in mind, here are some places to make changes for better ergonomics:

Your Home Office Chair

The best thing for your postural health is to move around at regular intervals and not remain static. However, many jobs result in you being stuck at your desk for hours on end, so your chair should support this requirement and make it comfortable.

Some features of ergonomic chairs to look out for are:

Stability– This is important for our energy levels. You know how, when you’ve been on a train, and you get off, questioning why you’re so tired when you didn’t do anything? This is because our brains keep our muscles engaged for small movements to stabilise our bodies, so we end up making a series of unconscious micro-adjustments to stay in the same position, which is exhausting. The same goes for an office chair, who knew a broken caster or a wobbly chair leg could hijack your productivity?

Adjustability– a chair with successful ergonomics is such because it focuses on being tailored to your unique requirements, so you should look for options where there are a lot of adjustable features, which may include adjustable seat height (so your forearms are horizontal, and your feet rest flat on the floor), an inflatable lumbar cushion (to follow the curve of your lumbar spine), a seat slide (to alter your seat depth to support your thighs and reduce the pressure behind your knees), armrests, an adjustable seat angle (to lock into a position you find comfortable with feet flat on the floor, or to unlock to benefit from a little bit of movement), and an adjustable headrest (to keep your head in a neutral upright position i.e. not hanging forward and giving you the dreaded “tech neck”).

Castors– for freer movement about a point, rather than leaning.

Have a look at our favourite ergonomic chairs and other solutions from Kensington here.

Your Home Office Desk

You could consider switching to a sit-stand desk, also referred to as a height-adjustable desk. Choosing this kind of desk gives you flexibility, transforming to suit the demand of the task; standing is simply not practical for every task– this is different for everyone, and understanding whether you prefer to video conference, reply to emails, or edit a document while sitting or standing is a matter of trying it out and finding a balance that suits you and your work.

Have a look at our favourite ergonomic solutions from Leitz here.

Home Office Accessories

Footrests– Remember to look after your feet! When sitting, use a footrest, ideally with a gentle rocking mechanism, to exercise your ankles and elevate your legs to relieve pressure and improve circulation to your extremities.

Wireless Keyboard– Even when using a laptop, using a Bluetooth keyboard allows you to position it at an optimal distance, for a better, neutral angle for wrist placement. There are also ergonomic keyboards with split designs or adjustable angles for more comfortable typing.

Mouse mats and Ergonomic mouse– Using a mouse mat can prevent over-extending your arm and encourage proper wrist alignment (with wrists parallel to the ground), which is crucial for the prevention of repetitive strain injury and long-lasting comfort. There are also ergonomic alternatives to traditional computer mice, like vertical mice, roller bar mice, and trackball mice.

A laptop stand– It is recommended to keep the top of your monitor at eye level; to maintain this while lifting or lowering your desk platform, use a laptop riser with multiple adjustable height settings.

Monitor Arm/Stand– To counteract the instinct to hunch over your desk and compact and strain your spine to see your screen in more detail, you will want a monitor to give you more room to see your open windows– use an adjustable monitor arm to reposition your screen to suit. If you use a multi-screen setup, having a way to adjust your monitor, whether that’s up/down, side-to-side, closer/ farther, or changing the angle to reduce glare or to reduce neck strain, it can be a game-changer. Consider whether a monitor stand or a monitor arm would be best suited for your needs:

Webcams for Home Office

If you rely on Zoom, Teams, or another video-calling software to conduct your meeting, rather than handling them face-to-face, you’ll need a reliable, high-quality webcam; the one built into your laptop may not cut it. A dedicated webcam can give you high-resolution, sharper video output, better colour accuracy, and improved low-light performance, making you look professional on every call.

Clarity of video is key for this. 720p (typically at 90fps) provides improved clarity over a built-in laptop camera; 1080p (typically at 60fps) provides high-quality video, and 2160p, 4K (typically at 30fps), provides the highest quality video recording for video collaboration excellence.

Some additional features to look for when buying a new webcam to help you appear more polished and professional include:

A built-in microphone– Some webcams feature omnidirectional microphones to best capture your voice with precision. Many have built-in noise reduction to limit interference (like kids or pets) and clean up the audio in real time for better accuracy and intelligibility.

An integrated lens cover– designed for both flexibility and privacy to let you easily control who sees you.

Focus type– look out for auto-focussing features and fixed focus glass lenses to ensure you are always in focus, even in low-light or high-contrast environments

A universal clip– to fit all laptops or monitors.

Diagonal field of view (dFoV) capabilities– these range from 60° to 95°s, but if you’re rarely stepping back from the desk to present anything, 60° should be sufficient.

And Manoeuvrability– Being able to manually adjust the vertical and horizontal axes of your webcam ensures the best camera angles for any scenario.

Lighting for your Home Office

Good lighting is often an afterthought to a home office, but it is supremely important as it affects comfort, mood, and ultimately, productivity. Poor lighting can cause eyestrain, fatigue, headaches, and even musculoskeletal strain as you lean and contort yourself to see your screen better.

If you can, start by choosing somewhere in your home with good access to natural light. Sunlight boosts your mood and regulates your circadian rhythm. If you’re not getting up and out to go to the office, it’s all the more important to be strict about routine and creating pockets of time to ground yourself.

Make sure to avoid placing your screen directly in front of bright light to avoid glare and harsh reflections. The best kind of light for your desk is indirect. If not, you’ll end up craning your neck to get good visuals or squinting and giving yourself eyestrain-induced headaches. If glare is unavoidable, consider anti-glare filters for screens.

To limit the risk of shadows, which are just as responsible for tiring out your eyes as glare, avoid inconsistent light in your workspace. By using a blend of ambient lighting, like overhead lighting, for overall brightness, and task lighting, for more focused and customisable lighting, you can create a comfortable and inviting workspace that’s evenly lit throughout the day.

Some features to look out for in task lighting include articulating arms and flexible heads, to easily angle light where you need it, multiple brightness settings, to control intensity and coordinate with the natural brightness outside, and colour temperature options, for warmer and cooler lighting for visual comfort.

Wi-Fi Tweaks for Video Calls

You can have a top-of-the-range webcam and the setup of dreams, but it’s all only as good as your internet connection.

For video-calling, stability matters more than speed. The simplest fix is often to just move closer to the router. If that’s not possible, the next best thing is to switch to a wired Ethernet connection, which is always faster and more stable than wireless.

Also, low latency, sometimes called ping, is crucial for smooth video calls. Latency is the reaction speed of your connection– the lower the latency, the faster your computer responds, reducing lag and the frequency of freezing altogether. Try to keep unnecessary devices off our network during the call, and potentially consider splitting your routers' 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. The 2.4GHz is older and so is often cluttered with other devices, inviting more interference from things like microwaves, garage door openers, and wireless microphones, whereas the 5GHz band is less crowded and offers a faster and more stable performance, though you do need to be close to the router.