Staying home all day, wearing pajamas, and relaxing on the couch sounds like an ideal workday, right? Unfortunately, working from home isn’t quite that easy and can take a bit of time to adjust to if you are used to going into the office. But don’t despair, although learning how to work from home can certainly take some adjusting to, having the right tools and setup will make your new way of working a whole lot easier. As someone who as spent my entire career in the communications space and has been telecommuting and managing a remote global team for over 15 years, I thought I’d share some of my ‘wisdom’.

I’d be willing to wager that not all of this will be brand new to you, but if you’re anything like me, lists help. And, my hope is that this checklist gets you clear on what you need… and perhaps you’ll find a couple of nuggets while you’re at it.

Finding the Right Work from Home Setup

Setting up your workspace is important, and there are things you can do to get the space right no matter how your home is laid out. You’ll need to focus on the space, lighting, furniture, and (of course) technology for the ultimate WFH setup.

Space

Having the right work from home setup is essential for success. Create a ‘workplace’ that is separate from your normal life. Set up a quiet area in your home that is dedicated just to work. This way, you have a clear division between work responsibilities and home responsibilities. If your home doesn’t have space for a home office, set up in your kitchen, living room, or bedroom, but take extra care to make these areas work by day and home by night.

That said, one of the most important factors of the right work from home setup is having appropriate space for your needs. Clear some space to ensure you have enough room for your technology, office supplies, coffee, and anything else your job may require so you can access and use things comfortably.

Lighting

Adequate home office lighting is absolutely necessary. Brighten up your workspace by sitting near a window, using desk and/or floor lamp — keeping the lighting as natural as you can. If possible, don’t position your desk with a window behind you. And, if you do, make sure you have curtains you can close during video calls — no need to conceal your identity!

Show Some Personality

Your desk is a place of work, but it is also a reflection of you so why not show a bit of your personality? Say something about yourself with your workspace by showing off your hobbies or interests. This helps break the ice when you are meeting someone for the first time over video and can help remote teams get to know one another a bit better. That being said, don’t go overboard with decorating, as it can eventually lead to a distraction or clutter.

Bring the Outdoors in

Take this time while working from home to refine your green thumb. Having plants in workplaces has been shown to improve productivity by 15% and help to boost your mood, which results in better work. It helps too that green has a calming effect that is believed to relieve stress. Pro tip: Start with easy plants such as snake plants, pothos, spider plants, peace lilies, or ZZ plants.

Furniture

This one is a bit obvious, but it needs to be said… find a comfortable chair. Also, get an appropriately sized desk for you and your items. One that allows you to sit or stand is ideal. The furnishings in your home office truly make a difference in your comfort and productivity.

Technology

Working from home is made much easier when you are prepared with the right technology. Of course, you will likely have your computer handy, but there is more work from home technology you can add that will make your adjustment a whole lot smoother.

Headset

Invest in a headset with Active Noise Cancellation to block out background noises so you can concentrate. Better yet, get one with close conversation limiting that only sends your voice and not the sounds of the dog barking or garbage man making noise outside your office.

Camera

Ditch the laptop camera and enhance visuals with a quality webcam and video conferencing tools, and enhance teamwork with collaboration tools. If you really want to get serious, get a dedicated monitor and webcam for video so you don’t consume all your monitor real estate with a video image. Ideally, choose a device with 1080p resolution or better. And, for extra-extra brownie points choose a camera with speaker tracking functionality to follow your every move if you stand up and move around.

Speakerphones

Desk phones and portable speakerphones are a good option you prefer to be handsfree and headset-free. It’s nice to get up and move a bit — especially during audio-only calls. With new features like our NoiseBlock technology, if you forget to mute while you are trying to multi-task, the device will automatically mute the sound of you typing on your keyboard, so you won’t interrupt your meeting… Not that I’m condoning multi-tasking during your calls…

Work from Home Checklist

Other Work from Home Tips

Decrease Distractions

From the art hanging on your walls to the chores waiting for you around the house, it is very easy to get distracted while working from home. To minimize these distractions, look around your space to see if anything could be distracting to yourself of others on the phone, on a video call, or randomly suck you down a rabbit hole in the middle of the day.  In action, this means avoiding noisy rooms for calls, keep your surroundings tidy and do your best to ignore any looming chores. It’s also wise to set boundaries with your family to avoid disruptions.

Keep Your Space Decluttered

Now, this is a big one kids —keep your room clean! Tidiness and cleanliness in the office have been linked to increased productivity and mood, while clutter contributes to stress and hindered work. Put away items you are no longer using and clean up any clutter that may have accumulated during the day. If your workspace is too crowded, consider investing in a larger desk or a more efficient organization system for your things.

Maintain a Routine

For most people, going into the office provides structure to their workday routine. Switching to working from home can throw off that groove and leave you feeling lost or unmotivated throughout your day. When working out of a home office, maintaining a routine helps keep you on track. Essentially, you want to make it feel like you are going to work. This means waking up at the time you normally would for the office, shower, get dressed, have your morning coffee, then get out there and conquer the world from your home office on time.

It’s also important to take appropriate breaks. Maybe visit a friend for lunch or simply have a peaceful meal away from your desk. Perhaps a quick run or virtual exercise class to get your blood pumping after a long morning of sitting. And, be sure to quit working at a reasonable time to replicate the ‘office feel’.

Stay in Contact

One of the biggest differences between being in the office and working from home is the ease of talking with others. Stay in contact with coworkers to make sure everyone is on the same page despite working remote. To keep up morale, catch up with two to three people a day outside of normal ‘work’ stuff or, dedicate some time in your meetings to chit-chat. Make meetings via video call if possible, to see faces, or at least call in to hear voices. If audio or video conferencing technologies don’t make sense for a situation, reach out via a chat tool to successfully communicate in real-time.

Change of Scenery

With much of the world on lockdown, this one is more important than ever. You need to keep things interesting to prevent your days from amalgamating into a quarantined haze. If it’s a nice day, move outside. Work standing up for a bit. Take some calls with audio and some with video. Try not to stare at your screen all-day — rule of thumb from my eye doctor is every 20 minutes look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Cut loose every now and then, take some time on a Friday afternoon or lunch to just shoot the breeze. Take that call from the back patio with an adult beverage — it’s 5 o’clock somewhere! 😊

Going to work means connecting with many, whether you are in the office or working from home. At Poly, we are committed to helping you create the best work from home office setup to ensure remote teams can efficiently and successfully stay connected. One to one, one to many, many to many.

Want to learn more about remote working? Visit blogs.poly.com/remote-working.

Long before the terms COVID-19 and coronavirus became a part of our daily discourse, almost all of us were already walking around with devices that might have been contaminated with viruses and bacteria. Many of these objects came into frequent contact with our fingers and ears. I’m talking about our phones, laptops and earbuds.

Sure, now and then we’ll rub our phones on our pants when they get smudged. We’ll clean or pick up the crumbs around a couple of keys on our laptops. Now that many workers nationwide are required to work from home to stop the spread of the virus, you’re going to have to make sure your home office space doesn’t become a breeding ground for the very thing you’re trying to avoid.

Poly wants to help you rid yourself of all these electronic petri dishes. We’ve been helping people with home offices for a long time, and many of our products are great for work-from-home setups. So here are a few ways to keep a variety of electronic devices clean. Don’t ever use bleach and, of course, be sure nothing is plugged in while you’re cleaning it.

Phones: Cleaning wipes and soft cloths are best. Don’t spray any cleaners directly onto the phone, and make sure no water or cleaning product gets into the ports, nooks and crannies. These tips can be applied to both smartphones as well as to traditional desk phones and conference phones. For smartphones, treat the glass gingerly. For handsets, give some extra attention to the receiver, which spends most of its time against your mouth and ears.

Keyboards: The same no-liquids restriction apply here. Start by cleaning up crumbs and anything in the hard-to-reach spaces between the keys. You could use cotton swabs, clear tape or even this recipe from CNET for cleaning slime. Then give it all a good scrub with disinfectant wipes.

Accessories: First remove batteries from any device that has them. Make sure you do the trackpad, USB flash/thumb drives and especially your germ-covered mouse.

Cables: If you’re frequently charging and unplugging phones and laptops, you might want to give your cables a once-over. Don’t mess with the connector ends, but go after any part you touch frequently, as well as the length of the cord itself.

Headsets: We only think about them when we’re using them, but big and small, they hang on our heads or around our necks every workday for weeks and months.

Earbuds: Go with a cotton swab with alcohol. If the swab is dripping, it’s too wet. If the earbuds have removable tips, take them off and give them some attention. Check every crevice for dust, dirt and yep – earwax. Hopefully, this will be the grossest home-office item you need to clean.

Once you’ve hit all the biggies, look around your workspace and hunt for other items that you interact with frequently. Then ask some questions:

• If you have a desktop or laptop computer, how often do you use your hand to adjust the monitor?
• Do you absentmindedly put pens and pencils in your mouth?
• Do you know how many times you have touched the lever on your chair that adjusts the height? Have you ever cleaned it?
• When’s the last time you cleaned your printer?
• Do you eat food next to your laptop? Do your hands ever go directly back and forth between your keyboard and a sandwich or salad fork?
• That water bottle you keep refilling – when’s the last time it had a good wash, inside and out?
• Does your computer or laptop have a touch screen?
• Do you have a tablet that needs washing?
• What about that knob, chain or switch that turns on the lights?

Everyone’s setup will be different, so be diligent. One missed area can transfer germs very efficiently. And don’t touch your face.

If you’re looking for more information, many manufacturers have posted advice about how to clean specific devices— like ours. And for additional tips about cleaning and disinfecting all kinds of surfaces, check out the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations.

WANTED: Videographer to capture company meetings. Must have a steady hand with the camera and a natural intuition of how to best portray conversational dynamics within videoconference calls — No pulse necessary.

What? Your company doesn’t have a videographer live filming your meetings!?

Fortunately, when you outfit your huddle rooms and small conference spaces with Poly Studio USB video bars, no videographer is needed.

Smarter Features, Better Meetings

In past blogs we’ve discussed how Poly MeetingAI is pushing the boundaries of videoconferencing with the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to combat the distractions that bombard your senses in meetings. And, solving common issues like jolting video, poor audio, and cameras pointed anywhere but at the speaker is something we’ve been laser-focused on for some time now.

Poly runs at the front of the pack when it comes to delivering intelligent features like automatic group framing and acoustic fencing so users on the remote end of the call experience the meeting like they have a seat at the table. That said, here’s a closer look at what we’ve been working on behind the scenes to bring you the best meeting experience possible, via our latest software update.

It truly is like having a professional cameraman behind the scenes…

Today we’re excited to introduce two new Poly MeetingAI features with Smooth Tracking and Conversation Mode, available December 2019* for the Poly Studio USB video bar with the roll-out of Poly Studio V1.2 software.

Smooth Tracking

Hard cuts and jolting cameras can be a bit jarring during meetings. Expanding on the existing speaker tracking and group framing functionality delivered with Poly MeetingAI, the new smooth tracking feature will subtly shift the camera’s focus to frame a different speaker when the distance between the two speakers is small, instead of a sudden cut.  It truly is like having a professional cameraman behind the scenes, smoothly panning between speakers and making smart decisions about whether to pan or cut based on the change in view needed at that time.

Conversation Mode

Poly MeetingAI understands the dynamics of the conversations taking place in the videoconference so that it always presents the best view depending on what’s going on. Our new Conversation Mode feature is a great example as it can detect when two people in the meeting are engaged in a direct conversation and delivers a split screen view for remote participants. Or, if the people in the conversation are sitting next to each other, it will pan out to frame just them on screen. These smart decisions deliver a better video experience with fewer distractions — automatically, with no user intervention.

Conversation Mode:

Building on a Legacy of Innovation

Poly has an unparalleled track record of driving innovation in video conferencing, having pioneered voice triangulation, face finding and advanced noise suppression. These new Poly MeetingAI advancements delivered with Poly Studio V1.2 demonstrate our commitment to continually making improvements to perfect the videoconferencing experience, from the huddle room to the board room.

Check out Poly Studio 1.2 in action:

* Poly Studio update 1.2 available now via Poly’s cloud management tool, and can be installed via the Poly Companion App 1.3 update starting December 20th, 2019.

Survey emphasizes need for IT to double-down on smart office technology to combat distractions

Space shuttle launches, gunfire, and Sam in Sales are among the loudest sounds humans can be exposed to. We all have those coworkers who speak loud enough to wake the dead. Though they might not do lasting damage to our eardrums, they are a huge threat to workplace productivity, especially in the open office.

Our new survey, commissioned in partnership with Future Workplace, asked 5,151 multigenerational office workers around the world for their perspective on the open office. One result clearly stood out: nothing annoys open office workers more than other office workers.

Chief Office Culprit: Loud Conversations 

You know the saying: you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends. Well, you can’t choose your coworkers, either, and they ultimately are the biggest distraction in the open office. It’s not the copy machine or the office dog that tops the list of biggest noise offenders, but the coworkers talking loudly on phone calls that consistently distracts 76% of our survey respondents.

It makes sense. Research shows it’s not noise volume that distracts us the most but speech intelligibility. The more you understand the words being said, the more distracted you’ll become.

Shouldn’t people report loud talkers to the boss or HR? Maybe not—this is a place where IT can play a critical role in improving productivity.

IT Can Build the Escape Plan

T has a clear role because they have some of the most effective tools to create safe havens for workers trying to focus. By selecting the right headsets, handsets, and microphones it’s easy to create an oasis of calm amidst the noise.

So what are the options available? Can wearables and peripherals really provide an answer?

Let’s break it down: why do people talk so loudly on telephone and video calls? It’s often because of shortcomings in their technology. Consider these scenarios:

Scenario 1: You can’t hear them (and vice versa)

If you’re having a hard time hearing the other end, you naturally talk louder, too. Tinny speakers and inexpensive earbuds don’t provide you with the same audio integrity as Poly headsets and speakerphones. The result is choppy conversations, errors, and repeats—and the natural reflex to make your voice louder to compensate.

Scenario 2: You can’t hear yourself

Imagine you’re wearing a headset designed to block external noise so you can enjoy your music playlist. That same headset blocks you from hearing your own voice when you speak. The result: your music sounds great but you’re now a loud talker when you’re on a call. Poly’s enterprise-grade headsets are engineered to distinguish between voice, music, and external noises, and offer side tone that lets you hear enough of your own voice to keep you from being “that guy.”

Scenario 3: You don’t trust the technology

Loud voices can project right through the walls of conference rooms. A door is no match for coworkers shouting to ensure they’re heard when the conference phone or microphone isn’t directly next to them. The solution is 360-degree microphones. Whether on the table, hung from the ceiling, or built directly into an all-in-one system, Poly microphones have beam-forming arrays that pick up only the sounds that should be heard. When people understand they can be heard clearly regardless of where they are in the room, they’ll start using their “inside” voices.

It seems that employees have already cracked the code—more than half (56%) of workers in our survey reported that they want better technology to be more productive. IT in workplaces everywhere have been busy ushering in new software and converting to cloud computing. Isn’t it time to put just as much stock into the hardware that employees are using? Audio innovations—yes, peripherals—are the first line of defense against those distractions that are killing productivity.

We launched a lot at Enterprise Connect 2019. Did you get it all?

If your head is spinning—like a Poly propeller—from all the news at Enterprise Connect, you’re not alone. If you’re at #EC19, you may have seen demos of our some of our latest innovations like Polycom Studio and Plantronics Elara 60 Series, but there was much, much more.

We answered the big question

On Monday, we answered the question that you’ve been asking since Plantronics acquired Polycom: “What will the combined company be called?” We’ve officially rebranded to Poly, focused on the human experience of communication and collaboration. Poly means many, and it recognizes the power of the many challenges we’ll solve together; the many products and platforms we’re offering; and the many people and places we are connecting.

We welcomed our new future as Poly

Our vision is for Poly to be more than the sum of its Plantronics and Polycom parents. Poly CEO Joe Burton outlines our four distinct areas of innovation that will empower us to create amazing new ways to hear, see, and work together.

Huddle rooms are exploding in popularity, and for good reason. Workers everywhere have cried foul over the horrors of the open office. Now, studies have backed up the desperate cries of open-office workers forced to listen to their neighbor’s most recent Game of Thrones theories while smelling their Pad Thai leftovers. Better collaboration and productivity aren’t exactly happening as expected.

Enter huddle rooms—the inexpensive, cost-effective spaces for spontaneous conversations to happen privately. But you know what?  I’m guessing that most companies aren’t doing it right! Too often, small groups jump into a huddle room only to literally huddle around a laptop when having a video conference. Talk about intimate—it’s one thing to “rub elbows”with the rich and famous, but frankly, I’d rather keep my distance from some of my co-workers (sorry, Brian 😊). 

If you think about it, this scene is played out over and over in huddle rooms across the globe. We move from wide-open spaces, into a little room and then cram ourselves onto one side of the table to use video and then tell ourselves we are being more productive. I think we can do better.   

And if you think that’s uncomfortable, consider the experience of folks on the far end. As you’re trying to present your best, professional self and give the pitch of your life, your customers, partners, colleagues, executives see a mish-mash of faces and shoulders squeezed together to fit into the frame of your pathetic laptop camera. I’ve seen it many times in video conferences with vendors who have slick presentations and well-researched pitches but are unfortunately limited to the confines of the laptop screen. Poor audio makes their voices tinny, while poor video distorts their face or cuts off the top of their head.

Creating an Oasis for Collaboration

So what’s the answer? How do we make this right?  Like just about any good fixer-upper project, you need the right tool for the job.  Consider one of our newest solutions, Polycom Studio.  Polycom Studio brings professional-quality video conferencing with quick and easy setup. Just plug it into your USB port, and Polycom Studio connects to your favorite platform, whether it’s Zoom, BlueJeans, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams or Skype or any other desktop video software. Easy setup, check.

It gets better. You can spread out in the huddle room, give your coworkers back their personal space, and this video bar captures the entire room in ultra-wide 120-degree field of view (meaning the far end can see your entire face!). And not only does the camera span the whole room, but automatic speaker tracking focuses on whoever is speaking at the moment. No more fumbling with a remote to get the right person in frame as the conversation flows. Looking good on camera, check

The 12-foot microphone pickup transmits HD voice audio, allowing you to present your most impressive self in HD glory (okay, so maybe not all of us are truly “HD people”, but for the sake of this blog, go with me people).And if you can still hear your coworkers chattering about Game of Thrones outside the huddle room, worry not, because the far end can’t. Acoustic Fence technology makes sure only meeting participants’ voices are carried through to the other end. Sounding smooth, check.

Not to mention, at $949 you can outfit all your huddle spaces for less the price of the laptop you are connecting to. Affordable video, check.

Introducing Polycom Studio, the cure to the dysfunctional huddle room. Now plug in, stretch out, be seen and be heard like your true bad-a#$ self.