You are building the future, what will it look like?
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Creating the spaces and workplaces of tomorrow is the great challenge of today—to design and build spaces for people to work and live in that are more secure, sustainable, and inclusive. Because the fixed office is no longer a given, hybrid spaces are the ways in which we will live and work in the future. To produce these spaces, kitchen tables have been the new workspaces, and | living rooms the new conference call rooms. Teams are disjointed and not as accessible as they were. To bring disparate groups together, printing helps improve performance and productivity, by seamlessly bridging the digital and physical worlds for unambiguous and clear plans that will help you effectively transform our world. | Success lies in having the means to stay connected, creative and healthy while working from home. This guide looks at the growing trend for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) professionals, like yourself, to work remotely, and how you can maximize collaboration, productivity and wellbeing. |
A growing proportion of AEC professionals want to continue working remotely
As an AEC professional, you are used to working in close collaboration, physical interactions, and site visits with customers and colleagues, but now must adapt to home working, developing processes and practices accordingly.
| CONSTRUCTION HOME WORKERS 2/3 (66%) of construction firms plan to retain home working after COVID | REMOTE ENGINEERS 67% of engineers agree they can perform most tasks remotely | HOME-WORKING ARCHITECTS 77% of professional-level architects are considering working from home to save money. |
How to make home working a success?
So, how should you successfully transition to remote work? It’s important to focus on the simple things first. Maximize your efficiency by using well-specified computers that can cope with your software packages and fast networking, applications that enable you to work effectively, and high quality printers. Many packages used by AEC professionals, including BIM packages, augmented reality for detailed installations, virtual reality for presentations and complex designs will put a strain on computer hardware, so make sure your setup is equipped to handle the software you will use. | Also, think about hardware and software features that will help make things more convenient and effective—HP large format printers boost collaboration and efficiency thanks to connected tools that allow you to print from anywhere, for example. Make sure you’re using embedded endpoint protection, too. Home workers are known to be the targets of hackers because many home security systems don’t match office equivalents. And while many people associate embedded security with laptops and desktops, it’s important to point out that printers are also a target for hackers. That’s why HP has focused on making the world’s most secure printers with embedded endpoint protection. |
Collaborating closely with the team, partners and clients online when remote
The use of collaboration tools is clearly in focus now that so many AEC employees are working remotely. Remote working can impede communication, information sharing, and working within the same timeframes, causing delays and making it hard to maintain close and professional client relations.
| COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION 20% of employees rank collaboration and communication as their top struggle when working from homev. | READING THE VIRTUAL ROOM According to qualitative research, collaborating in virtual meetings with clients is difficult, as it’s hard to read body language and look somebody in the eye when presenting a bid proposal. This is particularly the case in large milestone projects with multiple stakeholders, where the financial and safety risks are high. |
How to improve collaboration from your home office?
| As well as providing video conferencing capabilities, many cloud-based tools enable document and model sharing using visualization tools. Many packages include drawing reviews and mark up, and collaboration tools for real-time brainstorms and whiteboarding. | Your choice of printer helps here too. HP’s large format printers enhance collaboration with built-in scanners to copy and distribute sketches and handannotated drawings to colleagues right away. Meanwhile, HP Smart App gives you access to a large format printer from a mobile or tablet. | You can also improve collaboration by making sure your network is robust, and you have audio and visual technologies such as the right microphone, headset and camera for you. |
 | Maintaining productivity levels can be hard when you work remotelyWhen moving from office-based work to home-based work, the distractions of home can initially impair the productivity for workers in all industries, but life can be particularly challenging for home-based architects, engineers and construction specialists who are used to having the time, space and technology to focus on anything from data-intensive analysis to the creation of intricate plans. But once your home setup settles down, there are benefits: | |
| PRODUCTIVITY BOOST However, once settled into a viable working office 65% of workers said they would be more productive working in a home office than a normal office. | FEWER DISTRACTIONS When you have to concentrate on a single task, working at home can be particularly effective, with 75% of employees saying they have been able to maintain or improve productivity on individual tasks, such as analyzing data or writing presentations, since the pandemic began | |
How to stay productive while working from home?
When working in an environment as complex as AEC, your priority is ensuring you have adequate light, ventilation, and soundproofing. | that are at least as powerful as those in the office. Furthermore, remote access to a large format printer is critical to help make sense of complex plans. Digital representations are useful but can introduce errors by confusing distances and relative positions, whereas printed versions | are unambiguous. Detailed printed plans and designs help you disengage from digital fatigue and focus on the job at hand, and to share outputs with colleagues. |
Wellbeing and mental health are important issues for home workers
Many factors can negatively impact a home worker’s wellbeing and mental health. Among these are social isolation and loneliness, job uncertainty anxiety, extra working hours, boundary issues, and trying to juggle family and professional life under the same roof.
| MENTAL HEALTH IMPACT 39% of architects admit their mental health has been negatively impacted by working from home. | PHYSICAL PAIN 63% of people suffer musculoskeletal pain from poor homeworking practice | STAYING MINDFUL In sectors such as engineering there is a pressing need to proactively support employees’ mental health, experts say. |
How to improve your wellbeing as a home-based worker?
There are practical steps you can take to improve your working-from-home wellbeing and mental health, such as making a meaningful demarcation between home and work. Working at home sometimes means work invading home, which will be detrimental to both your work and home life. Set up rigorous and meaningful demarcations. Some people choose to ‘commute’ to work with a walk before | working, and then before each break to mark that transition. Others choose to wear more formal clothes. Such things may seem trivial, but they are important psychological tools to keep your work your work and your home your home. When working, do keep an eye on your physical health by setting up an ergonomic workplace with the right chair, desk, monitor, keyboard and | mouse setup. In addition, take regular breaks and make a conscious effort to improving your nutrition, hydration, stress management, exercise, and mindfulness. Reliable and intuitive technology will also improve your wellbeing. |
Connected, productive and healthy
AEC professionals are the key players in the grandest challenge on the planet—to redesign and rebuild our built environment so it’s fit for the challenges of today and tomorrow, and to make it more secure, sustainable and inclusive.
To achieve this, they need to keep continually improving remote offices to make home working a success, despite the challenges it can present. By relying on the right environment, routines and equipment, such as large format printers, they can maintain productivity, collaboration and relationships with team members and clients who are also working remotely Technology and collaboration will help your talented team redesign and rebuild the world more sustainably and effectively.
Let’s create a better world, together.
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©Copyright HP Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. c07412174, May 2021