If you have only just started a new business, you could be excused for making only tentative steps as you steer the company towards growth. To that end, you could endeavour to limit your corporate premises to a home office, at least for now, as part of bootstrapping.
Indeed, keeping the business home-bound allows you to “try it and see”, but you still need to be careful to have the following measures and amenities in place when you want to take on new staff.
Health and safety measures
Keeping your business within your home’s walls wouldn’t relieve you of your responsibility to carry out a health and safety risk assessment for the benefit and comfort of your staff. This is also good practice in anticipation of customers or contacts paying visits to the building.
The Health and Safety Executive can help you to conduct a health and safety check, says the GOV.UK website. Also, don’t overlook that protection for your own staff can include insurance…
Employer’s liability insurance
There are various categories of insurance which you ought to think about as you assemble all of the administrative infrastructure for your business. These insurances include public liability if clients often visit – but, for your workers, more relevant would be employer’s liability insurance.
This is applicable if you have any employees, and can help to cushion the impact on your business if any of your workers suffer an injury resulting from their employment.
Lightness – in both illumination and colours
It’s a good idea to dedicate a specific space of your home to work purposes. That would make it easier for you to mentally switch into “business mode” when required.
Allow natural light to enter the room in sufficient amounts to perk up your workers. Meanwhile, light colours on the walls will visually increase the space’s size and so could hold off feelings of claustrophobia among your personnel.
Hired office space for meetings with clients
One risk of holding off expanding out of the home office can be that of blighting your firm’s image. The Guardian highlights one example of a commodities research firm’s directors winning a crucial contract with an overseas client after meeting up with them in hired office space.
Were you to follow suit with hiring such space, clients who meet up with you there wouldn’t need to know that you work from home, as might be typical for a small, unprofessional business.
External working space as the firm grows
If you find yourself seeking to hire office space surprisingly regularly, it might be beneficial for you to take up something more permanent outside of the home. It wouldn’t have to mean entirely leaving the house behind, either; you could consider incubation centres and membership clubs.
As you move into new spaces, you could adjust your health and safety policies accordingly. As reported by the Daily Mail, you could allow vaping – for example – on the premises, and perhaps even supply your workers with vaping products like the Innokin Proton 235W mod.