Home Based Offices

Home office

With the economy officially in recession, many people are working from home, either voluntarily or involuntarily. According to the Census Bureau, nearly half (49%) of all businesses in the U.S. are home-based. Add to that the number of displaced workers who are consulting from home, freelancing or using their home offices as a base from which to seek other employment and corporate employees who telecommute and you have a large home-based workforce.

If you operate your small business from home or you and/or your employees work from home occasionally, you need to be as vigilant about computer security as you would working from a traditional office. If you issue laptops to your employees, make sure that they understand that the laptops are for business use only. Do not allow your teenagers or others to use them as their most popular music and video download sites and social networking sites are often misused for mal-ware and other types of viruses. Exercise the same degree of caution with respect to passwords, VPN’s and other protocols as you would in the office.

Finally, be aware that your homeowner’s or tenant’s insurance almost certainly does not cover commercial activities performed inside the home. You can obtain a policy for a home-based business at very low cost, often offered as part of a membership benefit package in many small business associations, making the cost of joining well worth the membership dues.