This guest post was contributed by Bob Gorman.
What are the things that should find a place in every office, besides desks, chairs and stationery? The requirements of business people nowadays are a lot different from those people ten years ago. A lot has changed over the small period of time. The development of technology has been amazing and really great, even in the past few years, not to mention a decade. How much do we actually depend on technology is proven by the fact that every single office that you step in must have at least a desktop computer. The storage of information and the organization of work is thus done more easily. Here are some gadgets that are completely essential for normal, daily functioning in your offices.
Notebooks and tablets
These two gadgets are necessary in every office, especially if you don’t own a desktop computer in your office. Plus, owning a notebook or a tablet is a lot more practical and useful as you can carry it with yourself and have instant access to your work everywhere you are.
Printers
Even though most of the work is done electronically, no matter what kind of business we are talking about, real paper documents are still important and used widely. So, if you want to lessen the work you need to do and have everything at your hand, you must own a printer in your office. There are different types of printers: Monochrome or color printers, depending if you want/need your page to be printed in color or black and white. Of course, there are also other variances in types of printers concerning their speed, way of printing, the noise they make, etc. Make sure to do detailed research and have all those things remembered when buying one.
Scanners
Need a copy of a document that you only have in paper? You don’t need to buy a copy machine just for that because buying a scanner is much more affordable and useful. If you need to send that same copy to someone, just use the same scanned version and send it electronically to your client or business partner. Some bigger companies own their own community scanning and printing machines, but if you are not a part of such companies, consider buying an office version of it.
USB hubs
Transferring data from one device to another is done frequently, so you need USB flash drives and if there are multiple USB drives that you need to use at the same time, you should get an USB hub so you could have more slots. Office work is sometimes done in a swift manner, and you will need to input/output data quickly – so you don’t need to think whether you have an available slot for your USB drive. These kinds of problems are easily solved with USB hubs.
Projector
If you are in the business where you often need to do presentations, purchasing a projector would be a smart move. By doing this, you will be able to do the presentations in your own office without having to go to the conference-presentation or similar rooms, designed for this.
Wireless headset system
This is a truly needed gadget in your office. If you spend a lot of time on your phone, doing conference calls or business meetings via Skype, you better find a really good headset. Wireless headset systems offer a lot of advantages: quality wireless headsets will not get in the way of using other wireless devices, they offer conference calls (sometimes even up to 3 persons), you can get the signal even if you are up to 100 meters away from the base, and with proper batteries/charging, they offer many hours of work – so you wouldn’t have to worry about that. Pay special attention when buying a wireless headset system and make sure that the microphone and the speakers are of exceptional quality.
Shredder
Disposing of excess papers in your office is maybe not a concern of those who have people paid to do this in their company. But not all people working in offices have all the things facilitated. “Office chores” can make quite a mess out of your office if not taken care of regularly. Trash cans need to be emptied constantly and if you are too busy to do this, go with the option of buying a shredder. Prices vary from 20 USD to up to 200+ USD. Choosing a cheaper one can condemn you to listening to a great deal of noise and risking that they get overheated and stuck in the middle of shredding. Those pricey and complicated ones work in a more quiet way and even offer the possibility of completely tearing the paper to pieces, not just vertically cutting them into strips.