Telecommuting has been in limbo for a long time. Although many workers had the possibility of opting for it, the lack of a regulating law meant that only in very isolated cases could they work from home. However, now things have changed. The new teleworking law regulates all work activity from home, and most importantly, it makes clear the costs that the worker must assume, and which ones must be part of the company. And therefore, it is time to put our licenses in order.
The teleworking law specifies that the company must cover the expenses incurred from working from home. And among these expenses stand out all the necessary tools to be able to carry out the work. In addition to the equipment, and the cost of electricity and furniture, the company should pay the user for the software tools necessary to be able to work from home. For this reason, we are going to leave you some of the most useful, and essential, that cannot be missing from our PC and that, now, the company must pay.
We remember, first of all, that, although it may be tempting to install software on the PC , as for personal use, nothing normally happens, at a professional level, in the event of an audit (something likely to happen) if software is detected in the PC can be very expensive. And in that case it will be our responsibility. Therefore, when in doubt, it is better to opt for 100% original software. In addition, we will avoid taking security risks when teleworking.
Windows 10: a key to making it legal
Unless we bought an OEM computer that came with Windows already installed, it is very likely that our copy of the Microsoft operating system is a fake. Therefore, before looking at anything else, the first thing we must put in order is this key.
If we do not have a Windows license, and our work requires it (for example, by using software that can only be run on this operating system) the company has to pay us for the operating system license to telework, by law. If there is an alternative, like using Linux, then there may be an excuse. But if our work requires Windows, this is the first program we should ask for.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft Office programs are essential for working. More than once we will have to open documents, create spreadsheets or view slide shows and therefore we will need this software.
The company has two options. The first one, buying us a single license for the latest version, or the second, opting for the Office 365 subscription, which includes, in addition to Office applications, OneDrive cloud storage, file sharing, and others tools (like Skype) that can be very useful for teleworking.
And what about LibreOffice? Although it is the best OpenSource alternative to Office, it is most likely that it will not be useful for teleworking, since, if other people work with the Office suite, we will have format compatibility problems between us. Either the entire company works with LibreOffice, or you will have to provide us with a license to be able to use Office from home.
Photoshop, Acrobat, and other Adobe programs
Depending on the type of work we do, you may need one of the Adobe programs. Photoshop, if we do any type of image editing, or Acrobat, if we often work with PDF documents, are programs that cannot be missing from our PC. And that, in addition, they are not exactly cheap.
Although it is true that there are OpenSource alternatives for these programs (GIMP, for example), but at a professional level, these alternatives do not meet everything we may need and, therefore, surely we have to go through the Adobe ring.
