In the US of course, we deduct our home office from our taxes, meaning that our fellow citizens, or debt, support working from home. Thos seems like a saner solution.
You make it sound like European countries don’t have deductibles and similar laws for the those equally savvy to put it on the tax payers?
I see this pattern amongst Americans these days thinking these sorta of shenanigans and morally questionable laws is unique to them? Is it a form of self flagellation?
Certain European countries let tax payers pay for 80% of their foreign/migrant workforce without getting their growing revenue or equity to the state.
Not anymore, this administration did away with that deduction in 2017 if you are an employee. Unless you are a contractor, business owner, or otherwise self employed you cannot deduct a home office.
Employers can reimburse employees for home office costs provided they meet the existing definitions of home office and proper, regular accounting is done. That money is not considered taxable income to the employee.
However, an upfront flat "reimbursement" would probably be considered a taxable fringe benefit.
Being allowed to deduct it from the taxes is a recognition that it is a 'work expense' rather than a profit (because you're charging it from you customer). It's the same idea w.r.t the reinbursement.
That's really twisting things beyond recognition. In the US, we deduct business costs period, but pay taxes on profits. So as long as your business or your employer's is making profits, the taxes on profits are replacing it, not your fellow citizens. And if profits aren't being made, well obviously the situation isn't going to last too long.
The idea that the taxes of people who don't work from home are somehow subsidizing those who do is... just not how it works.
Wow I had thought the cost of living was high in Switzerland but I guess when you’re used to the Bay Area everything else seems cheap. In SF you’d pay like $5000 for that 2bd unless you go out pretty to the more remote, harder to commute from neighborhoods.
In any case, $154 is still not that significant, definitely not enough on its own to let you afford an extra bedroom to turn into an office, for instance.
Eating out is super expensive, even McDs is what...15 CHF for a meal these days? I actually managed to save a lot of my salary while living in Lausanne because everything was so expensive to buy.
I moved from SF to Zurich, so just to add another data point to corroborate this, you can live relatively cheaply here while I really couldn't in SF because housing doesn't really have a cheap (and adequately safe) alternative. Meanwhile, here the "everything else" is actually not very high if you limit or more carefully plan eating out, buy groceries with some consideration of cost (budget variants are often less than half the price of "standard" ones), etc.
Health insurance can be expensive while for many of the people on HN it would be included in employer benefits in SF, but it's still not that bad. Last time I checked, the average payment in Switzerland for adults was $250 USD or so.
A two bedroom 80 m^2 is Also equivalent to a 861 sqf apartment, which is kind of small by American standards.
For $5k in the city, I would think you could at least get 1200 sqf or better. Also, it is hard to rent in Switzerland...like...the prices aren’t your biggest problem in renting a place, finding a place to rent at all and getting accepted by the real estate company is a PITA and you’ll often wish you could just pay more money to skip all of it.
I don't know about Switzerland specifically, but it's up there with Norway as the most expensive places in Europe. I think they are somewhat equivalent.
For reference, in Norway, a lower-tier apartment would go for about >9000 NOK/month. You could find cheaper, but that'd be <20 square meters, or really kind landlords. (I've managed to secure two short-term contracts for a small urban apartment and a small rural house for 6000 NOK respectively, but that wasn't market rate in either case.)
As a person in the US where "health insurance" is so tangled up with employers I can tell you, the last thing anyone should want is more financial entanglements between employees and employers.
Health insurance is a benefit, paying for equipment necessary to do the job isn't.
I agree that health care shouldn't be tied to employment, but saying a company shouldn't buy you e.g. a laptop, desk, chair, and space to work seems wild to me.
I get what you’re saying, I just see it a bit differently.
With a majority remote workforce, the company’s physical plant expenses should be reduced, effectively shifting the cost of utilities to the employee. All things being equal reduced expenses mean increased profits. This increase in profits generally does not go back to the employees, so even though their personal assets are effectively serving as a rent-free physical plant for the company, there’s no consideration of that in the company’s bottom line. Depreciable expenses plummet for them, and on and on.
I don’t like marrying it to salary and definitely prefer a reimbursement model, though that has a few new burdens for the employee, but that’s acceptable.
Should I be forced by the courts to pay for the tools of my plumber in addition to the agreed wage?
Anyway, it would make more sense to pay for a percentage of the transportation/time spent travelling of the workers rather than for housing costs - not only it would incentivise companies to enforce work from home but it would also be more fair to the employees. After all the employees would have a home regardless but have to pay for transportation only if they have to attend the company.
Your plumber is not an employee. Your plumber should be paying for the tools of their employees, yes.
If you are an independent contractor, a company should pay your rate. If you are an employee the company should pay for the equipment needed for the job.
I'm looking to move to a new place this summer. Since it looks like I will be working from home for a significat amount of time, I am now looking for something with one more bedroom that I would have before to use as an office.
Talking to many friends and people at my job, I am definitly not the only one, so work from home has a cost for employees.
Should I be forced by the courts to pay for the tools of my plumber in addition to the agreed wage?
But the plumber is not your employee. He is somebody else's employee, and that somebody should be paying for his work van and tools (that somebody could be himself, if he's independent).
Anyways, it's all a bit of a moot point. Labor is a market and the prices are what they are. Most employees will earn X. If an employer has to pay for WFH (or transit), the employee will just earn Y+expenses, where the sum equals X.
In a perfect world, there would be few or zero entanglements between my wages and expenses/benefits. And I could negotiate freely on just my wages (not wages, expenses, benefits, etc).
This seems odd in context. For example, the 'cost' of dedicating 20 sqft of your home to work is trivial compared to the time cost of commuting, which can easily amount to 5 hours per week, or a 12% premium on top of the standard 40 hour week.
Why does it make sense to force employers to compensate WFH workers for the 'use' of floorspace when they don't compensate on-site workers for 250 hours per year of commute time?
Your employer also doesn't ask you to work from the bedroom while in the office. If your home is not equipped for office work (you live with family, have no dedicated office room, or multiple residents have to work from home at the same time) then you end up working in some pretty poor conditions. Some may be breaching the regulation regarding work safety and I'm sure this isn't part of your contract. Then there are additional costs with internet, electricity, or heating/cooling to consider.
If the situation becomes permanent some people may have to move to larger homes, upgrade some utility subscriptions, etc. But I'm afraid for most people this payout from the employer will come out of their future raises.
No, they pay for it. They should still pay for the costs associated with that work. I'm shoving $50 a month to keep the AC when normally it would be off. They're shifting a cost to the employee otherwise.
So if you don't work from home, you bring your own office and computer and desk and chair to work? In my part of the world, employer tends to provide those. And it makes sense that they still provide for what I need to do my job even if I don't do it on premises.
But yeah, I think people who work from home should make more money. Consider it a reward for not contributing to traffic congestion and pollution. :P If you really insist on working onsite, fine, maybe we can allow that but it's not a free perk!
> Why should someone working from home make more money than someone who does not?
If I have to work from home I need a larger apartment with an extra room, and it will be more expensive. During lockdown I'm using the room of my son, but it is not really a feasible arrangement in the long run.
> I don't get it. Why should someone working from home make more money than someone who does not?
Well, take a job that requires a truck, or expensive construction equipment, or whatever, to do. Is it surprising that a job that requires the employee to furnish his own such pays a bit more? In this case, the employee is asked to provide his own office (in a country where real estate is immensely expensive).
I'm also puzzled, since in my view the workplace gives a certain equity to job satisfaction and most of all, productivity.
For example, some people are not living in an ideal "work" environment — smaller spaces, no air-conditioning, pets/children, noisy streets/neighborhoods, etc.
In my opinion workplaces provide a stable environment that negates the above-mentioned constraints and also encourages interpersonal contact; both of which (barring the current pandemic that necessitates WFH) would give a better median ROI across the workforce.
Equipping and maintaining a home office? Space that can no longer be used for other stuff, and costs of things like chairs and office supplies a company would normally cover?
Oh wait, is this "rent" in the sense of the company essentially renting part of the worker's home? I read it as as paying the worker's share of the rent to the landlord! If that's the case then that would make a lot more sense.
This is rent as in paying a share of the worker's rent. But, as many working from home will concur, most can't work from home well without dedicating part of your living space to office work. That extra room or that part of the living room that was previously free space is now practically reserved for the company you work for.
I don't know if I agree with the policy, but I can see some sense in it. By paying for the living space sacrificed for WFH, companies are disincentivised to push for WFH after all lockdowns are over to save on office cost. Paying the same wage with less cost on office maintenance would be a dream come true for employers, of course, but that would shift the cost of the work space to the employer which I would find unfair.
As the article states:
> Geiser points out that the decision applies to employees who work from home upon the employer’s request. However, employees that work from home on their own behest may not receive rental compensation.
> ... Luca Cirigliano, General Secretary of the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions, told the paper that companies often use flexible workstations in order to save money on office rent.
> It is extremely unfair as well as illegal for employers to pass costs on to employees in this way, Cirigliano told the paper.
So, if the company forces you to work from home so they can save on rent, they have to pay you for "renting" office space from your house.
I get the motivation and incentives, I just can't make sense of it as paying a share of the worker's rent. It falls flat on its face from the start... e.g. what if the worker is the homeowner and not paying any rent? What if the worker is living with their parents/children/etc. who are the ones paying rent? etc. Like fundamentally it seems bizarre that the employee's living agreement with a 3rd party (or lack thereof) should be relevant...
Regardless of the home situation of the worker, the worker needs to reserve space from the home they paid for or are paying for. Many who don't pay rent still pay mortgages. And even if the house is paid off, the company is still basically claiming a working space that they can skimp out on.
The idea is that when a company lays claim to a space in your house, you should get something in return. It doesn't matter if there's four other people paying you rent while you from from home, your home is your space and not the employer's.
Note that this is just an addition to the wage, not a direct bank transfer to the letting agency. A lot of subletting is also done this exact same way (e.g. paying money to the original renter who passes it on to pay the rent).
But that's exactly what I'm saying then. The way to reason about this is that, as an employee, you leasing (or subletting) a portion of your home to the company, and hence they need to pay you rent for occupying your home. This is very much not paying your share of any rent (which may not even exist); it's paying their own share of a rental agreement they've effectively entered into. It makes so much more sense that way than trying to reason it around the employee's living agreement.
Instead of seeing it as leasing a portion of your home to your company looks at it in the words the law uses, the company must provide you with what you need for work. I am sure if they went to court and tried to have their fees for a co-working space paid it would also need to be paid by the company.
Depending on the situation, commuting expense could be small or quite large (ie, commuting to nyc from suburbs). More difficult to quantify may be the increased energy use by home employee (so much for programmable thermostats), perhaps loss of space that must now be decicated to 'office work', extra wear and tear and cleaning needs, etc.
One could argue that you don't need a separate room in your house, if you don't work from home. Something you might need if you have a family with multiple people working/studying from home. Also CHF150 is not really a lot for Switzerland, so this probably won't pay for a whole room on its own. But definitely an interesting decision from the court.
150 CHF/month is not a lot but it would still cover about 8m² of my rent, which seems fair to me (I don't live in the center of Zürich, but not exactly in a cheap place either).
I'd see that as a way to offset electricity costs and maybe invest in my setup, rather than cover the square meterage per se, but in my opinion it's a pretty good middle ground.
Coming to mind:
Electricity, AC, Heating, internet (more bandwidth & data cap), desk & chair, you may need an extra room if you are always working from home...
My confusion was that those aren't "rent" that the employee is paying. But I may have misinterpreted what they're referring to as "rent" here. They might have meant the company paying rent to the employee rather than the company reimbursing the employee's rent to the landlord.
I would think of it more like reimbursing the employee for the cost of the space they need to pay for to work from home. So if I work from home and need to get a bigger place, and an apartment with 1 more room costs 20% more, then that 20% is directly attributable as a "work cost".
For the case of a homeowner that is still paying off their home, I would consider their mortgage payment as the monthly amount.
For a homeowner that has finished paying off their house, it might be reasonable to use a value equal to what the payment would be if they took out a 30yr mortgage to pay an amount equal to 80% of the cost of the house (ie, if they had a "standard" mortgage).
For the case of someone not paying for the place they live (living with a relative, etc), I don't have a good answer. I would guess try to determine what the rent _would_ be if they were? Presumably the amount they make helps contribute to the total household expenses, so the fact that it's not specifically billed to "rent" doesn't make a big difference.
Honestly, I think looking for a perfect answer in every case isn't a realistic goal. Instead, aim for as good as possible in as many cases as possible, and good enough in the rest.
But then why not just treat it as the company renting (say) a room in the employee's apartment (like a normal rent or sublet)? It seems to be what's actually going on fundamentally anyway, and it bypasses the need to think about any third parties that may be involved in the employee's living arrangement.
The general idea is that an employee working from home saves the company money and generally costs the employee money (or, more generally, the employee's household). The specifics of how it costs them money are just a thought exercise; I was merely presenting one way to look at it (the way I look at it).
That used to be the case in the US, too. And the same was true of rent/mortgage/heat/etc costs IF the room you used for an office was only used for that purpose. Sadly, the tax laws changed recently and you no longer get to claim them (unless self employed).
I know the standard deduction was raised significantly to cover such items, and only a couple other deductions allowed in the simplified tax filing.
But if you want to go the complex route these things can still be deducted. Just may not be worth hiring a CPA to file your returns to get a couple hundred back as only the CPA wins in such a case....
I'm not 100% positive, but I do use a tax accountant to do my taxes and, for the last two years, he's been confident that home office expenses can no longer be deducted (unless self employed). I have no reason not to trust him.
You don’t get a tax refund, but your taxable income is reduced by the expense amount, so you you’re still paying for the 100% - (your marginal tax rate)% of the items, and hence paying yourself for items that your employer would have provided for your work use for free if you would work in an office instead.
I do feel too that the employer should provide the equipment and working environment.
It's unlikely in bigger companies that have pay bands per job level. It's probably cheaper to pay the additional token amount than figure out how to adjust those pay bands down to cover only the people impacted.
It would be common for large companies to simply adjust pay bands down by `150CHF * proportion of work-at-home employees` in order to keep the average cost of an employee constant. Therefore, this court decision will make a (small but nonzero) push for employees to choose to work at home.
- Companies that now realised that remote schemes works for them, will push for that scheme to remain, with the aim of reducing their fixed costs (office rent, utilities, insurance, etc).
- This eliminates a big chunk of fixed costs... as most are shifted to the employees.
- If authorities/employees start demanding that part of those costs are covered by the company, companies will push to get avoid work-from-home schemes, as they will want more control over those expenses...
I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows.
> I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows.
For Amazon's reputation for internal cost-cutting (such as displaying the pricing on computer peripherals in vending-machines in their SLU offices), Amazon makes me scratch my head for building-up their HQ in one of the most expensive cities to buy land in the world - ditto Facebook in Menlo Park. Why didn't Amazon choose Kent or Auburn instead - or Facebook building in the north-east of the Bay rather than the hyper-expensive south-west? Given Facebook's propensity to attract and hire young twentysomethings then surely their exact location in the Bay Area is immaterial (similarly, Amazon attracts a lot of ex-MSFT folk from the Seattle Eastside).
>Given Facebook's propensity to attract and hire young twentysomethings then surely their exact location in the Bay Area is immaterial
Twenty somethings are the exact group of people who don't want to live in a socially dead place. And except for recent college grads even twenty somethings will have significant others who won't want to suddenly move to somewhere else. It's why startups keep being created in SF which has the worst costs out there.
But the Bay Area is a big place and I consider the whole area to be socially alive.
I fully understand wanting to stay in the Bay Area - but there's a big difference in land-value between being situated around Mountain View and San Francisco vs. the east-side of the Bay). What I don't understand is why the east-side of the Bay seems overlooked or even neglected lately (even more-so considering Berkeley's history).
A lot of twenty-somethings are not so open-minded. Disparaging nearby neighborhoods as socially dead or otherwise undesirable is practically a pastime for young city folk (especially if they're dating!)
South Bay was probably the cheapest place to buy land at the time, it's only so expensive because now so many companies are headquartered there. I'm still not convinced that east bay is cheaper than south bay now, despite your assertion.
Berkeley is hardly cheap (more expensive than Seattle, for instance)
As a twenty something who lived for free in Fremont for 3 months last year, I'd shell out the extra cash to live in SF/anywhere else next time. Maybe having access to a car would have changed my view?
Seattle wasn't as expensive back in the day and if I recall correctly, Bezos actually chose to move to seattle and start Amazon there for cost reasons (I think taxes were a big part of that). Moving an entire headquarters is expensive and did you forget about the HQ2 plan to expand elsewhere?
Seattle is still cheap for what it is tbh, a bunch of my friends have moved there and I feel like I’m getting completely fucking robbed by staying in Toronto (shouts out to covid hitting pandemic status just as I was preparing to job hunt).
Lower housings costs, significantly higher salary, much lower taxes, and better weather along with more interesting/nicer outdoorsy stuff makes Seattle probably my #1 choice for where I’d like to live right now.
The metro-areas, yes - but there are many neighbourhoods, suburbs, exurbs and submetropolitan areas with the same level of access to the talented locals but with approaching an order-of-magnitude less land-value.
> but there are many neighbourhoods, suburbs, exurbs and submetropolitan areas with the same level of access to the talented locals but with approaching an order-of-magnitude less land-value.
Amazon's Bellevue footprint across to the lake from Seattle is expanding. New development in Seattle mostly stopped since 2018, while some existing projects are still being built and coming online.
A trend that started already in a lot of companies a couple of years ago and will only be accelerated by Covid. Many places do overbook desks in offices right now and have flex-tables without fixed assigned workers. Seems fair to think about compensating employees for the costs that are being pushed to their side.
True. When my team was just starting out, we couldn't find a place where we could sit together, because company policy was that they only needed 0.7 desk per employee. Many teams did have their own space, so we had nothing.
“Free”? Do you have absolutely no attachments to where you live? People have social support networks - friends, families, places that they go to, classes they’re taking. Children who go to schools and have friends there and go to parks for play dates and birthdays.
Those are just one or two of the social costs. How much does it cost in real money to relocate a family of 3 or 4?
People who live close to work in an expensive area have traded money for time. Higher salary; shorter commute. They may not have the resources to move.
Actually, yes. I have no attachments to where I live. I am personally free to go live anywhere I want in the country. I don't really have friends, don't have children, I don't want to live near my family, and I'm single.
"How much does it cost in real money to relocate a family of 3 or 4?"
Versus living in the aforementioned very expensive area? Seems like it would probably save money to move somewhere more affordable.
Creating an office at home? For a lot of people, making your home a viable working space is very expensive. It may even require the worker to purchase a home or apartment with an extra room.
Imagine if you will: a condo building that's designed as a mixed residential/commercial space, where there are apartment units, and office units that are free-to-use for anyone with an apartment there. And the office units are pre-furnished.
Now you're essentially paying for a co-working space (whether you use it or not or whether there's always a space available) through some combination of higher unit prices and condo fees.
Wouldn't it make more sense for those who need/want a work area outside their apartment to get a co-working space?
The idea here isn't that you want a work area outside your apartment. The idea is that you'd ideally want an extra room in your apartment to serve as a home office, but you are willing to time-share it with other people to make it cheaper than the cost of an actual additional room for your exclusive use. But you still get to wander over there in your house slippers, just like a dorm kitchen.
If you're creating a real dedicated space then that can be justified. If it's to the point where you have to buy a new house/apartment with an extra room then I'd rather just have a real office space instead, especially as an employer.
My workspace cost me money to furnish, and it permanently takes up part of my house. I don't personally mind as software development is a large part of my hobbies as well so I'd have that dedicated space irrespective of my job, but for a lot of people the need for a dedicated work space is tied to their job, and not something they'd otherwise need.
Whether or not it's a net saving vs. transport costs really depends on where you happen to live.
Are people really creating dedicated spaces? What happened to all those people who were in coworking spaces and cafes where they really had nothing more than a desk and a chair?
I think the developer perspective can cloud the fact that the overwhelming majority just have a laptop and a place to put it for their "workspace".
I think people quickly will realise that if they're working at spaces like that full time in front of a laptop they'll soon be dealing with neck strain, back pain and all kinds of issues. I've worked with "just a laptop and a place to put it" and it can work for a while, but it's an awful full time replacement.
There's little that is special about software development from that point of view.
"All those people" who are in cafes really are a tiny little fraction of workers, and most co-working spaces I've been to have a wide variety of proper office environments because unsurprisingly a lot of people need a proper environment to get work done.
Everyone whose house I've seen who works from home more than every now and again has had a dedicated space.
A lot of people outside of urban centers have spare space and the money/time cost of their usual commute adds up. But, absolutely, there are many people in cities who have low commuting costs and their apartment is basically somewhere to sleep. I can't imagine working remote like that is sustainable long-term. Many will have to move into a larger place or rent a co-working space.
As a non-remote employee, I had to find housing near my office. Now, as a remote employee, my only real requirements are a power source and internet connection. Sure, I have to live somewhere, but that need isn’t a result of my employment. It seems that non-remote employees have more specific and expensive housing requirements and costs.
Another perspective is that if you live somewhere remotely, employers will pay for your increase in cost of living if you move to a more expensive place.
Or just hire people from low cost of living areas.
Depending on the location, they could just let you go.
Imagine moving from Idaho to NYC. Drastic increase in cost. If an employer needs to compensate for that, I'm pretty sure theyll think long and hard whether its worth it.
Idk about you but I know which lower cost of living I'd prefer to move to, and my break-even salary cut is 25%. I think I can negotiate it to 15-20% which would effectively be a raise.
My salary is how much money I'm willing to take to work for the company. If I can live somewhere cheaper, that number is lower.
Since I've been working at home, and so has my partner, we have had a lot more issues in the apartment. We're both on the phone all day, so there's very little chance of having a quiet space in the apartment during the week. We're also forced to split the work-related resources, like we have to organize an equitable time-share on the desk which is better for working, vs the kitchen table which is not as comfortable.
If work from home becomes the norm long term, I can imagine we would need to think about a larger apartment for this reason.
aren't you saving a good amount of money too though. I don't know if you and your partner drive to work, but I'm saving about $120/month just on gas, and I'd probably end up saving another $100-200/month on vehicle depreciation and insurance if this went on indefinitely. an extra $300/month makes a big difference in the rental market where I live.
I normally commute by bike so this isn't a factor for me. I'm also using more electricity, and I'm drinking the coffee I bought rather than the office coffee.
ah okay, so you don't save anything on the commute. I'm happy to pay for my own coffee (I get much nicer beans than we have at the office), but I have noticed that my utilities bill is no lower than it was mid-winter.
I chose my employer based on where I want to live. The commute is stil about 40 minutes of driving each way buts its manageable. If I chose my employer to be in downtown Atlanta, or thereabouts, I would need to live in an area with more expensive house, less space, and crappy schools... Or drive 1.5 hours. Unless they'd double my salary, the 1.5 hour commute is a deal breaker.
Microsoft just announced 1500 jobs in downtown Atlanta, to be near Georgia tech and the tech hub. Not sure if they realize that developers who have working experience, likely now have kids now and arent going to settle for C level schools. Their location isn't even supported by mass transit that well (bus, but no train. They likely payed a premium for the space since it's "hip".
I've found it ironic that there's even such thing a tech hub, since we are the ones who create and push for remote work.
Many people, if they know they are going to be WFH regularly, will want larger homes so that they can have a dedicated office space instead of having to set up a desk in their bedroom. This is especially true if you live with someone who also WFH and you can’t really work from the same room due to constant conference calls. Instead of a 1BR apartment, you might want a 2BR + a study, which obviously costs more.
Even if you don’t live with someone, it helps a lot to have your work space separate from your living space. I believe there are studies about this that say it makes both better for your sleep and for your work productivity if your sleep space and work space are not the same space.
Some people will also need beefier internet plans than they normally needed, so they can support constant video conferencing.
One can work from the couch or living room table in a pinch, but if you need privacy, or the contract mandates a certain level of confidentiality (like other people not being able to see the screen, or having to lock paperwork away) you will want to invest in a separate room for work.
Also, at least in Germany, not sure about Switzerland, you can only write off the rent, taxes-wise, for a separate office room with a door. You can't write off a desk in a room used for other purposes or a space in a hallway.
Not to mention if you have roommates or a spouse and kids.
> I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences, such as higher rents, but who knows.
That's not that easy.
While Switzerland doesn't do rent control per se and there can be regional differences depending on scarcity of real estate for rent a landlord is rather restricted in raising rent once a contract is signed.
The only reasons why a rent can be raised are:
- Additional investments into an apartment, but the raise needs to be in proportion to the investment
- The bench mark mortgage rate goes up (on the other hand the rent needs to be lowered when the bench mark rate goes down, which is rarely the case nowadays, with a benchmark of 1.25%)
- Inflation to a certain amount, but quite restricted
Else than that rents can't just be raised.
All that said and while I see where the decision is coming from I think it's a bit ludicrous and I don't think that many employees will actually try to get this benefit. To begin with: labor laws are more flexible than rental contract law. So there's always a threat of losing your job if you try to push it.
But there's - at least in my opinion - an ethical edge. I, for one, felt highly privileged to be able to work from home and not being dependent on public transport during rush hour. In addition my employer invested a lot to get the infrastructure for thousands of people up to scratch in a very short time.
My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement, which potentially safes my life and from which I feel that my management puts a lot of trust in me and my colleagues.
Basically: It's based on a consumer price index with the starting point of May 2000 (100%) and which is published every few years.
A landlord can apply a maximum of 40% of the index increase in rent-increase, since the last time rent was adjusted. This is based on his equity investment into the object.
That is if you don't renovate nor modernise the building at all. It is an incentive for landlords to keep the building up to date.
In your corner case scenario, an outdated 100 years old apartment would be pretty lame and worth its fair price of "almost free".
> My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement, which potentially saves my life and from which I feel that my management puts a lot of trust in me and my colleagues.
Much respect to your principles. I agree entirely with your viewpoint.
> My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement
I have seen others thinking like that, and then become very sore when they are fired in an economic downturn. They feel that "it is not fair" because they did as much as they could for their company, the company did not care.
Is that different in Switzerland? Has it a similar culture to Japan where firing an employee is the last resource? Or is it more like other European countries were a simple merge or a decline in share value increase the possibility of being laid off?
> So there's always a threat of losing your job if you try to push it.
That is true for everything. Are you aiming on being always the cheaper employee in your company? That is an strategy that may work when there is lay offs, but I do not know much wealth you will accumulate in the long term with that strategy instead of trying to maximize your salary/benefits.
I know that your attitude reduces salaries and reduces my and any other developer salary expectations, so maybe that makes me be extra doubtful of how good is your strategy for all the rest of us (or yourself).
If you do not care for your well-being but you are willing to do sacrifices for your company, may I ask what sector your company works in? Maybe, is it an NGO?
There is a (not so fine) line between looking after yourself and being a greedy jerk.
I find that a little bit of grace goes a long way. Ask for a raise when you deserve it, absolutely. But if you ruthlessly try to extract every last penny from your employer, they will do the same to you.
Have you ever browsed HN at work? Have you ever left just a few minutes before 5?
I don't want my workplace to be a battleground over pennies. Treat your employer with some grace and they will do the same.
Unless, of course, your employer is already a greedy asshole. Then you should change employers.
Maybe you have a very good and ethical employer, but my anecdotal evidence tells me it's not the rule, it's the exception.
Why is it okay for an owner to try to squeeze every penny he can out of his employees but not okay for the employees to do it?
The real problem is that the company normally holds the leverage, so the employee has no recourse, no matter how "ethically" wrong the situation may be.
Not to mention a company without its employees is nothing.
So assuming everyone is working on good faith (neither side is cheating the other) your conscience should be more than clear when asking for more as in the example of rent. The risk is almost always on the side of the employee. For the company you're normally just a number.
The balance does shift depending on the company size, but I believe this logic still holds true.
There's a story I was once told about how someone worked really late and then they came in late the next morning, but a VP happened to notice and they got in trouble despite having worked overtime.
I'm in favor of not being a "greedy jerk", but you have to do it for yourself. If you think you will be rewarded, that is delusional, and really just another type of greed.
> I have seen others thinking like that, and then become very sore when they are fired in an economic downturn.
I see where you're coming from and to answer one of your later question: I work in one of the most dog eat dog industries, which is finance.
That said, I don't see myself as a charitable extension of my employer. I'm well paid and fairly treated and as long this is the case my employer can expect me to deliver the best possible performance and my loyalty as long we're in a contractual relationship.
Let me qualify loyalty, becasue it touches exactly into the neither regions you're outlining (I was loyal all my life and now I get the boot. And while that gripe may be justified it's not really helpful). Anyway, loyalty in the sense that as long we're in a contractual relationship my employer can expect me to do good work, professionalism, confidentiality (a huge thing in finance), that I don't fib expense claims and that I don't steal the office supplies, among some examples.
I expect decent treatment, supplying of all the tools, information, training and resources required to perform my job, human decency in general and a certain amount of fairness.
That's while the contract lasts and partially beyond, confidentiality being a good example for that.
I understand that it's a transactional agreement, which lasts as long the contract lasts and doesn't imply a job guarantee.
But one part of the deal and as long it's reasonably balanced is that I just wouldn't seek out ways how to squeeze a couple hundred francs a month extra, which I don't believe I have coming. I feel fairly and well enough paid so that I don't really factor in the use of a bit of power and my personal laptop, which is essentially the whole cost I incur.
For what it's worth my employer provides a laptop, but it's far more comfortable and convenient to work on my own system within their secure setup with a real keyboard and a 24" screen. That's my choice and if I have that option and chose to use it I don't see why that's my employers problem.
> Is that different in Switzerland? Has it a similar culture to Japan where firing an employee is the last resource? Or is it more like other European countries were a simple merge or a decline in share value increase the possibility of being laid off?
Actually it's harder to fire employees in most European countries. Switzerland has comparatively liberal employment laws compared to a lot of other (western and southern) European countries. Liberal as in a contract can be terminated from both sides under respect of a notice period without a reason specified.
This is much harder in, for example France or Spain, which has the drawback that companies very much prefer temporary employment, which in turn leads to a two class employment system.
I think it's a bit of an attitude thing. Companies, whenever possible, prefer to hang on to their employees, even during downturns, since they consider it cheaper than to re-hire and retrain a lot of employees in the next upswing.
Differences in social security arrangements also make that more palatable for companies. And it's not only a cost thing, it's also the loss of important institutional knowledge, which is irreplaceable.
> I know that your attitude reduces salaries and reduces my and any other developer salary expectations, so maybe that makes me be extra doubtful of how good is your strategy for all the rest of us (or yourself).
I hope not. As I could hopefully illustrate I'm not in the corporate wellfare business. I don't believe in dumping and the one thing that bugs me so much with our race to the bottom capitalism we now have, best illustrated by the gig economy, is the "how can we squeeze out more and more, while treating vital partners (employees) like crap" attitude you see so much nowadays.
Maybe it's just me, but I believe in transactional fairness. As long I feel well treated I just don't see the point of trying to squeeze every last inch of advantage from my vis-a-vis.
It's not about giving away the shop, but about fairness and trust.
Maybe one of the best examples I can give you is Amazon. Or the fact that I never bought anything since their book dealing days, when they suddenly pulled their privacy bait and switch. I wouldn't give them my business, even if it's cheaper. As it turns out that's not such a bad attitude to have.
> Anyway, loyalty in the sense that as long we're in a contractual relationship my employer can expect me to do good work, professionalism, confidentiality (a huge thing in finance), that I don't fib expense claims and that I don't steal the office supplies, among some examples.
I completely agree with that points. It is a matter of principle to behave professionally, not just for the company but for my own self esteem.
But, some experiences make me think twice before renounce to my rights. Many years ago, I was in a company that used to force employees to work on weekends. I had enough negotiation power to reject working on weekends. For me, it was not a problem. Weekend work was paid and I had no other responsibilities. But, my and other "top" colleagues rejection helped others to have the possibility to stand for their own rights.
I guess that I see the situation tinted by that perspective. If I renounce to a right, to say not to work on weekends, I may damage others that may end losing their right unwillingly. Some time later, I left the company for something better, thou. In my twenty five years of working for all kinds of companies, I have seen many different situations.
Japan and vacation days is a more general example. Even if employees have right to vacation days, it is difficult to take them when nobody else is doing so. As each employee renounces to their right to take vacations, they force the rest to do the same as it becomes a social stigma. To the extend, that for me, to renounce to your own vacation days becomes damaging to everybody else even done in good faith.
> Maybe it's just me, but I believe in transactional fairness. As long I feel well treated I just don't see the point of trying to squeeze every last inch of advantage from my vis-a-vis.
So, maybe you have been lucky enough, or smart enough to not work for companies that have abused their position. I guess that I would be of your same opinion if I had the same experience. By default, I agree that employers and employees need to collaborate to maximize the benefits of the partnership.
> Maybe one of the best examples I can give you is Amazon. Or the fact that I never bought anything since their book dealing days, when they suddenly pulled their privacy bait and switch. I wouldn't give them my business, even if it's cheaper. As it turns out that's not such a bad attitude to have.
I completely relate to your actions. And, to avoid rewarding the wrong behavior is important and a good value to live for.
An example of layoff differences between CH and US: unemployment in April climbed to 3,3%, with the doomsayers worrying what might happen if it eventually goes to an (unprecedented) 7% due to coronavirus. (there are many other differences; eg swiss don't take their rifles to demonstrations)
Can you clarify that? To be clear its normal not to change rents during the contracted period. When contract expires what are the rules for permissable rent increases for the next contract?
Rental contracts are usually not expiring (there are exceptions).
Each party can terminate the contract usually twice a year with a three month notice period.
Termination must follow certain formality and it's slightly lopside to the renters advantage in that a renter can challenge a termination, while the landlord can't.
Rent increases after a contract is terminated are possible within reason and within fair market value of the rent.
> The bench mark mortgage rate goes up (on the other hand the rent needs to be lowered when the bench mark rate goes down, which is rarely the case nowadays, with a benchmark of 1.25%)
That rate just went down a couple months ago and most renters would be entitled to a rent reduction just by sending a registered letter to their landlord. Every one I know who did that for a 3% rent reduction as a result.
This hinges on that companies and people have a positive net benefit for each person that will exceed the amount taxed. Working from home eliminates transportation costs and time and for companies the need to buy real estate for people and all of the equipment.
It already reduces the cost to employees by removing the transportation cost. They should encourage it because it benefits all those involved including the environment. I don't know why they would make it more difficult.
Really? My employer pays half my transportation cost, which is required by law (at least where I live). Actually, they continue to pay and let me come by bike (which they approve) so I earn money evert month just by going to the office. Oh, now that I'm WFH due to Covid, they just pay me for going from the bed room to the living room.
> This eliminates a big chunk of fixed costs... as most are shifted to the employees
On the other hand, employees suddenly gain a lot of free time, especially those on enormous commutes. But even for small-ish commutes and 1 day/wk in the physical office the numbers are significant - at 30min one way travel, 4 days HO give you 4 h of extra time - or 10% of their workweek. Fully remote with 1h one way travel? 10 hours or over a whole work day's equivalent of time.
On top of that employees gain other positive results like saving hard money on their car / public transport ticket and, especially for introverts or people with back issues, a large uptick in life quality as they don't have to stand in overcrowded subway cars or stuck in stop-n-go traffic jams.
The fair solution would be for employers to pay a fair share of rent and decent regulations-conforming equipment (chairs!) for those working from home - and giving a raise to those who physically have to come to the office, e.g. to deal with paperwork.
I wasn't enthusiastic initially about working from home, and my actual travel time was about 10 minutes each way, which is about my tolerance for commuting.
But the thing I like most about WFH is that it feels like I've gained a lot of time. I may only drive for 10 minutes, but it takes 5 minutes to pack up, 10 minutes to walk to my car, 10 minutes to drive, 5 minutes to...it feels like I have more than an hour additional free time every day.
>I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences
Since WFH will require decent internet connection I surely hope one of those consequences is all landlord have an incentive to install Fibre Optics Internet connection. And not relying on junky Cables or DSLs.
Everytime I see "must pay", it scares me. Yes I know that employees get exploited etc but instead of making employers pay, why not let employees get a tax deduction or even a credit ? As an employer, I can tell you that the burden of employer paying for everything is not necessarily a good idea. It is not about the money only but also about the added overhead/red tape. In US, I am already sick of for example health insurance crap. I would gladly pay the same amount of money directly to the employee instead of dealing with insurance companies and their bullshit.
Health insurance shouldn't depend on work or the size of your employer, period. Not only should employers have healthy employees, but the applicants should be too.
Employers are presumably paying taxes, so funding it through taxes is not letting them off the hook. Additionally, what about people who are unemployed (which is now >20% by U6 in the US) or work in jobs that don't offer healthcare? And what if you get fired? Or you want to change jobs but have a health condition which means you'll be in trouble without health insurance? Or your employer changes health insurance providers without consulting you and now your coverage or doctor has changed? These aren't hypotheticals, they're the daily reality of millions of people in the US.
I don't understand this weirdly business-centric view that folks from the US have on the topic of healthcare. Surely a more productive view is that it is the best interests of society that we keep our fellow citizens as healthy as possible? Even ignoring the ethical arguments (which should be more than enough), healthy citizens make healthy workers and reduce long-term healthcare costs caused by preventable illnesses.
And the companies get blamed when they "pass costs on to consumers".
As if they had any other source of money. _All_ their money comes from consumers. If we don't want regressive taxation, then take this money as welfare by raising income tax.
"If we send people a check, the costs are passed on to the taxpaying public, which includes rich people who pay extra taxes and does not include poor people who get out of a lot of taxes because of their low income. If we pressure fast food places to pay more, the costs are passed on to fast food consumers, who are less likely to be wealthy and more likely to be black than the general population."
Health care really isn't the same thing. Employees don't need health insurance to work somewhere - and many pass, especially if they get insurance elsewhere (through a spouse, for example).
I've passed on a low-wage job because I was poor and couldn't afford to buy clothes before starting work - when, realistically, they could have provided the shirts or, alternatively, vests. And so on. It shouldn't cost an employee money to have a job with an employer.
If you want someone to have decent internet or a phone, the employer should pay part of it. A decent enough computer? Pay for it or provide a laptop. Provide the webcam. If you require uniforms, pay for them on top of laundering them. Requiring a quiet room in the house to do meetings? Pay for a portion of rent. Otherwise, you are just passing red tape and costs to the employee.
In this case, it makes no sense for employer to pay. Everyone lives differently, have different homes, different cost of utilities etc. It makes more sense to provide a tax deduction or credit to employee directly. If using this theory that just because someone is working from home, we should pay a portion of rent etc, then where do we stop. Why not pay for their coffee/tea while they are working at home. How do we draw the line ?
> It makes more sense to provide a tax deduction or credit to employee directly.
I, as a taxpayer, don't quite fancy having to pay for Amazon's 300k remote employees home-office while the company they work for doesn't pay any tax.
> How do we draw the line?
The line is already drawn, as an employer you are legally required to pay for the tools your employees need to do their work. So if the employee is a developer, that would be a laptop for example. Coffee and tea is not deemed necessary, so you don't have to pay for it.
In my opinion, a proper space to work is definitly a requirement and should be added to that list for remote workers. As well as a microphone and probably webcam at a minimum.
Asking taxpayers to pay for this instead of businesses makes 0 sense (although it's already like that in some juridictions).
Edit: I forgot to add that employers that will be switching to remote-first for the long term are the one that will save money on rent, while their employees will have a higher rent on average. So it does make quite a lot of sense for employer to pay and keep the balance in that scenario.
As they say, developers are machines that turn coffee into code. As such, if a line must be drawn, I would definitely draw it past coffee/tea and everything else which has a reasonable impact on developer productivity.
It’s advantageous for companies to pay for anything that can be construed as a business expense for employees, since that means they can transfer money to the employee tax free. Businesses in the US do this for health insurance, and remote companies can do it for a few more expenses. It makes sense to pay for whatever expenses the company can, as long as the administrative costs don’t outweigh the tax advantage.
Some employers though won't even reimburse for improved internet service during a pandemic lockdown. My guess is those who prefer butts in chairs would rather expand offices to comply with distancing guidelines, even in high CoL areas. Could be their are also more sufficient tax write-offs for office buildings.
I'd be quite happy to do that actually. At least there's a quid pro quo then and it's a nice way to give employees money tax free for the long term. Instead I gave all employees a £500 lockdown bonus to cover their extra electricity, gas, etc. (the UK tax system only lets employees claim £6/week as an expense for WFH which I think is a serious piss-take).
This makes no sense to me. Why not just give the employee a commensurate tax deduction? Now the companies will be disincentivized from keeping to quarantine when it isn't mandated, and from hiring back when it is. They're going to deduct it from their profit anyway if it's an employee cost, so it's going to come out of state tax revenues as it is.
Someone needs to take a closer look into this. It feels sketchy.
This is an article (from yesterday) based on a pay-walled article (from yesterday, and in a different language), which itself is based on a court decision (from April 2019).
This is not related to the current pandemic (which the article vaguely states, but not explicitly).
Also, to give you a time-frame: The linked court decision is from April 2019, the legal fight started in 2016 and went over several instances.
a) The linked article never states that it is based on an article which is based from a court decision from 2019 - it reads and presents itself as if it applies to the current pandemic "every-body-works-from-home"-situation, where I could imagine a judge would rule different.
b) Not my point. Translating from one language to another is prone to loose some information. Whoever did the translation, might have lost some information. However, this cannot be cross checked, as the source article is behind a paywall.
c) That's where I got my facts from - not from the article itself.
a) It refers to a court decision, and everybody knows that it cannot be related to the current situation because court cases take (much) more than two months.
b) Swissinfo is a well-regarded, state-founded website that provides news in several languages. Their translation is probably very good. Tages Anzeiger has a free trial if you want to read the German original.
On a): I agree that the article should have clearly stated that the verdict is from 2019.
As I knew this a priori from reading the news somewhere else first, I didn't notice this vagueness in the article before you wrote about it. Hence, let me thank you for making this clear to all readers here.
Nothing sketchy, i just linked to the semi-offical english Swiss news-feed. It was distributed in our local languages through all the standard media yesterday and has been the center of discussion in (virtual) office chitchat today.
This is real and now Swiss companies have to figure out how to deal with it.
Our legal system is a bit different than in the US as we don't have US style case law though (not a lawyer so don't ask me for more details).
It was brought up again due to the current situation re home office and adds to the discussion in the country as well as elsewhere i think and is likely to be challenged now by employees with their respective employers.
My "salary" is for "for 8h per day (or 40h per week) I will be doing such and such".
The cost of my clothes (jeans/shirts/ties/etc.) as well as my daily coffee/tea/juice/lunch is for me to pay.
"Extra" stuff that I need to buy is for them to cover. E.g. a headset for calls, e.g. my professional certifications maintenance.
My home's wifi, I pay it for my use. Since I use it for work 8h per day (40h/week), one could argue that the employer should pay 40/168 of the cost (5x8/7x24).
Tbh, if there is the chance that I will be asked to go back to the office for $25 per month, I will gladly continue paying for my own wifi 100% and stay home :)
This is silly, thing that matters unionization / workplace democracy. These types of measures show a weak understanding of economics and power, and are just moronic palliatives.
In France when you pay your income taxes, a part of your income is deducted as work related spending. By default it's something like 10% I think (do not take my word on this figure, I would check but I'm on a smartphone right now). But you can opt-in for real-cost and if you do so, you have to declare and give receipts for all of your work-related expanses to the tax administration, all of which would be deducted from your taxable income. Those expanses can include a part of your rent if you work from home.
A bit similar in Finland. Here every taxpayer gets a 750 euro tax deduction for "wage earning expenses". So if you want to declare expenses related to your job, you basically need to have over 750 euro of them in order to get anything.
If you work remote for less than 50% of workdays in a year, that counts as a 450 euro deduction. But if you work for more than 50% of workdays from home, you get a 900 euro deduction. So people working mostly from home will exceed the automatic 750 euro deduction and should declare their expenses properly instead of relying on the automatic deduction.
You can also deduct equipment and Internet connections (50% of the cost if you use it partly for work). Although in the IT industry, it's pretty commonplace for the employer to pay for 100% of your home Internet connection, since it's a tax-free benefit to the employee.
Here in Switzerland, we don’t have the precedent law. So, if this particular decision was made in this particular case, it doesn’t mean that it is automatically applied for everybody else.
This sounds like the sort of property inflation scam I'd expect from the UK. Hopefully the Swiss have thought it through carefully - they do usually seem to.
When I ran a company in the UK and worked from home I claimed various expenses: 100% of the cost of computers, desk, chair, printer and that sort of thing. And a proportion of the cost of electricity, rent etc which was calculated based on the size of the room I used as an office compared to the rest of the house (I don't remember the exact number but it might have been 10-15%). As far as I'm aware this is all completely legal and normal.
Now, as an employee and still working from home, my company buys me a laptop and a development desktop machine, and I guess they'd probably help with the cost of a chair if I didn't already have one.
Compared to the cost of enlarging the London office if everyone who currently works from home had to work from the office (not to mention the lost productivity), these expenses are trivial.
In the US it is similar. If you have a home office you can deduct it as an expense, but it is a bit of a pain. To get the full benefit it has to be a dedicated work space. When I was doing freelance editorial work I didn’t bother because my only dedicated expenses were my red pencils and my copy of CMS.
> 100% of the cost of computers, desk, chair, printer and that sort of thing
I'm in the UK and looked into this a while back. My understanding is that the amount claimed is meant to be proportionite to the amount these are used for business purposes, just the same as for your electricity. So totally fine if you only use these things for business, otherwise not.
So as it was explained to me (IANAL and it may even have changed since I ran this company in the mid 2000s), if something was used > 50% of the time for work then you could claim the whole thing, and in proportion if below. In any case those computers were used only for work.
Our company pays everyone €75 after taxes extra if they make less than €50k annually. It's for general expenses such as more coffee, electricity etc at home.
This seems very distortionary to the market. So if you're a blue-collar worker, your ability to pay for housing is "less" compared with a similarly-aged white-collar worker just because the latter has his company subsidise his rent.
if you work from home you need extra space which you don't need otherwise. the winners are those that are able to make use of that extra space outside of work.
i have an office at home that is not used outdide work. if i didn't work at home i could save money with a smaller apartment. seems only fair that my company pays that difference
The USA does too, but the trouble is it has to be exclusively used for working from home- so you can't have a guest room you use as an office most of the time, which is particularly tricky in cities. I wonder if that'll change in the future with more WFH.
> you can't have a guest room you use as an office most of the time
You can if you are smart about it, because you can deduct part of a room. Deduct the area for your desk, office chair, but don't deduct the guest bed, etc.
I'm no tax lawyer or guru, but let's say usage is 25% bedroom and 75% principal office; you can take 75% of the square footage of the room against your total home square footage as the number for doing the deduction. Easiest is to have a dedicated space, but I imagine this is going to be a new normal now for tax filings.
The deduction in the US is no longer available to most people working from home since Trump's tax breaks [1]. And even if it were, many people would not get it because it wouldn't be worth losing the standard deduction over.
Good. Let's see this in the US, too. An entire room in my small NYC apartment is now just dedicated to my employer's economic activity. I'm basically loaning it to them for free right now.
Not sure how things work elsewhere but in Australia any expense used to generate income is tax deductible. That includes energy bills, furniture and room "wear" if you work from home.
Working from home not only saves businesses money it also increases your salary take-home here.
I think it is because in countries like Australia or the US you have to fill in tax return every year so people are used to claim stuff. In many countries regular wage slaves don't have to fill in those tax return, it is all deducted from your salary every month and that's it, only business owners fill those tax returns.
Makes some sense during the pandemic. Many workers pay a high cost per foot in order to live within reasonable commute time to the office. In a suddenly remote world these same workers are expected to set aside a large chunk of their home specifically for working, at a pretty high per foot cost due to geography.
As a permanent thing, I’m not so sure. If I can live anywhere and know that I’m going to have to have an at home office, why does my employer have to pay for that? And what are the unintended side effects?
Interesting ruling, it kind of makes sense but I'm not sure that's the best solution.
In Germany you can save up to 1250 EUR / year in your tax declaration if you have a dedicated work room, but the conditions are quite strict.
I don't know if all remote workers can benefit from it, but if that's not the case I hope Germany will adapt the law. Considering the benefits from an ecological point of view, I think it makes sense that the state also contributes to it.
Not sure if the automotive industry would agree, though...
Yeah, the automotive industry is gonna get a nice bailout from our tax euros this time as they'll justify it wilth all the potential unemployed people that result from everyone not buying cars any more.
Unless there's no physical office at all, and the employees are told to work from home (the article mentioned this), I think it's a hard sell for employers to pay their employee's share of rent.
If I were an employer and have rented an office space, whether the space is full or empty or half empty, I'm still paying more or less the same. Yes, there are coworking spaces where I can pay per headcount, but it's much more expensive (because the problem is now passed to the operator).
Paying their entire rent is a hard sell, but I would think it reasonable to pay for an employee to have a setup at home that would be as good as they would get at a modern office.
* computers, monitors, whatever you would provide for them at work
* subsidies for lunch and snacks if it's the norm in your locale (it is for lots of companies in Silicon Valley)
* adequate lighting
* decent bandwidth internet connection
* housing market rate cash for the employee to rent a space with 1 additional bedroom than what they previously had, that can be converted into a dedicated workspace
* some reasonable budget for art/decorations/plants/whatever in your dedicated workspace. basically stuff that you would normally have in a modern office
All of this would probably still add up to much, much less than they spend on employees at a real office. It's for the company's own good as well -- do you really want your employees working out of a noisy cramped bedroom with 4 other housemates and strapped for cash to buy only used IKEA furniture with missing screws and sit cramped between a bed and a tiny desk, or do you want your employee to be focused in a comfortable workspace and get work done?
The alternative is that they could just pay their devs 5x what devs would get paid in Europe, which is where this article is about, which is already being done.
Then the staff member can outfit their workspace as they see fit.
Seems like a ploy to disincentivise work from home. There's little need to maintain operations in Switzerland if a business becomes comfortable with off site employees.
That's an interesting idea. I'd estimate the value of my home office space in NYC is about $600/month post tax (120 sqft room, $5/sqft/month is average rent here). I wonder how that compares to class A or B office space.
Although the US isn't this great that they give you an outright subsidy on rent, I believe if you're in independent consultant you can tax writeoff part of your rent if you have a part of your residence that is used exclusively for business purposes. (Disclaimer: IANAL, IANACPA)
Pffft, 'companies' (as in plural) are so un-post-truth! The One Company it must be. And it well may be, because less and less companies will be able to cope with the firehose of New Normals.
This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If they expect you to work from a particular location, then it would make sense that they'd need to reimburse you for your expenses regarding that place of work. It's actually something that's been bothering for a while in regards to how some remote employers would reimburse the expenses of a co-working space - it makes much more sense to me that they would equally reimburse the costs of working from home.
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