On the flip side of this: I do not owe my employer space in my home. Having to dedicate some part of my home to their economic activity should be something I'm financially compensated for.
I'm sure that I can find a company that wouldn't require any of these, but the salary and benefits from my current job outweigh these costs.
My clothes have nothing to do with my employer, nor does my car, even if I use them while working, I can also use them for other things.
It's the employer's responsibility to create the space for working. Currently we're all basically loaning our bosses some space in our homes. If everyone's boss goes "huh well, guess I don't need a physical office anymore" then all they've done is offload the responsibility for housing their work to their employees, with no compensation.
- Expense Budget for tech upgrades (desk, hardware, etc). Probably a few hundred dollars a month per employee once you do the math.
- Or maybe Directly boost salaries by a similar amount?
- Throw a bumping annual all expense paid off-site trip with the $$$ not spent on rent
If you're an employee, AFAIK the company is also required to cover some costs, but I don't remember what exactly & under what conditions...
Your salary has been reduced by 20% due to the recession. On the positive side, we will now give you a 3% raise to cover your home office sorts.
Sincerely Management
Something to consider, though: Most employees today probably aren't compensated for the time and money they waste during their daily commute. What about car maintenance? Unless they're driving a company car to work most employees will have to pay for that themselves. Shouldn't the employer cover or reimburse these costs?
Do you want to have someone who lives next to work get the job rather than you because he won't have commute costs? Be careful about unintended consequences.
If you believe you are worth more money, negotiate for that.
But practically speaking, it would not be surprising to see WFH companies offer slightly higher salaries largely due to the significant savings associated with no offices, as well as the reduced risk of not having a lease. If I save $27K a year per employee (from the article), I can easily offer candidates $10K more than my competitors with an office, increasing profit and attracting higher quality talent.
my employer does not reimburse home office expenses, but several of my friends work for employers that do. the way it works for them is that they get a yearly "technology" budget of about $1000-2000. then they can spend it on any equipment they want to use at home or in the office. as long as it's some sort of computer hardware or office furniture, no questions are asked.
That's basically just a $1000 bump in your salary. The fiction that you're getting an extra technology benefit is just that, a fiction.
From a pragmatic point of view, and an accounting one (for the employer), your "benefits" are taken from your salary. The only time those benefits are worth it for the employer is if it pays for something pre-tax rather than post-tax (health care falls into this category, hence the popularity of employer provided health care).
The accounting term for this is "total employee compensation". That's what matters to the employer when calculating the cost/benefit of an employee.
Be careful what you ask for in benefits. They can be expensive for the employee.
That does happen a lot with expense reports. They get abused all the time. Sometimes, though, employees do get their ERs audited, and get fired for ER fraud. Especially if the employer needs a reason to fire you.
Seems like fungible costs
Also seems different depending if it is a laptop, vs trilpe-workstation-10 screen setup?
When working on my own, I charge clients for travel costs or build it into their pricing.
Also in most cases work that is done at home is done in on a computer, so the same space that is used for home computer use can be reused at no additional space cost besides possibly an extra desktop or laptop if a dedicated machine is used.