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Comment by mehrdadn | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused, what is the additional expense that employees are incurring by being home? Don't they pay the same rent either way?

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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.

What’s the financial difference between those two?

The intent and justification is what's different.

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".

What happens when the employee is a homeowner then? Or not the one actually paying rent (maybe their parent/child is)?

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).

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.

Supposedly you need a reserved space for work. The US has (had?) a similar home-office tax deduction (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...).

extra room to work on? But then companies will have less rent for office. Also employees no commute expenses

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.

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