Ask HN: Is your employer paying for your new office space, your home?

[throwaway1654]

Since the beginning of the pandemic some of us have seen some of our economic perks disappear, in some cases these were a significant part of our income. The main reasoning in many companies is that we are not using the company office so we don't get the company perks.

But we are in fact using a new office, that many of us have had to isolate from the rest of the family and house, effectively removing this useful space from our homes. Is your company paying part of your rent to compensate for it?

[ecnahc515]

My company is paying for any necessary equipment people need to work, but that's about it. I can't really imagine most companies compensating you for you working at home itself though for a few reasons.

1) Many companies are doing pay cuts. They're not going to pay you for something like this if your base salary isn't even what it should be. It's time to be saving money. Companies are trying to limit spending wherever possible.

2) Most companies are assuming that not everyone is even going to work their regular amount due to children, and other duties. I don't particularly expect people to be compensated more for working at home when it's possible people can't do their job as effectively as before.

3) A lot of companies don't even pay you for commuting time or other similar commitments that are required for getting into work. If they did pay for that, then you would actually be getting a pay cut for working from home since that's time saved.

4) Plenty of companies that already hire people to work remotely, do not pay them more because they don't work in an office. That said, they may pay for your internet since it's considered essential for you to do your job, especially if your role requires decent internet (eg software dev/operations/on-call rotations).

These are just a few reasons of the top of my head.

[mrpigeonpants]

Those are good reasons. To add to that:

1) Companies are still paying for office space right now, even though people aren't using it. If they reduce their physical spaces in the future, the capital will likely go into hiring more people, which I'd rather see.

2) It's tricky from an accounting perspective, though I like the one-time stipend idea mentioned in the comments here.

3) Not having a commute saves time AND a lot of money, I've personally spent a few hundred dollars upgrading my desk / accessories to get comfy, but saved many times that on commuting and misc expenses.

4) Adding to the above, there are many things that companies generally aren't expected to pay for, like wardrobe, transportation, food, cell phone, etc. It seems like home office falls into that bucket as well based on precedent. Maybe that will change, but I don't have any expectations that it will.

[graton]

I'm genuinely curious what economic perks have disappeared that were a significant part of people's income?

I consider free food a perk, but it is not income. I consider income to be monetary compensation. So I'm curious what kind of monetary compensation perks people had that disappeared.

Myself I am spending a lot less money than before when I had to drive into work everyday. I spent usually 70-90 minutes each day driving and the cost of fuel. For me it has been a net positive on the economic side for me working from home.

Do I miss free soda and snacks? Yep! I'll admit I'm starting to get tired of only eating food we prepare ourselves. So I'm looking forward to doing some more takeout in the future and hopefully actual sit-down dining at some point.

[vladsanchez]

5 yrs ago, I got a loaded iMac 27 with extra monitor plus up to $200/month for internet and phone expenses, but I never exceed $100 on both. They've also reimbursed my headset and office chair.

My company has been the most generous I've seen so far, and we were a small, 40 person company, now 64. I'm grateful for it.

[synicalx]

My company won't even let us take home a keyboard from the office, let alone actually pay for anything. So I'm working entirely from the one thing they did let me take home - my laptop. Productivity loss from only having one tiny screen and a bad keyboard is noticeable but as I've told my boss "I haven't got any monitors or a desk at home".

[bob1029]

I am finding it increasingly ironic how WFH is no longer being perceived as the panacea of productivity and happiness that it once was.

I've been doing WFH for 5 years now. The amount of money you are saving by WFH full-time, assuming you properly leverage the opportunity (i.e. cooking own meals and multitasking chores), far outweighs any paltry notion that could be provided in recompense for you dutifully enshrining a guest bedroom as your employment zone.

I am also pretty sure they aren't paying you for those rounds of Overwatch you sneak in between PR review requests. But, they also can't tell you are doing that, so it seems to work out OK.

[Fradow]

> I am finding it increasingly ironic how WFH is no longer being perceived as the panacea of productivity and happiness that it once was.

Forced WFH is very different from planned WFH. There are quite a list of things you might not have with Forced WFH, that isn't an issue with planned WFH, because it's, well, planned:

* a dedicated "work" space, be it a room, a desk you can convert, or even a desk at all. The couch/bed/random chair will have to do. You just can't buy it either if you are living in a small appartment.

* childcare (if applies). Though luck for single parents.

* reliable internet connection, or an internet connection at all.

* reliable phone line , or the capability to use a phone at all (dead zones are still a thing).

* organizational structure to support remote work, including working communication tools

Note: every single item applies to at least a coworker (small team of 10 persons) or my close family.

[itsmeamario]

> [...] far outweighs any paltry notion that could be provided in recompense for you dutifully enshrining a guest bedroom as your employment zone.

Yeah. Not all of us live in houses with guest bedrooms. Some of us, like me, live in a 40m flat with 1 bedroom and a living room / kitchen where there's no space for an office. I'm lucky I don't have / live with kids or otherwise it would be near impossible for me to WFH

[isugimpy]

> The amount of money you are saving by WFH full-time, assuming you properly leverage the opportunity (i.e. cooking own meals and multitasking chores), far outweighs any paltry notion that could be provided in recompense for you dutifully enshrining a guest bedroom as your employment zone.

This one's really important. Prior to moving to my current job, I had a 15-20 minute drive to work every day. I was filling my car up with gas every 2 weeks like clockwork. I was also going out for lunch semi-regularly. Moving to WFH (before the pandemic, because this was a planned move for me) totally changed the math on a lot of stuff. I haven't filled my car up with gas since early February at this point, though even before social distancing the previous fillup was in early December. My insurance cost on my car went down due to no commute. Food costs went down because I was cooking when I wanted lunch. These changes made a pretty noticeable improvement to our finances and we're now getting ready to move into a house where I'll have a dedicated office for work instead of a corner of the basement, and that's going to have some nice tax impacts too.

My employer has done a really good job embracing remote. There was a time when they actually retracted all ability to work remotely and had everyone move to work at our main office or look for another job. A shift in regime happened, and remote eventually came back, and now we've got a whole pile of benefits specifically for our remote employees, to help counterbalance the fact that they don't get some of the benefits that our in-office employees get.

One thing that we all get is a stipend we're allowed to use generally on things that help improve our lives or help us grow as people (a few examples of expensible things would be a new mattress, cooking classes, voluntarily chosen equipment for our workspace, etc). So we really already had the ability to expense the things we need for WFH, which has definitely been a big help.

As far as Overwatch between PRs... I mean, let's be real. Think about how much time you spend in the office chatting with coworkers about weekend plans, or what was on TV last night, or any other thing. Or, for those of you that have something like it, playing pool or ping pong. This is just an evolution of that. Taking a break now and then to do something to blow off steam is good and healthy.

[BossingAround]

> I am also pretty sure they aren't paying you for those rounds of Overwatch you sneak in between PR review requests

You do you. I'd never do such a thing as I consider it highly unprofessional. Don't project your behavioral patterns onto others.

[chiph]

In the US, deducting home office expenses are often a trigger for an audit, and can cause problems when it's time to sell the house. If your employer is paying for some of it, things could get really messy with regards to ownership. Consult a tax expert or CPA.

[itake]

You can't deduct home office if you're full time employee.

[throw03172019]

No. I’ve seen companies offering up to $1,000 to buy products for their home office. I haven’t seen any companies offer rent subsidies. Anyone else?

[mtmail]

Same. Companies pay for headphones, webcams, chairs, even internet, but not rent.

[wetpaws]

My company is still keeping me employed. Sounds good enough in my book

[a-saleh]

On the bright side: * no pay-cuts, all the benefits are still there * the mandate to have at most one day W.F.H. a week will probably be relaxed even after this is over * we have one time allowance of a low-ish sum to get some gear sent home (mostly would cover keyboards/mice/headphones) * managers are fine to approve more * everybody is understanding of the lower productivity

On the less positive: * no monitors? * we still pay for the big empty office * paying for rent is not really an option?

[shoo]

Current employer basically offers no perks apart from paying salary, which I reckon is a neatly decoupled way to structure life. BYO lunch, BYO social life, BYO health insurance (largely covered by public system). Employer offers salary in exchange for services, as an exchange that does fine.

Employer gave everyone a bit less than AUD 100 as one off bonus to help cover home office supplies (which is then taxed).

In Australia, can claim AUD 0.80 / hr as tax deductible working from home running expenses at end of financial year -- this is federal government tax office policy, independent of company policy. https://www.ato.gov.au/general/covid-19/support-for-individu...

One small downside is that I can no longer drink the mediocre free coffee at work. But can instead make my own coffee at home, which is more enjoyable (better coffee + better ritual). Costs me about AUD 0.26 in beans and AUD 0.06 in electricity to produce each 1L french press payload of black coffee, so cost is negligible.

Don't have to lose 1.5 hours of my life commuting to work and back every day, don't have to sit in noisy shared office environment where we don't even have fixed desks. On the whole working from home is a massive net win. My working from home setup is sub-optimal (small apartment, little space) but that said home is a lot better than the office and I don't want to ever go back!

Compared to other sectors of the economy or other employment situations where low-paid workers who are already vulnerable are laid off, no longer have any income, and have experience in industries that are approximately dead (tourism, hospitality) absolutely nothing to complain about at all. Still have a job, still have regular income, no drama.

[dzhiurgis]

In NZ there was announcement companies can pay something like $10 USD a week for employees using home office.

Personally I expense 1/3rd of my housing costs as home office - totally normal practice here.

I think that's one of the bigger benefits of self-employed + remote deal. It's a pity regular employee expenses benefit employer only.

[youngtaff]

In the UK you can claim a small tax allowance if you have to work from home - https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

[mcs_]

My house is not an office. It will never be one. It is my home if they pay, they will decide what to do with it.

[smanikim]

My company is paying $ 200 if someone wants to buy something to help with home office setup. On top of that, we are allowed to take equipments from office in case feasible. IMO, one of the reason that company doesn't want to spend more is saving cash in tough market.

[joe202]

My employer has been encouraging WFH for a while but mandated it for half our office before government requirement (didn't want everyone in key teams sick at the same time). We have been allowed to buy a monitor and have been supplied with a new laptop; we can also borrow any of the kit we need for the duration (I have borrowed an additional monitor). I moved house last year and chose one within walking distance to work and with an office (personal computer is also there). Tax authority allows tax-free compensation if employer requires WFH but that might complicated tax when house selling.

[EllipticCurve]

No. We are not even allowed to bring a monitor home temporarily during this phase. Explicitly forbidden to take any kind of working equipment.

So I guess we're expected to work in the 15" laptop? No wonder productivity goes down.

[BossingAround]

It's not only productivity that goes down, but one's health if one's not careful.

Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

[cableshaft]

I've been working from home for two years. My employer hasn't paid for anything in my home office. I have company issued computers and monitors (nothing amazing), the same ones I was using when we still had an office, but that's it.

Honestly, my expenses besides that have been minimal. I bought a new office chair once on my own dime, but that's pretty much it. I'm still using a long card table for a desk that I've had for probably a decade now. Internet costs I was already paying for anyway.

[plerpin]

I'm positive that tax law would get in the way of such a scheme.

[itake]

Can you tell me more about how tax law would get in the way? Self-employed can take a "home office" deduction on their taxes. Full time workers can as well, but its slightly more complicated.

https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/deduct-home-office-v2/

[giantg2]

My company will not pay you. They will allow you to buy common equipment through their supplier and have it shipped to your house, obviously after manager approval.

[BossingAround]

Not paying for rent, no, but we have been issued a one-time bonus (100 USD I think) for whatever you need.

I think it's indeed a valid question. I am sympathetic to small businesses that can't afford such expenses, but I went from my amazingly ergonomic setup to sitting on a chair that doesn't provide proper back support, using a non-adjustable desk where my keyboard doesn't even fit.

I am worried about my posture and health.

[ckdarby]

>I am worried about my posture and health.

If this is a concern may I ask why this wasn't dealt with at all before covid19? I'm guessing but think it is fair to say you've probably used your desk & chair prior to this WFH covid19 but that same setup existed then as it does today.

[tracer4201]

I expensed a large monitor, but that's about as much my company has offered to pay. I'd love to purchase a proper desk for myself while my spouse uses the other desk we have, but I don't have a lot of space for it, and honestly feel my employer should foot the bill, not me.