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Sucks for the worker who now has to bear the cost of providing office space and internet connections and your local network. Also longer term a lot of housing
by C1sc0cat 6y ago
Sucks for the worker who now has to bear the cost of providing office space and internet connections and your local network.
Also longer term a lot of housing stock will become les desirable and new residential housing will become bigger and more expensive.
Oh and H&S inspections will now have to be included
- noir_lord 6y agoI would happily provide that cost since I pay for all of that anyway to work from home. Dragging my arse into an open office during a pandemic has killed my motivation completely. I've gone from hard working to doing just enough not to get fired while I look for another job.
- adwww 6y agoOn the other hand, it's probably boosted the value of more remote homes in otherwise desireable areas that have previously suffered for local employment opportunities. In the UK that might include beautiful countryside in places like Wales and Cornwall, or larger houses available in the North. Assuming the internet is fast enough!
- ghaff 6y agoI have never heard of a health and safety inspection for a home office. I'm quite sure mine would fail in multiple counts. But, yes, a small urban apartment is not going to be great for working from home. Especially without coffeeshops etc. open. Longer term, people who WFH indefinitely will either need to move to larger places or they'll want a co-working space that either they or their company pays for.
- C1sc0cat 6y agoIts the law in the UK and from what others have said the USA as well
- ghaff 6y agoPretty much everyone I work with in the US worked from home at least some of the time even before this. I'd place a sizable bet that not one of them has ever had an OSHA inspector come to check out their home workplace.
- C1sc0cat 6y agoI think if its the odd day you might getaway with it - but when your workplace is formally defined as your home it might be very different. I suspect it for the USA it will be the medical insurers that will insist on it.
- ghaff 6y agoI was curious if there actually was a technical requirement that no one followed in practice. But no. Home offices are explicitly out of scope--although there may be some reactive oversight for other home-based worksite activities. Policy for Home Offices. OSHA will not conduct inspections of employees' home offices. OSHA will not hold employers liable for employees' home offices, and does not expect employers to inspect the home offices of their employees. If OSHA receives a complaint about a home office, the complainant will be advised of OSHA's policy. If an employee makes a specific request, OSHA may informally let employers know of complaints about home office conditions, but will not follow-up with the employer or employee. https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/directives/cpl-02-00-125#policy https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/directives/cpl-02-00-125#po...
- jon-wood 6y agoFor most people I suspect they come out on top even with the extra expense of needing a decent internet connection and some office space. Commuting (particularly into London, which is what I'm most familiar with) is expensive - I'm a 1.5 hour train ride out from London, and an annual season ticket costs £6,000-£7,000 per year, depending on the route and whether I want a travelcard for London as well.
- ghaff 6y agoThere's a subset of people who can normally walk or bike to their office and are now faced with either moving into a larger apartment or renting a co-working space--which I don't expect to be typically reimbursed. But most people commuting in from or around the suburbs can probably make the space at home work and are saving double-digit dollars per day.
- C1sc0cat 6y agoProbably make space very unlikely the average person is not going to have a spare room to fit a desk with a double monitor. And if its a couple or a shared house even worse - probably increase the divorce rate for couples both WFH
- C1sc0cat 6y agoYes but you will get a pay cut its not like they are going to pay London /SF wages in the country.
- jon-wood 6y agoMaybe, although I’m currently being paid top end London wages in the country. A lot will depend on supply and demand, what salaries people are willing to accept, and what more openness to remote employees does to the candidate pool.
- QuesnayJr 6y agoThat's amazing. The annual pass for all of Switzerland is only around £3,500.
- fzzzy 6y agoFor existing companies like Mozilla where we are mostly remote anyway, the company already reimburses home internet and office equipment like chairs and monitors and desks. Also, Mozilla will reimburse space in the form of a coworking lease in the worker's city. (Edit: Who knows if this will continue after Coronavirus) I don't think there's any kind of benefit for the costs incurred by the increased use of home space, but I do think there should be. Mozilla did an ergonomic inspection on my workspace at my request when I still worked in an office. I haven't had one on my home office, but I do agree that companies should pay for ergonomic assessments of home offices. I do agree that as more traditional companies switch over, they may not be so generous with their reimbursement since one of the biggest benefits for them is cost reduction. They can silently move all the costs of working space onto employees. And I do think this will result in people seeking larger living spaces in general as well, unfortunately for energy efficiency.