Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

swissinfo.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 264 posts

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#101

Post by HenryBemis »

hokumguru wrote: post #65

Isn’t that just the point of a salary anyway?

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 :)

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#102

Post by vortico »

Pfhreak wrote: post #34
vortico wrote: post #16

Wouldn't this just decrease average work-from-home salary by exactly CHF150/month?

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.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#103

Post by ryneandal »

djmobley wrote: post #59
ryneandal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes on the healthcare thing. Decouple insurance from employers completely.

Employers should get the benefit of healthy employees, but not incur the cost?

Not sure why you immediately jump to a negative take. Insurance should be independent of employers, available at reasonable cost to anyone.

It's an absurdist notion that I should be obligated to work for specific-size companies to ensure I can afford the health and welfare of my family.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#104

Post by rwmj »

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.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#105

Post by ryneandal »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #74
djmobley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers should get the benefit of healthy employees, but not incur the cost?

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.

Separation of healthcare and employers also removes a huge barrier to entrepreneurship.

The entire notion of employer-provided healthcare is one of the reasons the US scores so low on economic freedom studies.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#106

Post by hocuspocus »

ramblerman wrote: post #96
cactus2093 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Compared to SF, Zurich is 50% cheaper in rent, but pretty much more expensive across the board for everything else. From Numbeo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

After taxes and rent, "everything else" is fairly insignificant in practice, even though both cities are very expensive.

Also I would be careful about numbers from Numbeo, I certainly don't pay $50/kg for beef.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#107

Post by jeroenhd »

mehrdadn wrote: post #73
jeroenhd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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).

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#109

Post by manigandham »

sdfx wrote: post #46
antr wrote: post #20

Thought: - 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-fro…

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.

What cost? If anything the employee now saves time and money from the commute alone.

Re: Swiss companies must pay share of rent for employees working from home

#110

Post by thomasahle »

djmobley wrote: post #59
ryneandal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes on the healthcare thing. Decouple insurance from employers completely.

Employers should get the benefit of healthy employees, but not incur the cost?

Employers get a lot of benefits from a well-functioning society: Roads, Healthy employees, Peace and Law.

As long as we make sure they pay sufficient taxes for those benefits, it seems like the best deal for everyone.

Post reply on HN