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

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

#111

Post by thetopher »

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.

As a non-remote employee, I had to find housing near my office. Now, as a remote employee, my only real requirements are a power source and internet connection. Sure, I have to live somewhere, but that need isn’t a result of my employment. It seems that non-remote employees have more specific and expensive housing requirements and costs.

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

#113

Post by Hamuko »

p4bl0 wrote: post #85

In France when you pay your income taxes, a part of your income is deducted as work related spending. By default it's something like 10% I think (do not take my word on this figure, I would check but I'm on a smartphone right now). But you can opt-in for real-cost and if you do so, you have to declare and give receipts for all of your work-related expanses to the tax administration, all of which would be deducted fro…

A bit similar in Finland. Here every taxpayer gets a 750 euro tax deduction for "wage earning expenses". So if you want to declare expenses related to your job, you basically need to have over 750 euro of them in order to get anything.

If you work remote for less than 50% of workdays in a year, that counts as a 450 euro deduction. But if you work for more than 50% of workdays from home, you get a 900 euro deduction. So people working mostly from home will exceed the automatic 750 euro deduction and should declare their expenses properly instead of relying on the automatic deduction.

You can also deduct equipment and Internet connections (50% of the cost if you use it partly for work). Although in the IT industry, it's pretty commonplace for the employer to pay for 100% of your home Internet connection, since it's a tax-free benefit to the employee.

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

#114

Post by beezle »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #24
mehrdadn wrote: post #10

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

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.

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

#115

Post by mehrdadn »

jeroenhd wrote: post #107
mehrdadn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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.

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

#116

Post by papeda »

manigandham wrote: post #109
sdfx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd guess there are plenty of people in high-rent areas who'd need larger and more expensive living quarters to work from home long-term.

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

#117

Post by hnra »

manigandham wrote: post #109
sdfx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Creating an office at home? For a lot of people, making your home a viable working space is very expensive. It may even require the worker to purchase a home or apartment with an extra room.

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

#118

Post by malthaus »

MrGilbert wrote: post #60

Someone needs to take a closer look into this. It feels sketchy. This is an article (from yesterday) based on a pay-walled article (from yesterday, and in a different language), which itself is based on a court decision (from April 2019). This is not related to the current pandemic (which the article vaguely states, but not explicitly). Also, to give you a time-frame: The linked court decision is from April 2019, the…

Nothing sketchy, i just linked to the semi-offical english Swiss news-feed. It was distributed in our local languages through all the standard media yesterday and has been the center of discussion in (virtual) office chitchat today.

This is real and now Swiss companies have to figure out how to deal with it.

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

#120

Post by swasheck »

ramblerman wrote: post #25
buro9 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what this is. This is: Your employer should provide the means for you to do the work they ask of you.

You didn't negate OP's point though. Just stated it was a different motivation. The net result is still that you - disincentivize companies to let people work from home - give people who can work from home, (and already are at an advantage to cashiers/tellers/etc...) more benefits.

I get what you’re saying, I just see it a bit differently.

With a majority remote workforce, the company’s physical plant expenses should be reduced, effectively shifting the cost of utilities to the employee. All things being equal reduced expenses mean increased profits. This increase in profits generally does not go back to the employees, so even though their personal assets are effectively serving as a rent-free physical plant for the company, there’s no consideration of that in the company’s bottom line. Depreciable expenses plummet for them, and on and on.

I don’t like marrying it to salary and definitely prefer a reimbursement model, though that has a few new burdens for the employee, but that’s acceptable.

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