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

swissinfo.ch

231–240 of 264 posts

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

#231
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That not true for everyone. I live a 1.6 mile walk/run to work so my commute is 35 min a day and free.

That's 35min a day you don't have to spend. That's 2.5 hours a week.

No, that's 35 minutes of physical activity they have to make up some other way.

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

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, what do you find sketchy about it? a) Of course, a decision from 2019 is not related to the coronavirus lockdown b) the "different language" is German, which is one of the official languages in Switzerland. If you want more sources, albeit also in German: https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/arbeitgeber-muessen-einen-teil-de... c) the public court decision has also been linked: http://relevancy.bger.ch/php/aza/http/index…

a) The linked article never states that it is based on an article which is based from a court decision from 2019 - it reads and presents itself as if it applies to the current pandemic "every-body-works-from-home"-situation, where I could imagine a judge would rule different. b) Not my point. Translating from one language to another is prone to loose some information. Whoever did the translation, might have lost some…

On a): I agree that the article should have clearly stated that the verdict is from 2019.

As I knew this a priori from reading the news somewhere else first, I didn't notice this vagueness in the article before you wrote about it. Hence, let me thank you for making this clear to all readers here.

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

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A landlord can apply a maximum of 40% of the index increase in rent-increase So if inflation goes up by 10%, rent can only go up by 4%? Does that mean rent will be nearly free in 100+ years?

If inflation is 10% a year for 100+ years you are going to have bigger problems than the rent 130 year old person is paying.

I chose that number for easy math. The point is that rent grows less than half as quick as inflation, which is definitely unsustainable.

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

#235

Not sure how things work elsewhere but in Australia any expense used to generate income is tax deductible. That includes energy bills, furniture and room "wear" if you work from home. Working from home not only saves businesses money it also increases your salary take-home here.

I think it is because in countries like Australia or the US you have to fill in tax return every year so people are used to claim stuff. In many countries regular wage slaves don't have to fill in those tax return, it is all deducted from your salary every month and that's it, only business owners fill those tax returns.

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

#236
post #224

Unless there's no physical office at all, and the employees are told to work from home (the article mentioned this), I think it's a hard sell for employers to pay their employee's share of rent. If I were an employer and have rented an office space, whether the space is full or empty or half empty, I'm still paying more or less the same. Yes, there are coworking spaces where I can pay per headcount, but it's much mor…

Paying their entire rent is a hard sell, but I would think it reasonable to pay for an employee to have a setup at home that would be as good as they would get at a modern office. That includes things like: * office-quality furniture -- sit/stand desks, chairs, videoconference equipment * computers, monitors, whatever you would provide for them at work * subsidies for lunch and snacks if it's the norm in your locale…

The alternative is that they could just pay their devs 5x what devs would get paid in Europe, which is where this article is about, which is already being done.

Then the staff member can outfit their workspace as they see fit.

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

#237
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…

My personal expenses are decidedly lower when I work from home. So I don't see how it can be said that they are shifting their costs onto me.

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

#238
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…

>I'm sure that there are other unintended consequences

Since WFH will require decent internet connection I surely hope one of those consequences is all landlord have an incentive to install Fibre Optics Internet connection. And not relying on junky Cables or DSLs.

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

#239
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…

My personal expenses are decidedly lower when I work from home. So I don't see how it can be said that they are shifting their costs onto me.

Disruptions to these are now your responsibility to fix and your pay check is now dependent on them.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My ethical compass would feel it's wrong to squeeze additional benefits from an arrangement I have seen others thinking like that, and then become very sore when they are fired in an economic downturn. They feel that "it is not fair" because they did as much as they could for their company, the company did not care. Is that different in Switzerland? Has it a similar culture to Japan where firing an employee is the…

There is a (not so fine) line between looking after yourself and being a greedy jerk. I find that a little bit of grace goes a long way. Ask for a raise when you deserve it, absolutely. But if you ruthlessly try to extract every last penny from your employer, they will do the same to you. Have you ever browsed HN at work? Have you ever left just a few minutes before 5? I don't want my workplace to be a battleground o…

Maybe you have a very good and ethical employer, but my anecdotal evidence tells me it's not the rule, it's the exception.

Why is it okay for an owner to try to squeeze every penny he can out of his employees but not okay for the employees to do it?

The real problem is that the company normally holds the leverage, so the employee has no recourse, no matter how "ethically" wrong the situation may be.

Not to mention a company without its employees is nothing.

So assuming everyone is working on good faith (neither side is cheating the other) your conscience should be more than clear when asking for more as in the example of rent. The risk is almost always on the side of the employee. For the company you're normally just a number.

The balance does shift depending on the company size, but I believe this logic still holds true.

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