Should companies now start paying for home internet services?

[s0me0nesmind1]

My company has been pretty cool with that stuff.

My boss has just been like "If you need another monitor, just buy it and expense it". He also recommends things like a password manager, so I bought and expensed that as well.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I ended up buying 2 4k monitors to make it easier to work from home so I don't need to drag my work ones back and forth, would have been awesome if they had allowed me to expense that. 😀

 

[JEDIYoda]

My sons company pays his total internet bill!!

 

[snoopy7548]

I wish. I've burned through 2TB in the past week with all the porn I'm watching during useless meetings.

 

[brianmanahan]

Nope. I pay the same internet I paid before pandemic and I am glad I don't have to commute. That's three hours saved. Hell one week of commute will cost me more than one month of internet on train fare alone.

yeah the time savings are insane, i've always had at least a 1.5-2 hour commute all my life

 

[ch33zw1z]

Yes, companies should pay a share of the internet for work from home. If a WFH employee had to upgrade to accommodate works requirements, the employer should cover it.

If WFH employee was only using mobile data for a phone or whatever prior to WFH Req, then the cost should be covered 100% by the employer.

 

[Midwayman]

My wife works for a financial services company. The questions that have been coming up on town hall meetings are just absurd:

1) Will you buy me a chair/desk/whatever?
2) Will you pay for my internet?
3) Will you pay for my increased electricity usage since I'm home?

Asking a company to contribute to increased costs and help setup a place to work seems entirely appropriate. My company gave everyone a small stipend when this first started to get setup at home. Enough for a really cheap 2nd monitor and maybe kb/m. You doing this all for the company's benefit after all.

I think the bigger question is if we are pretending that this is short term. People need to start making decisions on remote work. Am I going to be able to continue? Do I want to invest in a solid working from home setup? Can I move somewhere cheaper that isn't so dependent on commute time? I'm not opposed to using some of my own money to make my setup nicer than the company would pay for, but I don't want to pour money into something that might be a waste in 3 months.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Asking a company to contribute to increased costs and help setup a place to work seems entirely appropriate. My company gave everyone a small stipend when this first started to get setup at home. Enough for a really cheap 2nd monitor and maybe kb/m. You doing this all for the company's benefit after all.

I think the bigger question is if we are pretending that this is short term. People need to start making decisions on remote work. Am I going to be able to continue? Do I want to invest in a solid working from home setup? Can I move somewhere cheaper that isn't so dependent on commute time? I'm not opposed to using some of my own money to make my setup nicer than the company would pay for, but I don't want to pour money into something that might be a waste in 3 months.

Yeah what I was going to say, someone who doesn’t have a desk or needs a sit/stand work station it is entirely reasonable to expect that be provided, especially since businesses can get better quality gear at a better price than you or I.
Asking for a $30 chair or compensated for pens & note pads is kind of trivial.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Beforehand, the situation with my employer was anti-telecommute. The elderly-run company simply stated that people working from home don't actually work. And yet here we are months into the pandemic with people forced to work from home. I guess I haven't done any work, like all of my coworkers, for the past five months. See, every company lie is an attribute to why I don't buy their products and services, or at least try not to. And the other lie that forwarded data caps on home Internet service? Yeah, I remember very little traffic congestion around 7PM, after traditional business hours that lasted for 60-90 minutes and then that went away, too--the congestion, not the caps.

But before the pandemic the situation was this for me. If I was going to have the privilege of working from home and avoiding the undesirables of going into the office then I should bare the costs of making that happen. It is a trade-off. If i do not want to deal with the costs then I can go into the office. That seemed reasonable to me for someone working a 40-hour scheduled work week. But if I were salary, and I could find myself in a situation where I could be worked 50, 60 or more hours a week then the trade-off scenario is lost and I would expect my employer to ante up on the cost of Internet service.

 

[purbeast0]

The $200 and 18 hours of commuting per month that I am saving is more than enough. I don't need an extra $50 to help me upgrade my internet. I'll survive.

 

[Exterous]

My wife works for a financial services company. The questions that have been coming up on town hall meetings are just absurd:

1) Will you buy me a chair/desk/whatever?
2) Will you pay for my internet?
3) Will you pay for my increased electricity usage since I'm home?

These are people with grown up jobs, who still have jobs in the middle of the worst recession in their lifetime. People who are no longer having to commute, replace professional clothing, etc and they are upset that they are spending more on electricity because they're home all day and can't set their AC back.

Just astounding stupidity.

At my own job the amount of people who are running decade old hardware, or who claim to have no PC at all is shocking. The day we all got kicked out of the office I went out and bought an extra 4K monitor to add to the two I already had floating around my house. It never once occurred to me that this should be a reimbursed expense, yet people won't even buy themselves a USB ethernet adapter to work around their shit wifi.

Viper GTS

The best\worst one I have seen so far: A company used to cater lunch on Friday for everyone (who all make well above the median income for this profession). Then COVID happened and the company went from very profitable to being in the red. Several people sent emails to the company leadership saying that the company should regularly send restaurant gift cards to employees who are now working from home since they no longer get free Friday meals and that not doing this would be unfair to the employees during these stressful times. No benefits were cut, no one has been fired yet but the company is losing money and their concern is over 1 lunch a week...

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

The best\worst one I have seen so far: A company used to cater lunch on Friday for everyone (who all make well above the median income for this profession). Then COVID happened and the company went from very profitable to being in the red. Several people sent emails to the company leadership saying that the company should regularly send restaurant gift cards to employees who are now working from home since they no longer get free Friday meals and that not doing this would be unfair to the employees during these stressful times. No benefits were cut, no one has been fired yet but the company is losing money and their concern is over 1 lunch a week...

lol. I mean, to a certain extent I get it. I price everything that a company gives me as part of my overall pay.

But if my company is suffering and in the red, I would have no problem with even temporary pay cuts. I'll take that over the company completely dissolving and being unemployed.

 

[rh71]

I started working from home exclusively maybe back in 2005. The company paid for it for many many months but there was a point where they sent a message to everyone (and this is a global company so lots at home in the US I'm sure) - basically indicating "you all should have high speed internet by now for your own use anyway, we're not paying anymore".

If I was a business owner, I would agree. If you never use it for personal use (like an office phone line), then maybe you'd have a case for the company paying exclusively. I pay $5/mo. out of pocket for an Ooma office line, which I also use as a home line when I don't want to give out my cell number.

For those who say they should pay a portion - if I had to guess the actual bandwidth used for work (VPN, HVD), it would be a small fraction of my overall bandwidth use per month. Not really a good reason. If you compare it with vehicle use reimbursement, there's no wear & tear associated with bandwidth/electricity either. If they will just business expense it regardless, then consider yourself lucky.

 

[dullard]

For those who say they should pay a portion - if I had to guess the actual bandwidth used for work (VPN, HVD), it would be a small fraction of my overall bandwidth use per month. Not really a good reason.

I know several people who have phone internet service only. Then work from home happened and work required hardwired internet (no cellular, no wifi). Instantly going from $0 for cable to ~$30/month is a big expense for them. And it is an expense that they would never have had if the company didn't require it. Just because it isn't a big portion of your bandwidth doesn't mean it isn't a big portion of someone else's bandwidth (such as 100%).

For a typical ATOT poster making close to six figures, there might not be a single added expense and probably doesn't affect them. For the struggling poor, this can be a massive expense. We should keep others' situations in mind.

But even ignoring that, it is still settled law in several states:

COCHRAN v. SCHWAN HOME SERVICE INC (2014) | FindLaw

Case opinion for CA Court of Appeal COCHRAN v. SCHWAN HOME SERVICE INC. Read the Court's full decision on FindLaw.

caselaw.findlaw.com

We hold that when employees must use their personal cell phones for work-related calls, Labor Code section 2802 requires the employer to reimburse them. Whether the employees have cell phone plans with unlimited minutes or limited minutes, the reimbursement owed is a reasonable percentage of their cell phone bills."

 

[rh71]

^
Consider that if your job can be done from an internet connection, that type of job likely pays a decent enough amount to afford home internet. So much so that you already have it.

If you don't already use internet much at home (mobile phone internet wouldn't be ie. streaming for personal use), then the company should pay for it.

If you don't already have it, submit your proof of a new install to show this was req'd because of the change to WFH. That would be an argument for compensation.

Lastly, if the company pays in full for internet, and you use a portion for home use (more likely a majority portion then), would you feel inclined to pay back some to them? Why should it only work one way?

 

[snoopy7548]

I'm going to ask my company to cover the increased cost of toilet paper.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

^
Consider that if your job can be done from an internet connection, that type of job likely pays a decent enough amount to afford home internet. So much so that you already have it.

Not....necessarily... I don't think...

I mean, anyone who works in customer support, customer returns via phone, IT tech support... all of those are jobs that pay anywhere between ~$20k - $40k. Not exactly baller wages, no?

I'm probably forgetting about other cheap positions that can be done remotely as well....

 

[Scarpozzi]

I think it depends on the situation. Some employers can't afford it....some employees abuse that sort of thing. For me, I can go to work any day if I want to. It's my choice to work from home and homeschool my kids these days. A lot of people returned in June/July.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

This thread was appropriate for what happened last night. A guy who works for my wife didn’t want to transfer a bunch of work files because he is approaching his data cap. Now I stayed out of the conversation but files needed to be transferred from a giant shared drive where stuff gets lost in her work group to a smaller restricted access shared drive for her team and another team. I doubt the files were ever touching the end clients data but still I can imagine a scenario happening like that.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

This thread was appropriate for what happened last night. A guy who works for my wife didn’t want to transfer a bunch of work files because he is approaching his data cap. Now I stayed out of the conversation but files needed to be transferred from a giant shared drive where stuff gets lost in her work group to a smaller restricted access shared drive for her team and another team. I doubt the files were ever touching the end clients data but still I can imagine a scenario happening like that.

Depends on what the backing system is. There are functions in current Collaboration Apps to move files, but if you're just doing it out of "Explorer" or "Finder" it often very much is downloading that data and then uploading it again unless you have the proper integrations (for instance OneDrive, if fully installed and integrated on your computer's account, can use Move API's to move files in OneDrive without re-uploading them).

It's messy, and there's definitely new dynamics there that are needed. There's no way I would blow through my data cap to support my business moving files around.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Depends on what the backing system is. There are functions in current Collaboration Apps to move files, but if you're just doing it out of "Explorer" or "Finder" it often very much is downloading that data and then uploading it again unless you have the proper integrations (for instance OneDrive, if fully installed and integrated on your computer's account, can use Move API's to move files in OneDrive without re-uploading them).

It's messy, and there's definitely new dynamics there that are needed. There's no way I would blow through my data cap to support my business moving files around.

haha funny, I just found out the files were going to my wife’s machine then uploading to the new save site. Unlimited fios 100/100 connection so I am not concerned but apparently it took around 5 hours to move them all, last file failed to transfer because her vpn connection timed out.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

haha funny, I just found out the files were going to my wife’s machine then uploading to the new save site. Unlimited fios 100/100 connection so I am not concerned but apparently it took around 5 hours to move them all, last file failed to transfer because her vpn connection timed out.

The real answer here (at least for the current era) relies mostly around VDI solutions and having employees work out of that. It only takes about 100-150MB per day of bandwidth for an end user to be connected, and any file work can take place in the Employer's network, with the appropriate costs and bandwidth allocation. That's obviously not suitable for everything, but it can certainly cover most productivity concerns, including modern optimized collaboration and VOIP applications.

I can see this needing to be regulated eventually (or not, and let businesses run rampant as they tend to in 'Murica). I can totally see "must be willing to transfer up to 500GB/month on your home internet connection" start to appear on job descriptions as businesses seek to shield themselves from the costs of doing business.

 

[Leymenaide]

company pays no questions.

 

[brianmanahan]

i've always needed shoes to go to work but my company doesn't pay for the shoes

also i needed to park at work but the company doesn't pay for parking

i don't see why internet would be different

 

[Fanatical Meat]

i've always needed shoes to go to work but my company doesn't pay for the shoes

also i needed to park at work but the company doesn't pay for parking

i don't see why internet would be different

If you are required to wear a specific uniform or required to wear special shoes it’s cover **at least in several states
If you are required to use your car for work reasonable parking fees are covered