Homeworking Policy/Workstation Set Up

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Homeworking Policy/Workstation Set Up

Posted: 24th May 2021

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24th May 2021 at 10:56 am #12113
Anonymous
Hi Everyone!

For those of us who will be be continuing in a hybrid model (e.g.a mix home based and office based) I’m curious to understand whether people have already introduced/ or plan to introduce principles on the longer term set up and reimbursement for colleagues’ home offices?

During the pandemic I was given the joyus responsibility of facilities & health and safety too (Every HR professional’s dream!)

As an international travel company (with very little international travel happening(!)), we’re unfortunately not currently able to offer generous allowances to everyone to kit out their offices, but are keen to understand what other employers are offering?

E.g. A One off office set-up allowance? A fixed amount towards chairs, desks? A % reimbursement? Only offering where it’s requested? etc.?

All and any insights would be really appreciated!
24th May 2021 at 11:01 am #12115
Anonymous
Liv,

In our case, we allowed people to take home whatever equipment they had in the office (dual monitors, chairs, etc.) which was recorded in a register maintained by our office manager, we allowed people to claim up to USD$200 (we’re an American company) as a one-off set up for their home office arrangement (no real scrutiny as to what they spent the money on as long as it was approved by the manager) and we’ve allowed people to claim 1/3 of their internet bill at home on an ongoing basis and for as long as the wfh situation remains (i.e. for 8 hours work, 1/3 of a 24 hour day).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Will
24th May 2021 at 11:04 am #12116
Anonymous
Hi Liv 🙋🏾‍♀️

We allow employees to claim the following amounts through expenses after purchasing the item for homeworking use:
- Up to a max. of £120 for an office chair
- Up to a max. of £150 for a monitor
- Up to a max. (combined limit) of £20 for keyboard and mouse
I hope this helps!
24th May 2021 at 11:23 am #12117
Anonymous
Hi Liv

At the beginning of the pandemic, as we asked everyone who could to work from home, we provided a £150 allowance to by a chair etc to ensure the work environment at home was suitable.

Hope that helps a little!
24th May 2021 at 12:32 pm #12122
Anonymous
Hi Liv

We’ve done similar to what has already been said in terms of equipment and we’ve also encouraged the claiming of the £26 per month. Has anyone given anything else in terms of an ongoing allowance i.e. winter fuel allowance?
24th May 2021 at 1:20 pm #12123
Jason
Keymaster
As we are in 60 countries globally all with different tax regimes we’ve left it to local Regions to determine whether a one-off allowance or a reimbursement works best. We’ve allowed up to US$500 as a limit. We are not subsidising internet, electricity or other such home costs as employees are saving a lot of money through not commuting. Also those costs would be incurred in any case for Netflix or other such home entertainment, etc.
24th May 2021 at 1:50 pm #12129
Jo
Participant
We’ve paid everyone the equivalent of the HMRC homeworking allowance amount, for bills etc. £312 per year.

On top of that we’ve worked on the following basis:

Anything ‘standard’ and ‘uniform’ for the office (i.e: that is already in the office or which could be brought back into the office in the unlikely event that we ever return to full time office working) has been either shipped out from existing office supplies or paid for by the Company (laptops, monitors, keyboards etc). This stuff the company would keep if the employee resigned etc.

Anything non-standard (i.e: there would be no place for if we all went back to the office), employees are expected to pay for through the allowance above. But they can also keep it.

Hope that makes sense.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Jo.
3rd June 2021 at 11:34 am #12385
Anonymous
Thanks everyone- really appreciate it! I have used all your various approaches to help shape options for my proposal. Will keep you posted on what we decide 👍
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