Is your employer paying for your new office space, your home?

My company is paying for any necessary equipment people need to work, but that's about it. I can't really imagine most companies compensating you for you working at home itself though for a few reasons.

1) Many companies are doing pay cuts. They're not going to pay you for something like this if your base salary isn't even what it should be. It's time to be saving money. Companies are trying to limit spending wherever possible.

2) Most companies are assuming that not everyone is even going to work their regular amount due to children, and other duties. I don't particularly expect people to be compensated more for working at home when it's possible people can't do their job as effectively as before.

3) A lot of companies don't even pay you for commuting time or other similar commitments that are required for getting into work. If they did pay for that, then you would actually be getting a pay cut for working from home since that's time saved.

4) Plenty of companies that already hire people to work remotely, do not pay them more because they don't work in an office. That said, they may pay for your internet since it's considered essential for you to do your job, especially if your role requires decent internet (eg software dev/operations/on-call rotations).

These are just a few reasons of the top of my head.

I'm genuinely curious what economic perks have disappeared that were a significant part of people's income?

I consider free food a perk, but it is not income. I consider income to be monetary compensation. So I'm curious what kind of monetary compensation perks people had that disappeared.

Myself I am spending a lot less money than before when I had to drive into work everyday. I spent usually 70-90 minutes each day driving and the cost of fuel. For me it has been a net positive on the economic side for me working from home.

Do I miss free soda and snacks? Yep! I'll admit I'm starting to get tired of only eating food we prepare ourselves. So I'm looking forward to doing some more takeout in the future and hopefully actual sit-down dining at some point.

5 yrs ago, I got a loaded iMac 27 with extra monitor plus up to $200/month for internet and phone expenses, but I never exceed $100 on both. They've also reimbursed my headset and office chair.

My company has been the most generous I've seen so far, and we were a small, 40 person company, now 64. I'm grateful for it.

My company won't even let us take home a keyboard from the office, let alone actually pay for anything. So I'm working entirely from the one thing they did let me take home - my laptop. Productivity loss from only having one tiny screen and a bad keyboard is noticeable but as I've told my boss "I haven't got any monitors or a desk at home".

I am finding it increasingly ironic how WFH is no longer being perceived as the panacea of productivity and happiness that it once was.

I've been doing WFH for 5 years now. The amount of money you are saving by WFH full-time, assuming you properly leverage the opportunity (i.e. cooking own meals and multitasking chores), far outweighs any paltry notion that could be provided in recompense for you dutifully enshrining a guest bedroom as your employment zone.

I am also pretty sure they aren't paying you for those rounds of Overwatch you sneak in between PR review requests. But, they also can't tell you are doing that, so it seems to work out OK.

In the US, deducting home office expenses are often a trigger for an audit, and can cause problems when it's time to sell the house. If your employer is paying for some of it, things could get really messy with regards to ownership. Consult a tax expert or CPA.

No. I’ve seen companies offering up to $1,000 to buy products for their home office. I haven’t seen any companies offer rent subsidies. Anyone else?

My company is still keeping me employed. Sounds good enough in my book

On the bright side: * no pay-cuts, all the benefits are still there * the mandate to have at most one day W.F.H. a week will probably be relaxed even after this is over * we have one time allowance of a low-ish sum to get some gear sent home (mostly would cover keyboards/mice/headphones) * managers are fine to approve more * everybody is understanding of the lower productivity

On the less positive: * no monitors? * we still pay for the big empty office * paying for rent is not really an option?

Current employer basically offers no perks apart from paying salary, which I reckon is a neatly decoupled way to structure life. BYO lunch, BYO social life, BYO health insurance (largely covered by public system). Employer offers salary in exchange for services, as an exchange that does fine.

Employer gave everyone a bit less than AUD 100 as one off bonus to help cover home office supplies (which is then taxed).

In Australia, can claim AUD 0.80 / hr as tax deductible working from home running expenses at end of financial year -- this is federal government tax office policy, independent of company policy. https://www.ato.gov.au/general/covid-19/support-for-individu...

One small downside is that I can no longer drink the mediocre free coffee at work. But can instead make my own coffee at home, which is more enjoyable (better coffee + better ritual). Costs me about AUD 0.26 in beans and AUD 0.06 in electricity to produce each 1L french press payload of black coffee, so cost is negligible.

Don't have to lose 1.5 hours of my life commuting to work and back every day, don't have to sit in noisy shared office environment where we don't even have fixed desks. On the whole working from home is a massive net win. My working from home setup is sub-optimal (small apartment, little space) but that said home is a lot better than the office and I don't want to ever go back!

Compared to other sectors of the economy or other employment situations where low-paid workers who are already vulnerable are laid off, no longer have any income, and have experience in industries that are approximately dead (tourism, hospitality) absolutely nothing to complain about at all. Still have a job, still have regular income, no drama.

In NZ there was announcement companies can pay something like $10 USD a week for employees using home office.

Personally I expense 1/3rd of my housing costs as home office - totally normal practice here.

I think that's one of the bigger benefits of self-employed + remote deal. It's a pity regular employee expenses benefit employer only.

My house is not an office. It will never be one. It is my home if they pay, they will decide what to do with it.

My company is paying $ 200 if someone wants to buy something to help with home office setup. On top of that, we are allowed to take equipments from office in case feasible. IMO, one of the reason that company doesn't want to spend more is saving cash in tough market.

My employer has been encouraging WFH for a while but mandated it for half our office before government requirement (didn't want everyone in key teams sick at the same time). We have been allowed to buy a monitor and have been supplied with a new laptop; we can also borrow any of the kit we need for the duration (I have borrowed an additional monitor). I moved house last year and chose one within walking distance to work and with an office (personal computer is also there). Tax authority allows tax-free compensation if employer requires WFH but that might complicated tax when house selling.

No. We are not even allowed to bring a monitor home temporarily during this phase. Explicitly forbidden to take any kind of working equipment.

So I guess we're expected to work in the 15" laptop? No wonder productivity goes down.

I've been working from home for two years. My employer hasn't paid for anything in my home office. I have company issued computers and monitors (nothing amazing), the same ones I was using when we still had an office, but that's it.

Honestly, my expenses besides that have been minimal. I bought a new office chair once on my own dime, but that's pretty much it. I'm still using a long card table for a desk that I've had for probably a decade now. Internet costs I was already paying for anyway.

I'm positive that tax law would get in the way of such a scheme.

My company will not pay you. They will allow you to buy common equipment through their supplier and have it shipped to your house, obviously after manager approval.

Not paying for rent, no, but we have been issued a one-time bonus (100 USD I think) for whatever you need.

I think it's indeed a valid question. I am sympathetic to small businesses that can't afford such expenses, but I went from my amazingly ergonomic setup to sitting on a chair that doesn't provide proper back support, using a non-adjustable desk where my keyboard doesn't even fit.

I am worried about my posture and health.

I expensed a large monitor, but that's about as much my company has offered to pay. I'd love to purchase a proper desk for myself while my spouse uses the other desk we have, but I don't have a lot of space for it, and honestly feel my employer should foot the bill, not me.

We have a generous hardware budget. Some people have used it for home office stuff but most choose to just buy it with their own money so they can keep it if they were to leave or use it outside work.

Some people get noise cancelling headphones or monitors with their budget.

No, they just gave us a Laptop and a docking station.

My employer gave everyone in the company a one-time $500 stipend, no questions asked.

Why would you have to isolate from the rest of the family and house?

Yep, I'm getting up to $50 total for office supplies.