Working From Home Megathread

So if your employer was paying for a space in your home, you'd be fine with someone else sitting in your space the hours you are not working?

Maybe a colleague who can't work from home on different hours to you?

When you try sell your house, you're OK with the employer blocking the sale because they have a stake in the house too?

You'll need to split the portfolio of your house to transfer the part of the property the employer is leasing from you. That would be OK for you as well?

For a civil servant, you don't seem to have a good grasp on the consequences of your ideas... Well maybe it does explain your perspective.

I didn't say anything about stopping WFH or stopping people from WFH. I just said that employees would be foolish to allow their employer to grab space in the employee's home free of charge for ever, just because they've managed to get out of a crappy commute. There is a fairness issue here, as to who pays for office space for employees.

Indeed, the employer will most likely agree to the least hassle and particularly the least cost option. If employees and unions sit back and allow their employer to grab space in the employee's home free of charge for ever, just because they've managed to get out of a crappy commute, they are missing an opportunity for sharing in the savings arising from employee's providing space to their employer.

I'd love to see your source for that claim about heating homes vs heating offices. But regardless, I didn't say WFH is a bad thing. I didn't say people should stop WFH. I just said that If employees and unions sit back and allow their employer to grab space in the employee's home free of charge for ever, just because they've managed to get out of a crappy commute, they are missing an opportunity for sharing in the savings arising from employee's providing space to their employer.

The house probably is poorly insulated, standard 1990s build. I don't keep the heating on the whole time, but I was certainly keeping it going a fair bit of time last week, to keep the frostbite away from the fingers. Nice to see that some people have the luxury of using nice big screens, and aren't hunched over the laptop screen though. Maybe if employer was paying for my workspace, I might be able to afford some screens, or to insulate the house properly even?

And turn them all back on every evening, when the family come home? A slight PITA, in fairness.

If only there was some straightforward way to manage all these concerns, such as a lease agreement, or a legislative scheme like the Rent A Room scheme (which doesn't have any of the nonsense issues you raise about 'blocking the sale' or 'splitting the portfolio'?

Andrew. Please ... I sincerly hope your performance in work as a civil servant is much better than your online persona portrays ... You've got to use your head and think things through.

You make a good point about Rent-A-Room. I'm sure you also know renters bring guests to your home. The employer would be entitled to put a colleague in your home as a guest working from your home.

That would invade the privacy of all WFH employees homes. Do us a favour and don't mention you daft notions to any of your superiors.

Fascinating to see how you've decided what the conditions of the lease allow and disallow before it has even been written. Here's an idea - the conditions of a WFH lease just might be different from the Rent-a-Room scheme, in relation to allowance of visitors (or disallowance of visitors).

This is probably the most honest response that I've gotten. The suggestion of pushing things a little brings about this fear that employers will clamp down. I'm not sure that this is well founded.

Most employers aren't spiteful. Unless you're working in the Web Summit or some other small owner operated business, I can't see an employer pulling back on WFH simply because of a negotiation position. WFH has the potential to make a huge difference to operating costs for office-based businesses. There's a lot on the table here, and you'd want to be a fairly dumb employer to walk away from these potential cost savings just because of a request to share out the bounty a bit. In the vast majority of cases, the worst thing that can happen is that they'll say no. At very least, this sets down a marker for future negotiations.

I have a serious concern that without some level of sharing of savings, it will become the default or expected position - that ALL employees will be expected to provide WFH space and facilities. This will clearly discriminate against younger employees, living in a box room at home or a box room in shared accommodation. It will make things harder for the worst off employees, those who don't have decent space, and decent broadband. It's a shame to see how many employees are happy to throw their colleagues under a bus just to avoid any minimal possibility of an open discussion about WFH.

Unless they get divorced or seperated, and end up back in the box room. Unless they lose their fortune in bitcoin and end up back in the box room. Unless their gambling problem comes up again and they end up back in the box room. Lots of experienced people are in box rooms, or in noisy houses with no spare rooms, or many other situations. If you're going to treat younger workers differently, that ABSOLUTELY IS discrimination based on age, which is illegal.

How much will employers safe? How long is a piece of string. Office costs vary widely, depending on location, spec, fit out and more. It IS generally a very substantial part of costs for office-based businesses, probably their biggest single cost after salary.