To expect my work to pay for broadband and other wfh expenses?

[Zazzii]

Since last March like many of us I have been working from home - I have a work laptop and phone and use our spare room. I had always worked the odd day at home when it was convenient for wating in for deliveries/ appointments etc but only once or twice a month. I, and line manager etc, were happy with this but it was seen as a bit of a perk

Now that working from home is established as the 'new normal' is it wrong for me to expect my employer to cover my broadband costs? They dont seem inclined to give us anything telling us that as we have it already there is no increased costs for us of using it for an additional 7 hours a day.

It is vital for the business that we are connected therefore the cost should be met by the business. Plans from teh summer are for us to continue working from home at least for part of the week so it will be long term.

I undertsand that they dont want to get involved in discussions about individual broadband contracts etc but a standard amount for all staff - say £30 a month?, £40?- should be part of our expenses claim. Or do I need to accept it as part of the new way of working?

Then there are other expenses which I have incurred over the past year - bigger things like the heating and electricity during the day but also small things like the coffee, tea and other refreshments I would normally expect to have at work which I have had to pay for.

I havent reduced any costs in other areas - my commute is 2 miles by bike so negilible cost and time saving.

Am I being unreasonable? Would it be unreasonable to try and rally my fellow workers to ask for this?

Tea and coffee 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤣🤣🤣🤣

Op you can claim the staying at home expenses thing of you are wfh. Lots of people have provided the link.
Please count your blessings. Millions are out of work right now. Your broadband doesn't cost any more than it did before.

Most companies I am aware of who allowed 100% wfh pre COVID paid lower salaries to those workers than to their office colleagues. I would be wary of demanding more (especially for broadband which is really not costing you anything and coffee which is truly petty) in case they turn it around.

Seriously? I save a small fortune WFH, I spend less on petrol, less on work clothes and less on M&S lunches. I wouldn’t dream of fleecing my employer at such a difficult time.

125,000 people have died. Many many thousands have lost their jobs, businesses, livelihoods. Kids have missed nearly a year of school.

So yes complaining about having to pay for your own tea and coffee is absolutely petty. If you don’t like it move jobs. I hear there is a shortage of ICU nurses.

It will be interesting to see what happens when government stops furlough and the work from home message. I’m sure a lot of employers will be mentally keeping notes of people who pitched in to help out the business at the time of crisis and those people who continue to bleat about perceived WFH and office differences. Echo the next in line for redundancies comment and you should be grateful to still have a job..

I am definitely worse off working from home - I used to walk to work so no costs there, and I am paying to have my heating on most of the day now as I can't bear the cold.

However, that is life and I don't think that work should be compensating me for that.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

I'm amazed that people are having to use their own laptops, even more so that some people have had to buy them. Surely it's in the company's interests to supply computer equipment. Aside from that there's no way I'd want work on my personal computer - can the company access it remotely?

The school laptop didn't make it past week 2. I filmed most of my lessons and did my zooms oh my phone. No one thought about broadband at their home at all, other than a worry that we were rubbish teachers because we didn't have enough WiFi at home for the lessons to go smoothly enough. It's very different across sectors.

You pay for broadband anyway pre covid , and you’re saving on your commute. Just be grateful you’re still employed

Fwiw we had to upgrade our home connection to fibre because our standard connection wasn’t good enough for work needs. We don’t stream things or game or anything else on line, our personal use is just emailing and a bit of social media, which could be done on our phones.

It will be interesting to see what happens when government stops furlough and the work from home message.

I'm curious as to how much better (if at all) the WFH by default has been for the planet ? It will be interesting to see how increasing CO2 emissions and all the related rush hour traffic can be spun as a benefit. Buy hey - someone has to buy those cars. We can't have people not needing them can we.

Presumably H&M are lining up to do another interview ?

I'm sure internet companies will put your bill up for the extra use. Or am I being a debbie downer. Just you wait and see

@Fluffmum

You pay for broadband anyway pre covid , and you’re saving on your commute. Just be grateful you’re still employed

My commute has always cost £0.

My broadband had to be upgraded, I had to have a second phone line installed, our electricity bill has increased significantly.

Nhs here. No free tea, coffee or milk! We are issued with laptops anyway so once WFH became long term we were allowed in to take chairs, monitors etc. No allowance other than the £6 others have mentioned. I'm saving on commute but I have seen a rise in heating bills.

@TheDancingBear:

If your people are doing 25% less work when they wfh, that does tend to suggest that you just have a fucking lazy group. I suspect if you look closer at the figures, you'll find that some people are doing just fine whereas others have fallen off a cliff. If I were managing those people, I would find that massively instructive.

No, I disagree. In this case (law firm) the practice has been using paper files, and all work had to be done in hard copy (per government requirements) so the transition has been hard and unwieldy. They may file cases with up to 1500 pages of paper - that can't be done with any home printer, and has been really difficult to compile relevant documents into proper order for filing without space to lay out, extra eyes to double check, and admin assistance to package. This is an extraordinary workload, and it would be inhumane to expect them to magically manage this work whilst working from home.

Trust me. I am no softie, but in this case I had to just go wtih it and be delighted that they manage to meet the deadlines.

Troglodyte governmental agencies took many months to respond to the consequences of the pandemic. This year we may be in better shape, we shall see.

If the broadband etc is exclusively for work use, and you NEVER use it for other purposes i.e no Netflix or out of work use of internet then go for it, but I doubt this is the case. You had broadband before and were prepared to pay for it, so what has changed??

YABU - claim the £6 per week WFH allowance from hmrc

@thecatandthevicar

I am amazed by all these people who have different heating costs. Did you all switch off the heating every time you left the house?

Heating was on a timer .... couple of hours in the morning and then about six or so in the evening. Now it's on all day.

Oh ffs just be grateful you have a job and have the space in your house to work and the money to pay for tea and coffee and extra electricity. Your company didn’t invest covid to make your life more shitty. Get over yourself!!

How much are you saving on not going to work? Some people I know are £100 plus a month better off. No petrol, train, bus costs. No Costa £3;coffees. Then time saved per day not commuting. That could be 10 hours a week or more.

I have worked from home for 7.5 years anyway as I’m field based.

I only found out last year from Martin Lewis that I could claim tax back on some of my additional expenses that working from home incurred. Things such as the additional electric, heating usage etc it’s costing me to work from my home rather than being provided with this in an office environment.

I made a claim and have now got some tax relief for this year and money back from last year.

Companies often won’t voluntarily offer you this money, despite the fact they should really be re-imbursing you. So better to just go through the tax man instead and get the money back that way.

YABU - claim the £6 per week WFH allowance from hmrc

It's tax relief on £6. So just over a £1 per week for most people.

Heating was on a timer .... couple of hours in the morning and then about six or so in the evening. Now it's on all day

But it's unlikely to have been actually running all day.

Ours is also on a timer and over winter I've pressed the boost button to put the heating on for half an hour maybe up to 3 or 4 times a day.

Our total bill might have gone up by a small amount, under £20 a month, but a good portion of that is also likely to be due to prices rising anyway over the past year, as I've just switched tariffs and all the info was about how prices per unit were rising across the industry.

Plus it's hard to tell how much of an increase might be due to colder weather, we had quite a lot of ice and snow in the winter just gone, and in sure winter 19/20 was quite mild.

In any case, you can't make a definitive call as to whether people have saved money by WFH or whether it has suited them.

For every person who hated it due to lack of space, cost of heating, drinks and toilet paper, or missing out on seeing colleagues, there's likely to be just as many of not more who are benefiting from saving significant amounts of time and money and are able to work just as effectively at home if not more so.

Hopefully going forward people will be given more flexibility and not be expected to attend an office 'just because' but have suitable office space provided for anyone who wants it, either full or part time.

@Timeforabiscuit Lovely post - Dh is using spare room for WFH.

You have given me a idea that I should work out the square footage and get him to ask his company for recompense for lack of use of that room - I rather fancied moving anyway.

Or maybe I won't

I think additional expense purely for work is reasonable to claim for expenses , but not tea coffee etc because most companies do not provide that FOC. Nor lunch . By and large I don't think claiming for a chair or a desk is reasonable. What I can see is if there were a huge second screen you needed for work and you had your work laptop etc then yes if you are working from home you should be able to claim for than screen.

I think claiming for broadband which you are using anyway is just taking the piss. ( assuming unlimited use )

I guess it might be considered discriminatory in that it would exclude many people who do not have a spare room/ dining room table or other area they can set aside for company business.

No, it really couldn’t