Phone and internet normally gets reimbursed for WFH
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And that may be an objective for the employer if they want to make cuts but donāt want to incur the stigma and cost of layoffs. Thereās a risk of mainly losing the best people, but maybe they havenāt thought about that.
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None of our family doing WFH is reimbursed for phone or internet. H is the only one with a phone from his company the rest of us use our own phones. The amount of time and money many of us are saving by not commuting is definitely worth not being reimbursed for these.
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Interesting. DD who is fully remote get reimbursed for both. DH in hybrid only for phone
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At the three workplaces Iāve worked remotely, and at the places our family members work, hardly any would reimburse those. Internet is being used for things other than work activities, so it is hard to justify paying for that. A minimal allowance for phone - some offered that, but that came with so many restrictions on what can and cannot be done with the phone, I personally decided not to bother.
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I retired on Jan 31, 2021, so the last 10 months were spent working from home (I went in one day a week for 2-3 hours to do something that was not possible from home). I loved it. I missed some of my coworkers but as I was an āolderā woman I was never part of the social āhappy hourā crowd anyway. Working from home was not an option in Hās defense contracting job.
D has a very flexible situation in marketing (Fortune 500 company), she could WFH every day if she chose. She goes in 3x/week because GD is in the daycare center at the office on those days. SIL is in healthcare management for a company based in another part of the country and is 100 percent WFH. They both love the flexibility. Much easier work/life balance.
My former office is now requiring people to be in 3x/week and a lot of people are unhappy. Senior management likes it because they still have several years left on a lease in an expensive area and they want it used. They also have the private offices and are able to afford to live closer and avoid long commutes.
I think companies will have to adapt.
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DD is on our family plan under my name so both DH and DD submit phone bills that donāt have their names and it works fine. It depends on size of the company and employer policies I guess.
The engineers at our company get a $50 per month phone reimbursement and are expected to be available at any time. I donāt have work email on my phone. I told my employer when they hired me that since I donāt get a reimbursement for my phone I will not have work email or Teams on my personal phone. They have no problem with this.
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The dozen or so companies Iām talking about range in size from seed money startups to billion dollar plus market cap PTC. The bigger the company the more restrictive such reimbursement is.
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Most hybrid or remote employees do not qualify for the home office tax deduction. You can learn more here:
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This is the third tech company my DD works for and every company was reimbursing for phone / internet from $30 to $80. My DH gets phone reimbursement of $50. Our entire phone bill for 3 lines is $112 including charges for my new phone so between two of them itās pretty much covered. DDās boyfriend in investment banking working hybrid also has $35 daily meal allowances for restaurant food only. He can buy groceries with those money
Some of the employees at the non-profit agency Iām associated with asked for extra pay for WFH. ?!? We already reimbursed them for cell phones and internet.
These are some of the same people who thought they should get snow days as they used to get when they worked in the office. I felt like saying, āBack in the day, we were expected to get the office no matter what.ā I think I can recall one day in four years where we were reluctantly allowed to leave work early in a blizzard.
Now the employees are balking at coming back to the office. With the work they do, it really is important for them to be there in person.
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Nobody I know who is working from home is getting phone or internet covered. My daughter had to beg to get them to supply her with pens and post it notes.
For my daughter, commuting would be cheaper. She could get a free shuttle to the office or walk. She would definitely save on her utilities (keeping the house colder/warmer when she is not at home during the day would lower her electric bill).
Just curious. If you choose to live in Ohio, but your company is in California and allows you to work remotelyā¦what about health insuranceā¦?
My millennials work everything from home full time to in the office/lab full time. They like the WFH. When they have moved they have looked for community activities to make friends rather than work. One was just asked to go from 1 day per week in the office to 2 per week. She has chosen a day when food is provided, but she says there is nothing that happens on that second day that she wasnāt already doing just as well from home.
Those working remotely every day all have quarterly āall hands on-siteā events. Those have seemed to improve their ability to connect with coworkers even during the time they are working remotely.
I do wonder how this will all play out. We are still in a state of change and reorganization following the pandemic. So many layoffs from big tech companies and yet the unemployment rate remains a record low. The labor market is still shaking out post-pandemic.
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My daughter works for a fully remote company. No physical offices. The company uses some sort of a benefit/HR administrator (Trinet? ) that provides a group PPO plan with coverage anywhere in the US.
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I had a group PPO with coverage anywhere in the US before I retired last year. It was a great thing when the kids were in college in different states.
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Thank youā¦one of my kids doesnāt work remoteā¦but has insurance PPO plan in the state where she worksā¦which is not the state where she lives. The doctors where she lives are all out of network, even though this is a PPOā¦.or at least she hasnāt found ones that will accept her OOS PPO plan as in network.
Luckily, her next job is in the state where she lives.
This is an aside.
My daughter lives in PA but works in NJ. All of her medical providers are in NJ.
She has tele health appointments. One day she was working from her house because a worker was showing up.
She had her tele health appointment for a controlled substance. They asked as they do routinely if she was in NJ? No, she was at home in PA.
Apparently the provider has a moment of panic. All of her other appointments had been in her car at work. In NJ. There was a bit of confusion and flurry of could they prescribe her medication? 
They did. But she will make sure to do those appointments in her car. In NJ.
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