Supplying broadband to remote workers

[chriscboy]

I work for an SME with about 70 employees. 30 of these employees have the facilities to work remotely and we currently supply and pay for their broadband connections, 9 of them use their own connections. This is double the number we were supplying four years ago and it is now becoming a support nightmare as lots of time is lost supporting our remote users broadband, which is outside of our control.

I am considering not supplying the broadband and offering the employees a remote working allowance that would be a contribution to using the home broadband for work reasons. I see this giving us the following benefits:

Reduced support costs
Reduce budget costs as the allowance would be cheaper than supplying the broadband

I am also aware that we could be held responsible for any illegal downloads made by the employees, as the connections are paid for by the company, which this would negate.

Is the above viable solution, and has anyone else done the above? What other approaches do you folks take in terms of providing the tools to allow your employees to work remotely and effectively?

Look forward to hearing your answers.

Chris

 

[Welshbird]

Chris - I would suggest you begin by checking the contracts of these workers - I could imagine some might become disgruntled to lose what they might now see as a noticeable benefit from their employment.

That being said; it could certainly be a way forward for any new employees who work remotely.

That doesn't feel like a whole heap of help to you on my part, but just something else to think about at least.

Fee

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[kmcferrin]

Chris,

I think that it's really an exception these days for companies to provide broadband to their employees, or to even compensate them for using their own. Of course, that depends on the role. If you're working in a support/administration role and the broadband is typically used for after hours or "work from home" situations, then the argument is usually "We allow you to work remotely as a convenience if you have that capability. If you are unhappy with the terms of your remote working then you can always drive into the office instead."

Now if your employees are 100% work from home (salespeople, medical transcriptionists, whatever) and they were hired to work from home then that's a different story. In those cases it can go either way (company funded or company reimbursed). Most companies would probably prefer to have the workers file expense reports and reimburse, that way they are not liable for any extra charges or "iffy" activity that takes place. And of course the support issue, too, though there really shouldn't be much of an issue with broadband support. It either works or it doesn't, and in my experience it works about 99.9% of the time.

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[chriscboy]

Thanks for your answers.

Fee
You raise a good point about employees becoming disgruntled so I will have to tread carefully there.

kmcferrin
The employees are not 100% home based so we can take that approach. Issues with the broadband support was quite high for us but most issues where router issues, and several times a member of support is required to drive to the employees home to sort out the issue. Hence the reason to stop offering broadband at home.

 

[mrdenny]

I'm shocked that you even pay for it, much less handle everything for it.

I've only worked for one company which covered the cost of my home Internet, and that was via reimbursement. Assuming you are in the US, the cost that the employee pays for there home Internet can be a tax deduction if the company doesn't pay for it, so while they have to front the money, it's an un-reimbursed business expense which they can deduct off there taxes (assuming they itemize).

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[SpanishWaiter01]

Are you UK based?

If you are then I think you should check their contracts of employment and offer them wireless broadband or wired broadband.

Is the work they do commercially sensitive?
If yes and they live reasonably near each other then open a second office - in cheap office accommodation.
If no, then you can get them to use a free wifi point and make sure their machines are protected from evesdropping etc.

With car traffic volumes building up it makes sense to offer more of these options to employees.

Hope this helps,
SpanishWaiter

 

[AndrewTait]

The last 3 places I've worked have had various rules about supplying broadband.

The first place paid for me to have broadband. I didn't have it, and personally at the time did not need it. (Considering this was about year 2005 so just when broadband was becoming affordable) They paid for the whole cost, but the contract with the ISP was in my name, and I just submitted an invoice as part of my monthly expenses.

The last place I worked for, supplied broadband to people above a certain level within the company, if it was needed, but many employees turned it down in favour of their own. This is partly that the maximum we would supply as part of that agreement was 512k, when it was becoming common to have 8MB thrown in with satellite TV and the like.

The current place I work at pays a monthly allowance, which can be used towards paying for broadband. In my case, it covers the cost of my broadband, and half the cost of my BT line, which I only have to supply broadband. The contract with the ISP is still in my name.

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[Thargy]

Harrumph!

"We allow you to work remotely as a convenience if you have that capability. If you are unhappy with the terms of your remote working then you can always drive into the office instead."

My response would be something along the lines of "As a tired DBA who has agreed to go on the out of hours rota (to assist the company) I can leave your critical servers down for an hour or two extra every time, whilst I drive to the office. Clearly you don't want to pay for me to have broadband (or even contribute towards it) so you must therefore be delighted with the increased unnecessary expensive down time."

Smart business thinking there!

Regards

T

 

[Diancecht]

The part I don't understand is that your company is providing a support that the ISP should give

Cheers,
Dian

 

[kmcferrin]

My response would be something along the lines of "As a tired DBA who has agreed to go on the out of hours rota (to assist the company) I can leave your critical servers down for an hour or two extra every time, whilst I drive to the office. Clearly you don't want to pay for me to have broadband (or even contribute towards it) so you must therefore be delighted with the increased unnecessary expensive down time."

Yes, but let's be honest here, you wouldn't drive in to the office. You'd suck it up, connect remotely using your home broadband, fix it in 15 minutes and be done with it. Because whether you admit it or not, it's a huge convenience to BOTH parties for you to be able to remote in for 15 minutes worth of work rather than driving in. And the fact is, you have the broadband anyway.

What would you do if they had issued you a laptop with a modem and dialup access as well as a VPN client. Would you use "their" dialup service or "your" broadband? I bet I know...

Now if you didn't have broadband before and the company made you get it for work, that's different. If you work from home the majority of the time and need broadband, that would be different too. But I think a lot of people are complaining about it because they think that if they can come up with a clever enough argument then they can get their employer to pay for something that they would already subscribe to on their own.

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[Thargy]

True.

I cited the issue just to make the point that it's not entirely a one-sided argument.

If I already had broadband, but it wasn't up to the job, I might reasonably expect the company to pay for the upgrade. If they're providing a lap top, mobile, and 3G dongle, then obviously I have nothing to complain about.

As you correctly point out, I'd always go with a wired connection, regardless of dongles. But home working also suffers from abuse in other ways. I notice that the managers are frequently working from home, whereas none of the staff are allowed to do so. Funny that...



Regards

T