SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
You seem to think that if you don’t own your own computer you can’t learn, or develop, or write, or research, or be passionate? I do all of these things on my work laptop.
You have a work laptop even when you don't have a job? Your learning, development, writing, research, etc. is all.... only when employed and tied to your job?
This brings up an interesting point. People have been stating how much they have to draw a line and won't ever allow anything work related on their personal equipment.
But now, and I realize this is different people making unrelated and crazy points, but you are using the opposite logic... that people don't need to own things because they have jobs that provide them and ANYTHING that they might want to do for their personal lives they can use the work computer for.
Maybe you can find an amazing employer that allows that (we do) but most, when forced to provide dedicated work machines often for security purposes, don't appreciate those devices then being used as personal devices when a personal device is refused to be used as a work one. It seems like the argument to defend the practice flips around wildly to try to make points.
There's so many problems with this approach. First, when we are talking about hiring someone they don't have a job to get a computer from. Where does that growth and development happen then? How does someone efficiently research, test, write, grow if they don't have a job? It's chicken and egg.
And for people who don't have personal devices but manage to get work devices to use personally instead... do you feel no lock in to your job, no lack of mobility in that all of your potential personal growth, continuity of data, access to tools, ability to submit CVs must be done through something you don't own and that could go away at any moment?
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@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@flaxking if you watch the video, you'll notice that the primary point isn't that you shouldn't provide equipment for people, but should only do so when it makes sense. BUT that your candidates should have the resources to do IT at home, regardless of it you expect them to use them or not.
At NTG, we do provide people's work environments most of the time (unless they don't want to use our stuff.) We provide the router/firewall, desktop, phone, etc. But we only do so to people who already have that stuff, too. We just provide better, or more appropriately designed and managed, work hardware.
We look for that passion. I absolutely am not going to pay to provide work equipment to someone that doesn't want to do this kind of work. That guarantees I'll have to motivate solely with money and will never get the kind of growth and long term healthy future that we look for.
Of course, we are also a "hire for life" employer, not a "hire for a task and see if we need you after that task is done" employer. We don't hire people for a role, we hire people who are passionate and that's about
So the thing is, for 95% of the companies I would apply for, it would make sense that they supplied the computer. Most likely for security requirements. Kind of like how for most people you interview, it would make sense that they own a computer. I wouldn't rule out the 5% because they might have a good reason they don't, but
I'm not a big believer in the security argument. Especially not in IT. I understand the premise, if you control the equipment tightly, you can lock it down. But we're IT, we HAVE to trust our staff already and we don't put any data on their machines (assigned... whether their machines or our machines, on endpoints that they use) anyway, so the entire point is locking down a browser or terminal. If they are going to hack that, they will do so regardless. Since we hire professionals we trust that they are securing things a bit as well. The exposure risk is very minimal as there are so many steps between them and data and always "closed glass."
And the situation where no data is getting onto the system is what would be a rate situation in the tech companies I would potentially work for. It's often still a situation where the decentralized work stations providing compute is still cheaper than centralizing it. The workstation isn't a perk, the alternative of centralized compute is more expensive. That might be changing with stuff like dev containers getting traction, but regulations are also slow to change.
Well this is talking about IT and development staff mostly where that's completely the case. You'd have to have a pretty weird IT department where you need anything that they do to be a fat client. That era is long over. I'm not sure what kind of companies you are looking at, but IT and development do not require client side compute of any magnitude in anything but the most insanely rare circumstances. Sure, video game development is a common case, but outside of hefty graphics stuff, it's super rare. You don't need containers or any of that. Centralized compute for our industry is so cheap, so insanely cheap, I can't even picture what you are thinking of that would have any value at all putting on workstations.
Other careers, sure, it's on there, but rare. But in IT, seems like a stretch.
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@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Things like computers and phones and be really personal devices, stuff like your internet connection, less so.
But is that true? Given that we work in IT, there's really no need for there to be anything of "work" on our computers. I would argue that the two are quite literally the same as far as need to be personal.
In both cases it's just a generic tool we use to access resources remotely. If it isn't, time to upgrade your IT processes
Whether you use a web browser, RDP, or SSH to access IT resources, nothing needs to be added, removed, changed on your Internet, router or computer. All generic protocols and you should be fine with Chromebook, Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi.
Are there exceptions? Sure. But they should be very limited. Very few technical careers... doctor, lawyer, veterinarian, accountant, writer, IT, developer, etc. would need local tools of any sort. Rarely would you even want any, work machine or personal.
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@Mario-Jakovina said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I do not see that anyone needs to make "general rule" and select people based on what they prefer to use.
Did someone suggest that?
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Because that's a very different culture to European companies, where learning and self-improvement is an integral part of the job.
I know this is said a lot, and to some degree I know it is true. But I've been told that much of European IT is exactly the opposite. Taking a strong stance against broad thinking and self education. The world view of European IT is definitely one of not having the flexibility to do what is required to often even truly be considered IT.
In an IT context, what I mean is that when European companies tend to promote "learning" at work, it's seen as vendor control. Not education. Vendors informing people how to buy their products, how to be locked into vendor control networks. Not how to do IT with broad thinking. This would always be a risk of "at work" learning, existing work relationships would have a tendency towards exerting control or influence.
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Of the people who are against using anything personal at work, regardless of whether or not it has any negative ramifications for you or not, how many have had the opportunity for full time work from home and chose it so are speaking from experience versus from what you'd like if you were to be in that situation? How many would want that situation if offered?
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Now remember, I'm almost entirely talking about options here. The idea that companies should refuse to supply stuff is not something that I think I said. If I did, someone let me know where.
But I find this very interesting because....
- As a company that offers to provide the tech, almost none of our staff when given the choice choose that. We are 100% work from home, and almost universally the teams choose to work with their own equipment as they want. There are exceptions, but they are rare. And most of the exceptions are not technical staff.
- Because I truly don't understand how y'all draw the line between the issues of providing the computer with providing internet, power, the house itself... we've literally been on a multi-year plan to start actually providing housing and all infrastructure for at least some of our employees (and technically already do for a few) because there is a case to be made for it.
When I say there is a case for providing a computer, why not the house and maybe even the furniture? I generally see no difference... you need all of it to live and work, why provide one piece and not another? One is more personal that they other I suppose, but which? I'm not sure.
Other than convention, there was time when companies had to provide your computer, a time when it was absurd, and now it is swinging back as the millennials without computers become a major component of the workforce, and the Gen Zs tend to going back to embracing tech... why are computers seen as something to provide but houses not? Especially as people start to move away from stable Internet and go to just having cell phones with cell service, where does it make sense to draw the line? Once you provide one thing, why not all? Doesn't have to be all or nothing, but the line is moveable and arbitrary.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
But GOOD employees want to learn for learning sake - not necessarily about things you'd do for work. And the difference in mind set between those who have broad learning capabilities, those who desire to always grow and those that limit growth, knowledge and education to what is given at work alone (e.g. easily manipulated by employers) stands out immediately in their ability to discuss, think outside of the box, be flexible, etc.
Wow, upper case for emphasis. I work in the Microsoft ERP space, and find keeping up with their new technology absolutely exhausting. They've gone from major releases every 2 years, to every 6 months, plus so much new, and exciting, stuff - as well as pure ERP, I'm studying for certs in Power Apps and Power BI. I have to take an exam every year just to stay certified.
I'm always learning and trying to keep up, but no-one knows it all, there is more to know that any one person can learn. On top of that, clients just seem to get more and more demanding, especially when the economy is struggling. I find my job pretty intense and stressful, but generally enjoyable, and put in around 40 solid hours per week, which leaves me spent.
On top of work, there's the usual life things - raising two teenagers, looking after elderly parents, maintaining the house, physical and mental health issues, exercising, the usual stuff everyone deals with. I'd like to have more time for hobbies but never seem to. I used to be pretty serious about photography but haven't touched my camera in a few years. Heck, I'd like to have more time for sleep!
Keeping a work/life balance is hard. Scott will say work is life, but sometimes I'm spending time with my kids and I'm only giving them 50% because my mind is whirling through all the things I need to do for my clients, which makes me feel terrible.
I'm not complaining about my life, I know many, many people who have it a lot worse than me. I know I have it lucky. But it irks me a bit to be called a BAD employee. Like I guess most people on this forum, I'm just clinging on and doing my best!
And on top of all that I'm supposed to do more IT learning, just for the sake of it? I often feel I'm barely keeping my head above the water as it is. So you think that makes me a BAD employee? Fine, I don't know why I'm getting into a discussion with someone who posts YouTube videos putting people down. Good luck to your employees, sorry you'd never work with me.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
And on top of all that I'm supposed to do more IT learning, just for the sake of it? I often feel I'm barely keeping my head above the water as it is. So you think that makes me a BAD employee? Fine, I don't know why I'm getting into a discussion with someone who posts YouTube videos putting people down. Good luck to your employees, sorry you'd never work with me.
Here is the problem with this statement, you say it is putting people down. But we are talking about selecting people to hire. So if I said "people who have learned more" or "people with more experience" are better, would you say that I'm putting down those with less knowledge or experience?
In the hiring or employment process, the goal (the singular goal) of that process is to identify and select the best candidate(s). In the ongoing employee improvement process, we want the same thing. We want to push people forward, both for our companies and for the employees own personal growth and protection.
If we start to treat "improvement" or "identifying good candidates" as "putting people down", we have a real problem. We have a business problem, a hiring problem, and IT problem. It's unfortunate that some people feel badly when they get identified as falling behind or not meeting a bar or not getting the job. But there is a huge difference between putting people down (that would be saying someone is a bad person for not being a good candidate) and identifying what good employees look like.
You are attempting to make me feel badly for wanting to hire and promote based on performance. This isn't a welfare program. We have a fiduciary duty here. Ethics alone say that we have to think this way. Anything else is just stealing from the investors.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
On top of work, there's the usual life things - raising two teenagers, looking after elderly parents, maintaining the house, physical and mental health issues, exercising, the usual stuff everyone deals with. I'd like to have more time for hobbies but never seem to. I used to be pretty serious about photography but haven't touched my camera in a few years. Heck, I'd like to have more time for sleep!
Keeping a work/life balance is hard. Scott will say work is life, but sometimes I'm spending time with my kids and I'm only giving them 50% because my mind is whirling through all the things I need to do for my clients, which makes me feel terrible.I do, a bit, but I think people always get it backwards. And for exactly the reason that you say. I bolded where you said, sometimes your brain isn't all there (with your kids.) This is exactly why I say work is life (and life is work.)
When you do the 40 hour by the clock thing, this is a trick employers (and governments sadly now) use to make people work extra. Why? Because when clocked in, they control you. When clocked out, knowledge workers like us have to keep all of that stuff loaded in our brains. We can't just turn that off, even when we are at home trying to hang out with the kids! It's unfair. A factory worker might be able to do that, but we cannot.
That's why I don't believe in that system. Work IS GOING TO INTRUDE in our lives. It is, period. I can't stop that, you can't stop that, our employers can't stop that, the law can't either. Nothing can stop it, because it is intrinsic to doing knowledge based work. So what is the answer?
The only answer I know of is embracing it instead of ignoring it or denying it. Make work and life able to overlap. That doesn't mean working during your off time (more than necessary for your brain to be there), but having family time during work hours or whatever. It's bidirectional.
This is why I push for people to work from home, to comingle equipment and so forth. It takes a LOT of work to do our jobs well. If we doing let our personal lives overlap with work, we either do poorly or we burn out. My kids can hang out with me when I work, I'm home with them all day, they hang out with coworkers. Sometimes work interrupts time with my kids, but just as much my kids can interrupt my work. Sure, they don't pop into meetings, but if I need to unload work stuff at night, I can. And if I need to do family stuff during the day, I can.
Is it perfect? No. But is it way, way better? Yeah, I think so. More family time, more productivity. Everyone wins, especially the kids.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Like I guess most people on this forum, I'm just clinging on and doing my best!
I think that this resonates with how I feel. I feel like people who stringently push for this hard separation between work and personal lives whether it is how they clock in/out, how equipment is selected or otherwise, tend to also have this feeling of being overwhelmed, overworked, and it all being just about as much as they can handle. But I rarely get that same feeling from people who allow themselves to work in a flexible, merged way.
I'm sure employers and work environments that encourage the one over the other are a big factor too. I'm not saying it is all one thing or another.
I work more like 80-100 hours per week, and I agree that getting sleep is really hard for sure (that's more about my dogs than my work, though) but I get tons and tons of time with my kids. We are together many hours every day. And I'm always here when they want me to be around. I couldn't do that if I tried to make this hard line between work and home. I don't know anyone who can. But because I don't do that, because the two bleed into one another I perceive that that is a big component in making the difference in approach.
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Anytime we try to identify "what good looks like", someone doesn't make that bar. I'm a great example.
Something I've learned strongly is that university provides heavy negatives for candidates. University training tends to make people slow and rigid, lack the ability to grow on their own and so forth. But it's more than that, going to university reflects a decision to go down that path.
And that sucks, for me, because I went to uni, more than once. I got multiple degrees. And I have to admit that I was a huge idiot, wasted tons of time and money, and the only major benefit I garnered was knowing solidly just how foolish it is (and having gone to top ranked private schools, medium ranked public schools, several states, different programs, doing every level available in the US, etc.) I have this broad exposure that even most normal uni graduates lack - most doing a single program at a single school or so. But in looking for the best candidates yes, I have to acknowledge that in that area I don't shine, at all. I have a blight on my record that I can never expunge. It doesn't mean I can't learn from that and improve, but it shows a lot of gaps in my mental processes at that stage in my life that likely still exist. Maybe I'm more guarded against them now, but logically, they are still there.
But while that makes me feel badly, as an IT person, and a hiring manager, as a representative of a business I can't look the other way. I have to still recognize that a candidate who did the same things as me but faster, on their own, would look like a better candidate all things being equal.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
You are attempting to make me feel badly for wanting to hire and promote based on performance. This isn't a welfare program. We have a fiduciary duty here. Ethics alone say that we have to think this way. Anything else is just stealing from the investors.
No, I’m saying your myopic world view means you’re not going to hire the best candidates. I don’t care how you feel.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
You are attempting to make me feel badly for wanting to hire and promote based on performance. This isn't a welfare program. We have a fiduciary duty here. Ethics alone say that we have to think this way. Anything else is just stealing from the investors.
No, I’m saying your myopic world view means you’re not going to hire the best candidates. I don’t care how you feel.
In what way is it myopic? The best candidates, those that can grow and provide the best are those that are passionate and doing the job because they love it rather than because it's a job. It's a field and career that they love and they don't really see it as a job at all. Will there be an exception to that? Maybe, but likely, no.
The market is full of amazingly passionate and skilled candidates that get passed over because of hiring practices that favour everything but actual performance (often because it placates middle managers and their egos.) There isn't a shortage of amazing candidates, only a problem finding them or isolating them. So finding ways to identify the best performing candidates is really, really important.
Given the obvious fact that specific skills are irrelevant to any serious hiring, passion and aptitude are far and away the most important things that we need to look at when hiring. They are things we can't teach, specific skills even in IT are pretty easy to teach quite quickly as needed, as long as the passion and aptitude are there.
I'd be very interested in how you approach the hiring process to look for those things.
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I have been WFH for a long time and feel passionately that if I’m doing work, the it’s on something work provided. The only time I would consider using my own hardware would be if the work hardware fails and I am waiting for the hardware to be fixed.
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I am reacting to the video and discussions on this page. My example provides an example scenario which could happen. I own a deceive, it is my device, and I decide to give my device to somebody else. I no longer have it. Therefore, I have no device to work on. This is one reason why it is entirely expected by myself and many others that work must provide devices. You expect me to be able to work, then provide the tools to do so.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@Jimmy9008 said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Likewise, I spend thousands on a beast of a machine for my personal use. No way am I putting wear and tear on that for business reasons. It is my device. Go pound sand, get a device for me to use to get company work done, or go find a chump who will use their own like a damn fool. Of course I can afford top end and buy a really high spec machine, but thats for my use.
Wear and tear? What? What wear and tear are you thinking of? That's not how computers work.
Using anything causes wear a tear. To what degree is irrelevant. Simply being on and ready to use for work is wear and tear. The laptop trackpad and keyboard, wear and tear. Components have a lifespan and none of that lifespan should go to the employer on a device I own.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@Jimmy9008 said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
but if its for work, its must be procured by work.
Just to earn less money? What's your goal in that statement? Why lower your value only for the sake of doing so?
Are their cases where it makes sense, sure. But are there cases where it makes little sense? Yes, many.
And I ask again... if you feel that way about computers, why not Internet access, power, or even the house you are in? Where do you draw the line and why?
It feels like cutting off your nose to spite your face. It feels like you see your employer as the enemy and you want to hurt them. While that might be the case, instead of taking an antagonistic approach, look for an employer you like and who likes you. Your employment should be a positive thing for both parties, both working together, not against each other.
Let’s be real here. The argument you make is BS. If a business doesn’t have to buy a laptop, do you really think that money is going to your salary? Talk about head in the sand. That will go straight to investors or somewhere else. The decision isn’t ‘buy Scott a laptop or pay him 2k more’. You’ll never see that 2k.
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@scottalanmiller said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
@Mario-Jakovina said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I do not see that anyone needs to make "general rule" and select people based on what they prefer to use.
So you agree with my points. My point was people should HAVE it, not hiring based on which they preferred.
I agree with some of your points (i.e. definitely person who wants to work in IT should already have personal PC/laptop...)
But I think there is no need to "draw a line" and make general rule, whether the company will provide business laptop to someone or not, pay for internet...
(I was answering to your question "Where do you draw the line") -
@Mario-Jakovina said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
But I think there is no need to "draw a line" and make general rule, whether the company will provide business laptop to someone or not, pay for internet...
(I was answering to your question "Where do you draw the line")I see what you are saying. That can make sense. And I suppose that that is where we are at. We often provide nothing, but we can even provide housing. It's all over the map depending on the situation. But I think that that was my point that people were acting like the company had to provide certain things and the logic behind that would naturally include all those other things so what makes the logic include the one and not the others. Because their logic was not that it was situational, but that companies need to always do it because there should be a hard line, but where is that hard line.
