SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?
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A lot of IT departments discuss this, so I throw some opinions into the ring. Should you be providing tooling for your work from home staff?
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I'm the opposite - if a prospective employer expected me to provide my own IT equipment it would be a red flag and I probably wouldn't want to work for them.
I've never owned a PC during my 25+ year working life. I've always just been given company laptops.
I am passionate about my job, but I have other passions too - hobbies, friends, family. 40 odd hours a week devoted to IT in my job is enough. As it is, I don't have enough spare time to do all the other things I want to do with my life, like learning to play the guitar.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I'm the opposite - if a prospective employer expected me to provide my own IT equipment it would be a red flag and I probably wouldn't want to work for them.
Sure, but that's exactly what I'd hope from prospective employees. It would make it that much easier to interview. Honestly, if it's only a job to you, and not something you are passionate about to want to have learned and do on your own, that's not a potential employee I want to hire, and as an employee... not someone I want to have to work with. This is a much more... passion driven field than say being a doctor where you just memorize a minimum baseline and leave it at that. It's a field where to do well, you have to grow and learn and if you only grow and learn at work your scope is copied by everyone else at that same firm and that's super unhealthy in business because this is a business function.
For good IT, we depend on outside interest, exposure, growth. If you don't bring that, that's a giant gap in the culture and future of the firm.
Imagine hiring a concert conductor that didn't enjoy music outside of work? Imagine a teacher that doesn't want to educate when not in a classroom (and we see every day how terrible those are). Imagine an artist that only works when commissioned and never for themselves.
If you have to be paid to even consider doing a task, that's fine. That's a job. But that means your value is completely determined by your current employer, and not by you. You only learn what we teach and what we can teach.
To be clear, not having a computer at home is basically a show stopper for me employing anyone, not just people in IT. IT and software developer, it's a hard line. But even accountants, lawyers, any knowledge field. If the ability to write, research, grow, learn is so unimportant, I would only really want to consider that for things like waiters and bartenders.
Of course there ARE hobbies, there ARE interests that you can do purely on the consuming side and grow and have great experience without a full computer at home. But very, very, very few of those apply well to business.
Because IT especially requires such a broad scope of thought to approach the career well. Because we need so much insight into how businesses and vendors behave both to us at work AND not at work. Because we should have careers outside of our jobs. Because we should bring more to the table than the employer puts on our plate. Because we want to grow and move in new directions. Because we want to address things the employer hasn't foreseen or doesn't anticipate.
When I employ someone, I want to have to convince them why my company is good. I don't want to have to convince them that IT is fun or interesting. If they don't enjoy the field without getting a paycheck to do so, they aren't going to be someone I want my other passionate employees to feel obligated to mentor or "put up with". That wouldn't be fair to them. As a company that does IT passionately, that's why we do it. And as someone who has worked for passionate IT departments... That shared passion, interest, growth, experience is the entire difference between it being a drudge of a job where we are just there to get paid and go home, and something that's actually fun and enjoyable that we'd want to do it and the paycheck is a necessary "bonus".
I don't want to work anywhere where people see the world like that. I know a lot of people have to, and that's sad. I want to work in a world and provide a world where people are actually happy to work and want to work. Obviously people want to get paid, but when that's the only motivation. everything sucks.
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Providing my own laptop would be a red flag for me too. After having worked at companies that either provided or didn't provide, those that's don't provide tend to violate that boundary of it being yours. One company even expected to install VeraCryptto meet SOC 2 requirements, lmao.
Using my own personal laptop for work if a good way to ensure that I don't do my own tech stuff when I'm not working. I dual booted so that my work OS was completely separate, but I still didn't want to touch that thing after work.
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@Carnival-Boy said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
I am passionate about my job
Sure. But that's key. You are passionate. About a job. That's exactly not what I want from myself or my team or anyone in IT.
I want people passionate about IT as a field, not as a job. And when people go to work, I want them going into careers, not jobs.
I've loved jobs before, and being passionate about the job is great on top of being passionate about the field and the career. But as a hiring manager, it's my duty to make sure I'm getting the career and field passion, the job passion is my company's role to make. You can only be passionate about a job once you have it, that's an "internal" thing. But passion for the career and the field, that's external and has nothing to do with your employer.
And that's the whole point. An employer can't make someone love their field or their career. We have the ability to make people love their job. So we have to interview well to make sure we get those two things. Then we have to be awesome employers to get the third.
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@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Providing my own laptop would be a red flag for me too. After having worked at companies that either provided or didn't provide, those that's don't provide tend to violate that boundary of it being yours. One company even expected to install VeraCryptto meet SOC 2 requirements, lmao.
That's different, though. Don't conflate "expect you to have" with "expect to manage." Those are two totally different concepts.
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@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
Using my own personal laptop for work if a good way to ensure that I don't do my own tech stuff when I'm not working. I dual booted so that my work OS was completely separate, but I still didn't want to touch that thing after work.
You only do IT at work and never because you find it fun or interesting or want to grow outside of job promotions?
I can't imagine wanting to work in IT at all, with all the drama, stress, hard work.. if I didn't love IT itself. There are so many better fields that are less demanding if it is only a job and not a career that you want to do regardless of the job.
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@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 it.
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Something I've found interesting is that given that we DO have passionate staff, because we prioritize passion when hiring, that something like half of our staff decline work equipment!
What's most telling is our two most senior managers (both in Mexico, coincidentally only) who are both budget authorizers (meaning they can simple authorize anything that they need without needing further approval including office equipment, travel expenses, etc.) choose to provide their own equipment because they just want to have personal gear, of a certain type, and not have extra work equipment around the house. Why have extra gear that you don't need, as it takes up space when you already have what you like to use? Honestly, I'm the same personally, I use my own desktop for work (but work provides my mobile additional equipment in case it fails, so I'm only partway.)
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So for those who feel that everything necessary for doing IT on your own is not something that you want to provide, that your job should provide it and that's it, here are some questions I'd have because this becomes a conceptual problem for me:
Basically where do you draw the line?
- If you don't use a computer at home or own one, do you have Internet at home (sure, you might, streaming video or whatever... but this is a recent change) or do you expect the employer to provide that, too? If you feel that using your own computer would make you hate your career, does using your own Internet? If not, why not? What's the difference?
- What about office space (quiet, thinking / working space) at home? Do you feel that you'd not want that unless work provides for it?
- Power and similar? This seems funny, but to me, having a PC is something I'd never, ever consider being without even if my career was graphic artist, classical guitarist, auto mechanic, hotel manager, etc. So because it's such a part of just being a broadly accessible, communicative, flexible adult it's hard to not see it much like having to live without power. (I have family that doesn't have computers at home and the difference in how they approach their lives is staggering to me. They are totally subject to fake news and easily swayed by marketing, they never produce anything, they don't communicate with people... it makes for a lifestyle of just work a job they hate, then watch TV till they work again. Computers are a fundamental part of researching the world whether news, shopping, or dealing with so many government resources that can't load on a phone.)
- Phone. If you don't want a computer, what about a smart phone. Do you skip that too? If not, what makes the phone acceptable but not a computer with a keyboard? Why one and not the other? Especially as phones typically cost a lot more and are dramatically more intrusive in our lives.
- College education. Or any education. How did you get into the field in the first place? You must have at some point had a different opinion to have learned enough skills to get into the job. What made you want to learn without a job at one point, but no longer? If you shouldn't have to provide the "ability" to do the job, but feel it should be provided by the employer only, how did you get here? It's essentially guaranteed that you have to not believe in this concept in order to get somewhere and then change direction once you are in the field. There could be an exception, but the difficulty of that would all but insurmountable. Remember that the point of wanting people with computers and internet at home is about showing motivation, passion, interest and the ability to grow and learn independently. All things you would mimic with any pre-job education process so to me, this would be one and the same and the arguments for not wanting to educate outside of work today would logically apply universally. So why was it okay, but no longer?
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So this is very personal, and I know it definitely doesn't apply to everyone, but in my own experience...
My wife no longer works in IT, but uses a computer constantly for just... everything in life. Communicating with family, watching shows, shopping, projects, storing data, finances, etc. She could use a lesser device for all of that, but it would cost more and take more effort.
My sister in law always has a couple of computers, even though she's kind of an anti-computer person. She does so because of personal business projects, art work, cooking and other interests. Again, could use a lesser device, but at much greater cost and far less functionality. She doesn't have any computer at home for work. But her job requires her to provide the computer in her office, and she is not allowed to work from home (she's a teacher in the US.) So this is the extreme case that makes no sense, but so she has computers at home for herself AND provides the equipment that the school uses and takes from her.
My dad hasn't worked in decades, but always has a computer for all his projects, communicating with family, etc.
Both of my kids use computers for school, art, communicating with family, etc. They both have iPads, both have phones, both have Android tablets, but both needs PCs because there's just so much you can do better there.
All of the above also play video games and use the PCs for that, too. But only additionally and almost all have extra PCs just for that.
THe use of computers makes all of them more efficient, and lowers the cost of the technology. I've never met someone who could forego having a computer at home and remain able to easily stay in contact in a modern, efficient way; could consume and fact check news and events, could remain educated and feel functional like modern people. When I encounter people who don't have computers at home, it's always noticeable. REALLY noticeable. They tend to get their world view from TikTok, be widely out of touch with reality, be easily manipulated and emotionally driven, have little human interaction, fail to grow personally and professionally.
It's ridiculous to think that computers make any of that happen. Mostly it's just access to keyboards or other mechanisms to communicate easily and quickly. But, as a great example, if I didn't have a computer at home, I couldn't write this on a phone screen on a holiday like it is today. Today isn't a work day. It's not computers per se that make any of that true. But people who want to do any of those things almost universally then have computers because that's the main tool for all of those things.
It's not what PCs make possible, it's just a reflection of how people approach the world when they have certain behaviours. Behaviours key to good employees in nearly all cases.
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Jaja, WHILE writing that response my wife sends me a link to the black friday sale to buy more computers for the family. Good timing.
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@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?:
Providing my own laptop would be a red flag for me too. After having worked at companies that either provided or didn't provide, those that's don't provide tend to violate that boundary of it being yours. One company even expected to install VeraCryptto meet SOC 2 requirements, lmao.
That's different, though. Don't conflate "expect you to have" with "expect to manage." Those are two totally different concepts.
It wouldn't be a red flag if they expected me to have a laptop, just if they expected me to use my laptop for work. Kinda of like an entry level person with a homelab is more likely to be hired, but if they expected them to start hosting work stuff in the lab that would definitely be a screw you situation.
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@flaxking said in SAMIT: Should You Provide Equipment for Work from Home Staff?:
After having worked at companies that either provided or didn't provide, those that's don't provide tend to violate that boundary of it being yours. One company even expected to install VeraCryptto meet SOC 2 requirements, lmao.
"tend to". Here when we provide equipment we do nothing like that. Yes, we can patch remotely and provide assistance, but that's about it. Same thing we do for every customer at home, too. Employees still get to request the equipment that they need, and most keep the equipment if they quit (which is rare, but these things happen.) It's rare that we try to get it back, used equipment having limited value to us and often big value to the departing employee.
If you were to go only by your trends, or most people's including my own, we could generalize that most companies are bad. And that's 100% true. So from that we can assume that most companies that provide computers are bad. Most that don't, are also bad.
It's important to look at it as "bad companies that don't provide equipment might try to steal yours in some way", sure. But that is 100% about it being a bad employer, and 0% because they expect you to provide gear that they expect you to already have.
We are an IT company primarily, so there's zero need to install anything on staff computers. We are modernized, no legacy software for us. We also have accounting and other divisions, same thing. We also provide veterinary services and call centers. Same thing, if they bring their own computers there's nothing that needs to be installed. They work from a web browser.
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@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?:
Using my own personal laptop for work if a good way to ensure that I don't do my own tech stuff when I'm not working. I dual booted so that my work OS was completely separate, but I still didn't want to touch that thing after work.
You only do IT at work and never because you find it fun or interesting or want to grow outside of job promotions?
I can't imagine wanting to work in IT at all, with all the drama, stress, hard work.. if I didn't love IT itself. There are so many better fields that are less demanding if it is only a job and not a career that you want to do regardless of the job.
It's about the association. If I do something on the side, it can be a fun project for me, but I don't want my purely fun projects mingling with my work. Though, having a family now and always being on the edge of everything falling into chaos, a lot of my fun learning does happen at work, but I am being paid for it. We have bookclub (and often the reading for it) during work hours. I can take whole days for person all development or just arrange certain mornings for it.
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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?:
Providing my own laptop would be a red flag for me too. After having worked at companies that either provided or didn't provide, those that's don't provide tend to violate that boundary of it being yours. One company even expected to install VeraCryptto meet SOC 2 requirements, lmao.
That's different, though. Don't conflate "expect you to have" with "expect to manage." Those are two totally different concepts.
It wouldn't be a red flag if they expected me to have a laptop, just if they expected me to use my laptop for work. Kinda of like an entry level person with a homelab is more likely to be hired, but if they expected them to start hosting work stuff in the lab that would definitely be a screw you situation.
So in my example... any professional IT department there would be no need to have anything at home but a web browser. So the expectation would only be that you use the web browser you already have to go to work, rather than providing an entire computer and accoutrements setup, at quite some expense, for you to do the same thing.
Here's why I think it makes sense almost always...
- You already have everything needed to work because you have it for yourself (in the example where we expect you to have it.)
- You already have it set up where you like it.
- Any additional employee expense always ultimately comes from the employee. This is universal and unavoidable. Providing a second computer is a part of your pay package under the hood. So generating an expense for that lowers the budget for your salary or other benefits. This seems like a terrible use of employee benefit funds in nearly all cases.
- If a computer is provided, now you have to provide space for your ideal setup that you already have, PLUS find space to set up a second "work only" system. Some uber rich people have lots of spare space for that, most people do not. And typically you want to work in the best spot for your long work day, so presumably where your existing setup already is (why would it be in a less than ideal spot?)
- There's basically no downside to using your own, but lots of upsides for both you as well as your employer. You are more valuable, your workspace is more custom, you are lower risk, etc. etc. As an employee, I don't want my employer wasting my pay package buying a computer I don't want that they can reclaim anytime or control however they want. I want days off, more money or some other benefit instead that actually benefits me. As an employer, I want employees who empathize with the underlying business mechanics and work towards a common goal. And those that don't arbitrarily make the work environment less flexible.
I can tell you, I generally prefer when we provide computers as an employer because we have more control and determine the operating system and update cadence and so forth. It's nice knowing exactly what is out there and moving equipment around as we like. But it's better for our staff, normally, when we don't do that and let them use whatever they like. Then there is more money for salaries, more money for vacation time, etc.
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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?:
Using my own personal laptop for work if a good way to ensure that I don't do my own tech stuff when I'm not working. I dual booted so that my work OS was completely separate, but I still didn't want to touch that thing after work.
You only do IT at work and never because you find it fun or interesting or want to grow outside of job promotions?
I can't imagine wanting to work in IT at all, with all the drama, stress, hard work.. if I didn't love IT itself. There are so many better fields that are less demanding if it is only a job and not a career that you want to do regardless of the job.
It's about the association. If I do something on the side, it can be a fun project for me, but I don't want my purely fun projects mingling with my work. Though, having a family now and always being on the edge of everything falling into chaos, a lot of my fun learning does happen at work, but I am being paid for it. We have bookclub (and often the reading for it) during work hours. I can take whole days for person all development or just arrange certain mornings for it.
This touches on a completely (or almost) difference subject. The concept of on/off work/personal time and mingled time. For many of us, fun and work have to mingle whether it's because of scheduling, or because the things we like to do and work are essentially the same thing. Like write now, I'm not at work but writing about work stuff.
For us, and this is different by organization and jurisdiction, we operate in an environment where we are free legally to do anything to the benefit of the employees. There aren't any strong employer organizations manipulating the government into making sneaking anti-labor laws under the guise of protecting employees (e.g. New York's unpaid lunch laws for blue collar workers that are used to guarantee longer working days at lower cost for factories - the employers benefit, the employees suffer, but they claim it's employee protection to indemnify the employers who pushed for it.) So we are able to make healthy mingled environments where employees can effortlessly mix work and personal life.
At a bad company (or in a bad country) that might sound like trying to make people work all of the time. But at a good company, in a good jurisdiction, it's making people never have to shut off their personal lives.
For us, the lengths that we go to to ensure our teams are passionate, also allows us to go to great lengths to protect their personal lives and time and space. Unlimited vacation time transparently turns into nine month maternity leaves, zero locational requirement means "full time travel options". Bring your own devices means creating your own workspaces that are best for you. People work when it makes sense, and stop when it doesn't.
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I think a universal challenge (to touch on how crappy companies try to basically steal your equipment at home) is that...
The freedom to be a good employer or workplace, is the power to be a crappy employer or workplace.
Often the things that terrible companies do for bad reasons, are similar to what good ones do for good reasons.
Example... some companies do unlimited time off in the hopes that people fear to use it. But others do it and enforce minimum usage to make sure people have to use it and keep using it.
Flexible work hours can mean "encouraging people to never stop working". But it can also mean "work when it makes sense and we monitor to make sure you don't work too much."
Bottom line, i believe, is that you need a good employer for work to be good. Most aren't, but passion more than anything is the best path to being able to get to one.
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@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
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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 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."
