5. Covering the costs of homeworking

Employers with experience of homeworking estimate that every full-time homeworker saves them £6,000 to £7,000 each year, according to professionals’ union Prospect. The union says that these savings provide the basis for negotiating financial arrangements which are also beneficial to the homeworker, for example, paying/retaining metropolitan city weighting allowances when working from home.

Prospect recommends that the employer should help to reimburse homeworkers for providing office space, energy costs (such as cleaning, heating and lighting), and wear and tear.

Whatever the outcome, it should be made clear from beginning which costs the employer is prepared to cover. While many employers provide an allowance to cover some of the costs associated with homeworking there is no legal duty for the employer to cover any additional costs incurred by homeworking.

Employers will often treat contractual homeworkers differently to ad-hoc homeworkers or even regular homeworkers. For example, policies can state: “Employees working at home on an occasional or regular basis will be expected to bear the cost of telephone calls and any increase in domestic bills such as heating and electricity.”