It is my equipment. I am not buying it for them, I am buying it for me. My health, my back health, my eye health, my wrist health, and my comfort are 100% worth the investment. I don't expect any company to take care of my health for me. I take care of it myself. Are you renting your company access to your car when you drive in? If so, I guarantee you spend more than I do.
In addition to all you said, you mentioned your car...do they also pay you for your commute time? Of course not.
Say you have a 1hr each way...2 hours/day, 5 days/week, 48 weeks/year, $100/hr: $100 * 2 * 5 * 48 = $48,000. WFH literally just saved you $48k of billable time.
Buying a 4k monitor (that you can also use for non-work activities) on your own dime is probably reasonable.
There are specific carve outs in employment law and car insurance for commutes. Try using your personal vehicle for work with out additional have an accident and your insurer will wash their hands of you.
Most people can do this in their office. Unless you’re hotswapping (uncommon in my experience) then you can just bring whatever equipment you want in. We had plenty of people do that at all the jobs I’ve worked at.
Some professionals, notably those whose work culture encourages self-determination, can be allowed to bring in their own hardware or request custom hardware. These are usually the outliers, rather than the norm (and in fact, this is often advertised as a "perk" of being employed at that particular place).
The vast majority of corporate environments are rather locked down and standardized, understandably, with one-size-fits-all or a set menu of tech provisions, depending on role (e.g., designers often get larger screens than accountants).
Even as a developer, I had to fight for larger screens for my team, as IT saw no inherent need for larger screens beyond what they initially provisioned.
Contrast that with my WFH setup, with my 3-monitor setup on a 7-foot standing desk...
Okay? But I’ve never been in an office or seen one where they banned bringing in your own equipment. Even in places that had the set menu for different roles. If you had some stuff you wanted to bring in, go for it.
I've worked in several in larger/Fortune 500 companies, including one where the desk setups were handled by a labor union, any changes required multiple approvals, and DIYing anything (using personal equipment or even adjusting the existing desk position or height) was a rules violation and prohibited. You wouldn't be able to get past security with personal equipment larger than what could fit in your pocket, and carrying so much as a monitor or laptop that didn't have a company barcode on it already would get you stopped.
So yeah, these sorts of workplaces exist and thousands of people have to contend with their on-site limitations.
Besides the sibling comment, here in Germany it is common to have electricity certifications on equiment done by external companies.
If managed to bring through securty some stuff that you plug into the office network, isn't certified and something goes wrong, short circuit or whatever, it is on you to deal with whatever might happen including dealing with the insurance company.
Even if allowed, if you want similar equipment at home and in the office you'd have to buy two of it all, or tear it down and take it home with you every night. If you just work from home you don't have that problem.
I’ve never run into this personally. And I’ve worked in some old ass enterprise type companies. Maybe for high security clearance places this is an issue or something...
I wouldn’t focus on niche places that do this though as an arguing point. It may as well be, “but some chipotle’s don’t offer guacamole. So, ya know, can’t rely on it.” Might be true but sounds rare.
I've worked at old-school telcos and startups alike.
It was acceptable to bring your own keyboard and mouse to two out of the five companies, other than that, no other hardware was allowed to be brought in. So you are stuck with the monitors provided, with the rest of the hardware that was provided, and while you could bring in limited ergonomic stuff, you were also limited to whatever office furniture was available.
I worked for a US health insurance company for a while, and they were almost this strict.
People got away with breaking some of the rules, but it was definitely a risk - it was theoretically grounds for dismissal to bring in your own hardware, IIRC, let alone to run unapproved software.
The concern in that case was a PHI (personal health information) breach, which could bring the wrath of the US judicial system down on the company.
So, not top-secret or anything like that, but still very conservative and with decent reasons to be so.
Huh - I worked in health with HIPPA data issues as well - never had this hardware specific issue. But, we were a group of software engineers who weren't idiots - so... we understood that bringing our own monitor or keyboard/mouse wasn't likely to do anything and not a real risk.
I have a keyboard that runs custom, open-source software.
It would be easy to figure that out about me, if you cared. Say if you found a list of employees and contractors.
A sufficiently-motivated attacker could backdoor my firmware with a timer-based exploit (e.g., start your keystroke payload after ten minutes without input events)
and I might well not notice if it was a deft-enough change.
It might not be worth the cost, given that I might well notice it and it might not pay off even if I didn't.
Still - the point is that keyboards are not innocuous, harmless devices that it's a no-brainer to allow.
I brought in my own mechanical keyboard to the office. It has clicky keys so it's not quiet. I haven't gotten any complaints yet, but that could change depending on who my next cubicle neighbor might be.
This is the social equivalent of the opt-out dark pattern. A lack of complaints should never be interpreted as approval. Generally people try to be agreeable and avoid conflict. You clearly know that people do not like your keyboard but you are putting the burden on them to ask you to stop. You have made a decision that internalizes the benefits but externalizes the costs.
Which also comes with all the hubbub which was already mentioned before. Freedom of choice comes with the burden of payment.
Here's an idea: instead of expecting the employer to provide more than a basic level of ergonomics and potentially having to go through all the bureaucratic and mental hoops, both on receiving and on returning, we just.. pay the employees more money so they can decide for themselves.
Why you're putting this in the frame of "employer is not your friend" is beyond me, no one was framing it that way to begin with. If anything, it is because we can't expect employers to deliver beyond a basic level and introducing all these rules to make it harder, that it makes more sense to bite the bullet up front and be in control.
I get the idea you are in the UK and I think that accounts for a significant difference. In the US, employers have very little legal or ethical obligation to their employees. Decades of pro-business lobbying have basically solidified our status as an exploitable resource that companies can use up and dispose of "at will". An employee lives and dies by their share of political capital. I could use my political capital to try to get home office equipment, but the $500 I might have been able to expense is really not worth it in comparison to other perks I might be able to "purchase" with my political capital instead. These asks need to be carefully considered. A team mate asked for an ergonomic chair and was denied. I have asked for far more valuable things and been allowed.
I save 160 Euros per month by not commuting. I invested 3 months of these savings in a height-adjustable desk and a 4K monitor. The 90 minutes time each day I keep for myself. I wouldn't call that a bad deal.
Or are you renting them access to your equipment :-)