In London, the cost per employee I’ve used is £15k pa. That includes office space and maintenance, taxes, plus IT costs, entertainment, HR, etc.
The cost for fully remote employees is £9k pa. That is, the cost of the office is £6K per employee.
There are additional costs for remote employees, like remote support. But these balance against not having to buy office furniture, pay for cleaning, etc.
I'm really surprised by such high figure. How was this clalculated?
* Laptop
* Accounts like email, Slack
* Entertainment (e.g. Christmas party)
* HR (this covered specific HR services like payroll, not the whole thing)
* IT support
* Travel expenses
* Home working budget
* Training
The £9K figure _doesn't_ include taxes on individuals, such as NI and pension contributions. That comes from a different budget, and is typically an extra 25% on top of salary.
Employer NI contributions are ~1/2 that. What other taxes do employers inccur?
I really can't see it being worth it in massive, overpriced cities.
If you only hire within the pool of people who are willing and able to commute to your office, you'll both need to pay more and have less choice. Workers are more tired as they spend hours commuting every day.
On the other hand, it's harder to develop juniors if all your seniors are working from home. Written communication lacks context that helps difficult conversations move forward. Silos build up as people in different teams never see each other.
In the long-term, I believe the broader benefits to society and the planet mean fully remote working will become almost universal. In the meantime, a hybrid model of mostly remote with broadly-attended meetups is the best combination. But some companies will decide that everybody being in the office all the time is right for them, and they can perhaps leverage some benefits of doing so.
How often do you feel is enough?
Assuming the "typical" company made up mostly of people who've been there for more than a year, and where commuting is easy, maybe every 3 months is enough. New teams (even within such a company) should aim to meet weekly while they're in the forming stage. Small companies made up of very experienced ICs perhaps never need to meet at all.
I guess the best way of working it out is to ask people, and review what works.
/s
If the place feels dingy or like the owners don't care to make it look nice, I doubt it has a positive effect on productivity and employee retention.
I wouldn't really care, I have never felt inspired by something on the walls. But I would legitimately laugh and feel better every day if the old companies name was still on the wall.
Class A office space outside of super expensive cities runs about $35/sqft on average. Employees need about 175 square feet each. So every employee is $6125 more expensive -- but that's only assuming you're renting someplace turnkey, which you probably aren't, so even if you cheap out at an additional $100/sqft ($17,500 per employee) for a custom build-out (one-time cost, but still).
Where is all this money coming from? If your business is perfectly functional remote, with capital costs being what they are, why would you do this?