If you work at ING, you are ‘lucky’. If you work at Rabobank, you are out of luck. Because ING continues to pay the fixed travel allowance for employees, even though they now work at home because of the corona crisis. While Rabobank has stopped payment since this month. A tour of the NOS shows that employers deal very differently with the travel allowance in these times of working from home.
For example, there are companies that now pay a home-work allowance instead of a travel allowance. Such as health insurer DSW from Schiedam. “We did not think it was fair to continue to pay the travel allowance,” said chairman Aad de Groot. “Because the one who lives nearby would get less money than the one who lives far away. While they both do not incur travel expenses now.”
More electricity and coffee
“At the same time, working from home does incur additional costs, such as more electricity consumption. And you might drink a little more coffee at home,” says De Groot. And to compensate for those costs, the insurer now pays a monthly home-work allowance to the staff of around 50 euros net per month. “We thought it was the same amount for everyone.” Another insurer, VGZ, now also pays such a home-work allowance instead of a travel allowance.
A survey conducted by the employers’ association AWVN, in which 70 companies participated, shows that more than 20 percent have stopped the travel allowance and another 20 percent are considering doing so.
Rabobank has therefore also stopped the travel allowance. But there is no monthly home-work allowance for this at the bank. Employees can claim a few hundred euros once for things they buy for their home workplace. “Think of a monitor, a good chair or a desk,” says a spokesperson.
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