Reimbursing external working space

Proposal

Include External working space expense for reimbursement. Example of an external working space can be a dedicated small work apartment or a rented office space.

Why is this change being made?

• It saves time and energy involved to travel to a co-working space. Walking to a near-by dedicated work space apartment will be a better option on any time of the day and traffic.
• It works well especially during winter and rainy days when long commutes are not possible.
• Is a safer option during the Pandemic.
• Cost of an external work space or small apartment in many geographical areas will be similar to expensing a co-working space.
• Provides an alternate option when a near-by co-working space is not a good one to work from.
• Helps team members who do not have enough dedicated space in home because of family size and constraints.
• I was renting a small apartment dedicated for work since joining GitLab and the approval for reimbursing under the co-working space policy was received prior my joining with my manager and people-ops and I personally found the benefit very beneficial and efficient. But the recent expense policy changes is superseding that approval.

Author Checklist

• Provided a concise title for this Merge Request (MR)
• Added a description to this MR explaining the reasons for the proposed change, per say why, not just what
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• Assign reviewers for this MR to the correct Directly Responsible Individual/s (DRI)
  • If the DRI for the page/s being updated isn’t immediately clear, then assign it to one of the people listed in the Maintained by section on the page being edited
  • If your manager does not have merge rights, please ask someone to merge it AFTER it has been approved by your manager in #mr-buddies
  • The when to get approval handbook section explains the workflow in more detail
• If the changes affect team members, or warrant an announcement in another way, please consider posting an update in #whats-happening-at-gitlab linking to this MR
  • If this is a change that directly impacts the majority of global team members, it should be a candidate for #company-fyi. Please work with internal communications and check the handbook for examples.

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