Personal Hardware Budget

General

Every VSHNeer has an allowance of up to 2400 CHF when starting at VSHN with which to purchase a laptop. This is replenished by 800 CHF per year up to 4 years (3200 CHF). When you replace your laptop, the old one becomes your property (Rules: Taking over old equipment), so you can use it yourself, or give it to a spouse/child/parent/etc.
An allowance that is not fully used expires and cannot be used for other things.
If the equipment requested by the VSHNeer exceeds the available allowance, the difference will be charged to the VSHNeer.
The allowance isn’t considered part of the salary and won’t be paid out if the employment contract is terminated.

Ordering and any warranty processing are carried out by VSHN, Antares.
If you would like to have a new unit and are eligible to apply, please send an email with your specific requirements (link to the configured unit or screenshot of configuration) to einkauf@vshn.ch.
Every VSHNeer needs a laptop so that on-call assignments / sales presentations / etc. can also be made with the company device.

VSHN recommends a device with the following minimum requirements:

Every VSHNeer gets some personal equipment in addition to their personal laptop:

Free choice of whatever equipment you feel will help you work more effectively. This usually includes a mouse (up to CHF 100.-), keyboard (up to CHF 150.-) and headset (up to CHF 300.-).
The equipment is the property of the VSHNeer and has to be taken care of. Defective equipment will be replaced by VSHN, provisioning, and maintenance organized by Antares.
Equipment can be taken by the VSHNeer for free when leaving VSHN, regardless of how long the VSHNeer has been employed.
VSHNeers must email einkauf@vshn.ch to request the purchases. Any equipment purchased without prior approval may not be allowed to be expensed.

Jabra Evolve 65 MS (USB connection and Bluethoot with dongle available), approx. CHF 170.-
(Epos) Sennheiser Game Zero - Closed-Back-Headset (with passive damping of ambient noise), approx. CHF 200.-
(Epos) Sennheiser Game One - Open-Back-Headset (without attenuation of ambient noise), approx. CHF 200.-
Aftershokz OpenComm - Bone Conduction Stereo Bluetooth (Good Audio Quality, tested on Mac), approx. CHF 180.-

Reasons:

Bluetooth headsets can only use the microphone in the HSP/HFP profile, which allows only very poor audio quality. The A2DP profile with good audio quality doesn’t allow the use of the microphone.
Bluetooth headsets always have some audio latency, which affects the quality of the video conference.
Some special headsets, for example those from Jabra, use their own Bluetooth profile for better audio quality. However, these only work with special USB dongles and not with the Bluetooth chip integrated into the laptop. In addition, these usually offer sufficient audio quality for video conferences, but not for music.
The use of the microphone integrated into the laptop leads to problems with echoes (when using the speakers at the same time) and a lot of disturbing ambient noise.

The devices may be used privately within the framework of the guidelines "Richtlinie zum zulässigen Gebrauch."

Theft: Burglary, theft from vehicles and trailers, and robbery are insured by VSHN. Loss or misplacement or simple theft aren’t insured.
Damage: Fire/elementary and water hazards are insured by VSHN.
Other: Any other risks are the responsibility of the employee.

The employee may take over old/replaced equipment. The following rules apply:

The device is at least 36 months old.
Younger equipment may be purchased by the employee when changing equipment or at the end of the employment relationship. The purchase price must be determined according to the inventory residual value.
All company data must be deleted before the acquisition or the device must be registered as BYOD under the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).