Is it normal for companies to expect employees to pay for accidentally damaged equipment? At everywhere that I've worked, some accidental damage was treated as a cost of doing business, and IT would replace it.
IMX, it varies. At the hospital I worked, damaged equipment was replaced without question, but only doctors were issued laptops or iPaqs (this was pre-smartphone). If the same individual kept damaging equipment it went to the individual's lead or supervisor for disciplinary reasons, but I only ever saw that once when a guy threw three iPaqs against a wall (never found out why).
At the school district I work, the policy for staff is similar to the policy for students.
If the damage is caused through normal wear, the district pays.
If the damage from a preventable accident and a first incident, the district pays. Everybody gets one excused.
If the damage from a preventable accident and it's a second or later incident, the staff member is charged $25 or the cost of the repair (whichever is greater).
If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect.
Stuff like lost keyboard keys we didn't track, but pretty much everything else we did. We have about 600 staff devices. There's usually one or two individuals every year who are careless enough or unfortunate enough to have to pay for damage to their district issued system. I recall one teacher whose children kept damaging her work laptop. That year she bought 3 chargers (cord cut) and a laptop (it had to have been thrown or dropped over 10 feet). She was told she couldn't take her laptop home anymore.
Simply put, the district does not have the funding to replace laptops that staff members damage.
That does happen and it is considered intentional, but, no I meant the staff themselves damaging them. Drawing on them (the screen in particular, which often doesn't come off cleanly), popping the keys off and on until they break, flexing parts of the case (hinge covers) until it breaks, getting angry and hitting the computer and breaking something. Anything you would expect a kid to do we've seen teachers admit to doing themselves.
Kids do that stuff too, but they also do stuff like break headphones off in the jack, punch a hole in the screen with a pen, gouge the screen with scissors or a hobby knife, smash them on the ground, stand on them, sit on them, etc.
Absolutely not. Maybe if there's a pattern of repeated irresponsible behavior, I could see a little bit of an argument for it, but the more likely state of affairs would be that the problem employee would only ever be given shitty or cast-off machines.
Frankly, I'd see it as more reasonable to FIRE someone who repeatedly failed to care for company equipment appropriately.
I guess parent and you are talking in the US context, but to add another data point in France it's not even legal. If the employee did it on purpose or by (grave or repeated) negligence then you can fire them with fault, if they really tried to harm the company "faute lourde" and then sue them for damage.
But making them pay for repairs for a laptop after accidental every day accident? You would lose up in prud'homme court faster than ever (its the worker / employees court).
I don't think so... Generally all of the Dell's have an extended warranty and, so far, most of the damage has been covered under that. Where I work there is also an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered.
I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
AFAIK it's normal for companies to have warranties for expensive computer equipment. The small tech startups I'm familiar with just buy consumer AppleCare or the equivalent, while the bigger companies I'm familiar with have big enterprise warranty plans.
