This has been a solved problem for many years. Many or most larger remote-first employers do. Here's an example from Automattic (https://automattic.com/work-with-us/):
> Home office setup and coworking allowances. Working from a coffee shop? You can use your coworking allowance for the requisite latte!
> If you don’t enjoy working from home 100% of the time, the company will give you up to $250 per month to rent a coworking space. Also, if you don’t want to have a permanent place to attend, you can use that $250 to pay for whatever you drink while you’re working from a coffee or similar places.
> You can get a completely equipped home office on the company. For example, I got an Aeron chair, an Ikea Bekant standing desk & a desktop lamp even before my first official day in the Automattic.
The cost of a home office setup is pretty negligible relative to a Shopify employees compensation, so I don't think it would change anything if they did. But I would be surprised if they didn't give them anything towards it.
In March, Shopify offered a stipend of $1000 (which is quite low) for workers to convert from office to home, with a note that they should take home their office workstations and install them there.
Presumably that implies that, at the very least, new employees will be offered the same measly one-time $1k payment. Hopefully their restructuring of offices will include a more appropriate reallocation of that spending to cover the true costs of remote working.
