Facebook announces that remote WFH employees will have salaries decreased to match local COL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

[Anonymous]

OMG that is crazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand all of the outcry here. I would have interpreted this policy as saying something like "we don't really want people to work at home, but we're willing to let them do it if it will save us money." Which sounds fair enough. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move from SF to middle-of-nowhere, USA, personally, but maybe it works for some.

That's fine if you make the announcement BEFORE approving WFH/remote plans. It sounds like FB decided to cut salaries AFTER telling people they could work remotely. That's just a sht thing to do (in addition to sounding like it would violate an employment agreement). And is the sort of thing that makes people go looking for new jobs.

Look: people working for companies that are facing hard times seem unhappy but willing to accept pay cuts, if it means keeping their jobs. People working for companies doing better than ever should expect they won't be treated like crap by that company, financially, I think.

I see no problem with this policy applying to new employees, that said, so long as they go in knowing what the policy is.

[Anonymous]

DH and I did this a couple of years ago. His company went full remote so we left and went to southern NH. My pay took a COL cut as well. Best decision we've ever made. DH has since gone into a different company but we are so much happier. The house we are able to afford, the town we are able to live in , the quality of life, the group of friends we've made...our lives are so much better.
I don't see why it's that strange to have a COL adjustment like this. If I wanted to, I could travel 30 min plus and work in Mass and make a higher pay rate. Mass is much more expensive to live in than NH.

If someone decides to move to the middle of nowhere, then they are taking the risk if they need to find a new job. No one is forcing you to move to in area that doesn't have good job prospects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

Ridiculous. Richmond area, some parts of PA and Ohio all have excellent public schools, some much much better than what we have here. FFX and MoCo are downright crappy compared to Wellesley, and Lexington in MA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand all of the outcry here. I would have interpreted this policy as saying something like "we don't really want people to work at home, but we're willing to let them do it if it will save us money." Which sounds fair enough. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move from SF to middle-of-nowhere, USA, personally, but maybe it works for some.

That's fine if you make the announcement BEFORE approving WFH/remote plans. It sounds like FB decided to cut salaries AFTER telling people they could work remotely. That's just a sht thing to do (in addition to sounding like it would violate an employment agreement). And is the sort of thing that makes people go looking for new jobs.

Look: people working for companies that are facing hard times seem unhappy but willing to accept pay cuts, if it means keeping their jobs. People working for companies doing better than ever should expect they won't be treated like crap by that company, financially, I think.

I see no problem with this policy applying to new employees, that said, so long as they go in knowing what the policy is.

They made the announcement like a week ago? And we’re in the middle of a pandemic? Come on. It’s not like six months in and a bunch of people have already moved and THEN they say this. Do you really think some people sold their homes in the last few days and moved in somewhere else and no feel blindsided? Come on. They are allowed to start developing policies for a new policy they recently developed during a flipping pandemic. It is incredibly fair and I highly doubt these adjustments aren’t still going to keep people at the high end of whatever locality they are. They aren’t going to be struggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand all of the outcry here. I would have interpreted this policy as saying something like "we don't really want people to work at home, but we're willing to let them do it if it will save us money." Which sounds fair enough. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move from SF to middle-of-nowhere, USA, personally, but maybe it works for some.

That's fine if you make the announcement BEFORE approving WFH/remote plans. It sounds like FB decided to cut salaries AFTER telling people they could work remotely. That's just a sht thing to do (in addition to sounding like it would violate an employment agreement). And is the sort of thing that makes people go looking for new jobs.

Look: people working for companies that are facing hard times seem unhappy but willing to accept pay cuts, if it means keeping their jobs. People working for companies doing better than ever should expect they won't be treated like crap by that company, financially, I think.

I see no problem with this policy applying to new employees, that said, so long as they go in knowing what the policy is.

What? You are confused. FB had NO company-wide WFH policy before this point. So nobody lost anything, because they didn't have remote work options before (except for a few superstars who can dictate terms). Now they have announced that people can WFH and they have to notify the company by Jan. 2021. But if those employees choose to work remotely, there may be a COL adjustment. I don't see how you get to the idea that this is taking away anything. This is entirely new.

Note that high-tech has has COL adjustments for years for employee-initiated moves. You move to the Austin office by your choice, you get a pay cut. But if the company sends you from SF to Austin (not your choice), you are not very likely to get a COL adjustment. It's traditionally been relatively unusual for high tech to have a lot of company-driven transfers, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand all of the outcry here. I would have interpreted this policy as saying something like "we don't really want people to work at home, but we're willing to let them do it if it will save us money." Which sounds fair enough. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move from SF to middle-of-nowhere, USA, personally, but maybe it works for some.

That's fine if you make the announcement BEFORE approving WFH/remote plans. It sounds like FB decided to cut salaries AFTER telling people they could work remotely. That's just a sht thing to do (in addition to sounding like it would violate an employment agreement). And is the sort of thing that makes people go looking for new jobs.

Look: people working for companies that are facing hard times seem unhappy but willing to accept pay cuts, if it means keeping their jobs. People working for companies doing better than ever should expect they won't be treated like crap by that company, financially, I think.

I see no problem with this policy applying to new employees, that said, so long as they go in knowing what the policy is.

What? You are confused. FB had NO company-wide WFH policy before this point. So nobody lost anything, because they didn't have remote work options before (except for a few superstars who can dictate terms). Now they have announced that people can WFH and they have to notify the company by Jan. 2021. But if those employees choose to work remotely, there may be a COL adjustment. I don't see how you get to the idea that this is taking away anything. This is entirely new.

Note that high-tech has has COL adjustments for years for employee-initiated moves. You move to the Austin office by your choice, you get a pay cut. But if the company sends you from SF to Austin (not your choice), you are not very likely to get a COL adjustment. It's traditionally been relatively unusual for high tech to have a lot of company-driven transfers, though.

This.

They didn't approve any remote/WFH plans. Everyone in the entire Facebook hub was working from home out of necessity.

Now FB is saying 'you may continue working from home as long as you want - forever even - but if you move out of this area, you will face a paycut in your new locality consistent with federal tax laws'.

I don't see anything wrong with this. In fact, they are giving employees all their options and plenty of time to make a decision.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps a dumb question, but wouldn’t you need to know the pay cut before determining if the new location really has a lower cost of living to justify the salary cut?

Having been involved with salary studies for satellite offices, I can report that professional consultants for such things price out salaries at ridiculously lower targets even in high cost areas. They priced out San Diego lower than our Midwest HQ—it was ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand all of the outcry here. I would have interpreted this policy as saying something like "we don't really want people to work at home, but we're willing to let them do it if it will save us money." Which sounds fair enough. I'm not sure why anyone would want to move from SF to middle-of-nowhere, USA, personally, but maybe it works for some.

That's fine if you make the announcement BEFORE approving WFH/remote plans. It sounds like FB decided to cut salaries AFTER telling people they could work remotely. That's just a sht thing to do (in addition to sounding like it would violate an employment agreement). And is the sort of thing that makes people go looking for new jobs.

Look: people working for companies that are facing hard times seem unhappy but willing to accept pay cuts, if it means keeping their jobs. People working for companies doing better than ever should expect they won't be treated like crap by that company, financially, I think.

I see no problem with this policy applying to new employees, that said, so long as they go in knowing what the policy is.

Who has already moved for this WFH policy that they announced a couple of days ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

Ridiculous. Richmond area, some parts of PA and Ohio all have excellent public schools, some much much better than what we have here. FFX and MoCo are downright crappy compared to Wellesley, and Lexington in MA.

? But the ^PP didn't mention MA, which has a high COL. LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

Ridiculous. Richmond area, some parts of PA and Ohio all have excellent public schools, some much much better than what we have here. FFX and MoCo are downright crappy compared to Wellesley, and Lexington in MA.

But then you would be living in Wellesley and Lexington, which doesn't appeal to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps a dumb question, but wouldn’t you need to know the pay cut before determining if the new location really has a lower cost of living to justify the salary cut?

Having been involved with salary studies for satellite offices, I can report that professional consultants for such things price out salaries at ridiculously lower targets even in high cost areas. They priced out San Diego lower than our Midwest HQ—it was ridiculous.

My guess is that companies like FB already have some form of this for satellite offices. They'll just expand it. I imagine you can ask what your salary would be, too.

My guess is that the COL adjustments will be published internally at some point and it will likely be state-based. The gamesmanship that might go on in the east coast (NH versus MA for instance) won't be such a big deal for tech companies because the western states are much bigger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

Ridiculous. Richmond area, some parts of PA and Ohio all have excellent public schools, some much much better than what we have here. FFX and MoCo are downright crappy compared to Wellesley, and Lexington in MA.

But then you would be living in Wellesley and Lexington, which doesn't appeal to me.

I’d do it but the COL is higher than DC so the pay cut thing doesn’t apply (although COL is lower than SV) so seems like a strange example. And plenty of people in those towns still send their kids to private schools.

The FB policy seems fair to me. They pay a premium because SV is so expensive to live in. They don’t need to pay the premium if employees are able to work elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easily move down to Richmond area, mainline PA, Delaware, North Carolina, Georgia, parts of Ohio, Tennessee, or Arkansas to save on COL.

You forget that you will need to send your kids to private school

In the mainline? The mainline of Pa has some of the best public schools on the east coast.