Employees reveal Google has cut the pay of WFH staff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

To be honest, you sound like a low-level clock puncher, which means you are totally fungible.

To be honest, you sound like a typical lazy boomer micromanager boss who spends their time worrying more about what their employees are doing instead of creating value for your company. Let me do my work and leave me alone. You’re not paying me to chitchat with you in a cubicle, Bill. Let me work.

Get back to answering the phone, Rhonda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

To be honest, you sound like a low-level clock puncher, which means you are totally fungible.

To be honest, you sound like a typical lazy boomer micromanager boss who spends their time worrying more about what their employees are doing instead of creating value for your company. Let me do my work and leave me alone. You’re not paying me to chitchat with you in a cubicle, Bill. Let me work.

I am the person who has been giving the long explanations. I am not the pp, although you seem to be assuming I am. If you think my posts reflect laziness, you are sorely mistaken. In addition to managing a full client load, I spend countless hours every week on training, mentoring and professional development for my junior team members. I am the person you want by your side because I will put the extra hours into training you well rather than blowing you off in favor of the next new face like many of my colleagues will. I will get to know you and your professional goals, and will give you opportunities to achieve them. When you are up for promotion, I will put the time and effort into the working the behind-the-scenes politics to make it happen. And when your personal life in falling to shit, I am the person who will run interference with you and put in the extra hours you can’t because I care about you having the flexibility you need to take care of the home front. You want me to value you as an employee, because I am the person who will make sure you have every opportunity to succeed, because I will find joy in your success. If that is of no interest to you, then keep doing what you are doing and I wish you luck. But I will not waste my own time trying to make you care about your own career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

I never denied any of what you said. I agree with some of them actually. The training one, I can actually see your kinda point on it.

But some of the other things just sound like weird experiences that you’ve had. Like having a meal in front of senior leadership, you need to be taught? No, that’s just you hiring shitty people if you have such a problem, you can gauge a lot from someone who you hire whether it be both online and in person. I’ve hired people both pre and post pandemic and my teams have always operated at a high level and were determined and hardworking, and ALWAYS had great work ethics.

Depending on your industry, you can operate very efficiently 100% remotely. Everything else you said, seems like your mindset is stuck in the 2000s or you simply don’t trust your team and hired bad talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

This perhaps applies to a team where pre-pandemic everyone worked together and all critical staff worked in the office. But even before covid, I was mostly working with staff and clients in other cities. I did have meetings when someone would travel to dc, but that was rare. In my case, don’t see how anything has changed with me having a phone call from my condo with someone in NY versus an office downtown DC.

I think you’re ignoring how many people have jobs like this or jobs where the main role is working with clients via phone or email on a daily basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

To be honest, you sound like a low-level clock puncher, which means you are totally fungible.

To be honest, you sound like a typical lazy boomer micromanager boss who spends their time worrying more about what their employees are doing instead of creating value for your company. Let me do my work and leave me alone. You’re not paying me to chitchat with you in a cubicle, Bill. Let me work.

I am the person who has been giving the long explanations. I am not the pp, although you seem to be assuming I am. If you think my posts reflect laziness, you are sorely mistaken. In addition to managing a full client load, I spend countless hours every week on training, mentoring and professional development for my junior team members. I am the person you want by your side because I will put the extra hours into training you well rather than blowing you off in favor of the next new face like many of my colleagues will. I will get to know you and your professional goals, and will give you opportunities to achieve them. When you are up for promotion, I will put the time and effort into the working the behind-the-scenes politics to make it happen. And when your personal life in falling to shit, I am the person who will run interference with you and put in the extra hours you can’t because I care about you having the flexibility you need to take care of the home front. You want me to value you as an employee, because I am the person who will make sure you have every opportunity to succeed, because I will find joy in your success. If that is of no interest to you, then keep doing what you are doing and I wish you luck. But I will not waste my own time trying to make you care about your own career.

I am the PP that this person responded to. I agree with this 100%. There is talent out there. It just seems like management doesn’t trust their employees. If you have that mindset, of course everyone you hire will suck, in your mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

To be honest, you sound like a low-level clock puncher, which means you are totally fungible.

To be honest, you sound like a typical lazy boomer micromanager boss who spends their time worrying more about what their employees are doing instead of creating value for your company. Let me do my work and leave me alone. You’re not paying me to chitchat with you in a cubicle, Bill. Let me work.

I am the person who has been giving the long explanations. I am not the pp, although you seem to be assuming I am. If you think my posts reflect laziness, you are sorely mistaken. In addition to managing a full client load, I spend countless hours every week on training, mentoring and professional development for my junior team members. I am the person you want by your side because I will put the extra hours into training you well rather than blowing you off in favor of the next new face like many of my colleagues will. I will get to know you and your professional goals, and will give you opportunities to achieve them. When you are up for promotion, I will put the time and effort into the working the behind-the-scenes politics to make it happen. And when your personal life in falling to shit, I am the person who will run interference with you and put in the extra hours you can’t because I care about you having the flexibility you need to take care of the home front. You want me to value you as an employee, because I am the person who will make sure you have every opportunity to succeed, because I will find joy in your success. If that is of no interest to you, then keep doing what you are doing and I wish you luck. But I will not waste my own time trying to make you care about your own career.

I am the PP that this person responded to. I agree with this 100%. There is talent out there. It just seems like management doesn’t trust their employees. If you have that mindset, of course everyone you hire will suck, in your mind.

Trust has to be earned through experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

I never denied any of what you said. I agree with some of them actually. The training one, I can actually see your kinda point on it.

But some of the other things just sound like weird experiences that you’ve had. Like having a meal in front of senior leadership, you need to be taught? No, that’s just you hiring shitty people if you have such a problem, you can gauge a lot from someone who you hire whether it be both online and in person. I’ve hired people both pre and post pandemic and my teams have always operated at a high level and were determined and hardworking, and ALWAYS had great work ethics.

Depending on your industry, you can operate very efficiently 100% remotely. Everything else you said, seems like your mindset is stuck in the 2000s or you simply don’t trust your team and hired bad talent.

Are you in senior management? Do you have access to the full financial analysis for your employer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

To be honest, you sound like a low-level clock puncher, which means you are totally fungible.

To be honest, you sound like a typical lazy boomer micromanager boss who spends their time worrying more about what their employees are doing instead of creating value for your company. Let me do my work and leave me alone. You’re not paying me to chitchat with you in a cubicle, Bill. Let me work.

I am the person who has been giving the long explanations. I am not the pp, although you seem to be assuming I am. If you think my posts reflect laziness, you are sorely mistaken. In addition to managing a full client load, I spend countless hours every week on training, mentoring and professional development for my junior team members. I am the person you want by your side because I will put the extra hours into training you well rather than blowing you off in favor of the next new face like many of my colleagues will. I will get to know you and your professional goals, and will give you opportunities to achieve them. When you are up for promotion, I will put the time and effort into the working the behind-the-scenes politics to make it happen. And when your personal life in falling to shit, I am the person who will run interference with you and put in the extra hours you can’t because I care about you having the flexibility you need to take care of the home front. You want me to value you as an employee, because I am the person who will make sure you have every opportunity to succeed, because I will find joy in your success. If that is of no interest to you, then keep doing what you are doing and I wish you luck. But I will not waste my own time trying to make you care about your own career.

I am the PP that this person responded to. I agree with this 100%. There is talent out there. It just seems like management doesn’t trust their employees. If you have that mindset, of course everyone you hire will suck, in your mind.

Trust has to be earned through experience.

Hahahaha.

See, this is a you problem. You’re always never going to trust good talent. I’ve had some amazing trust and talent from people fresh out of college Vs some employees who have worked in the same role for 20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

I never denied any of what you said. I agree with some of them actually. The training one, I can actually see your kinda point on it.

But some of the other things just sound like weird experiences that you’ve had. Like having a meal in front of senior leadership, you need to be taught? No, that’s just you hiring shitty people if you have such a problem, you can gauge a lot from someone who you hire whether it be both online and in person. I’ve hired people both pre and post pandemic and my teams have always operated at a high level and were determined and hardworking, and ALWAYS had great work ethics.

Depending on your industry, you can operate very efficiently 100% remotely. Everything else you said, seems like your mindset is stuck in the 2000s or you simply don’t trust your team and hired bad talent.

Are you in senior management? Do you have access to the full financial analysis for your employer?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what many companies are doing. Its not an uncommon practice. PreCovid we had many threads about how much of a pay cut was worth a remote position. I took one and it worked well for me for many years! No surprises here

+1 There was a hug thread about this in late 2020 (I think) when Facebook announced this approach. Even with adjusting for cost of living differences, it’s not like these big tech companies are paying small company crap wages. Why should Google pay SV wages for the employees that opted to move to Idaho?

Because wages should be tied to the work and not the location.

You can believe that all you want, but employers disagree.

That's BS. Most employee who work remotely are highly sought after. The ones who go into office have to b/c they don't have options.

That’s not always true. Plenty of grunt work that didn’t require much talent gets shoveled off to remote employees. I think some full-time remote workers think too much of themselves and that’s part of the problem. It exists in-office too, but remote workers aren’t around people who can help deflate their self-perceptions.

Just b/c someone is in the office, doesn't mean they are productive. Plenty of people go to office and waste time--go out to lunch, shop online, gossip, etc. Oh but b/c they are in person, they must be working or are more committed...

You missed the point entirely. Many full time remote workers tend to think they are more valuable than they really are. They don’t have anyone to keep them in check or to give them a sense of reality. I’m not talking strictly about productivity. You are correct that people can waste time in either setting. And just because you’re remote working full time doesn’t mean you got to do that because you’re some Demi-god.

lol this is one the dumbest things I’ve ever read. So, basically, you need to micromanage your employees to make sure they’re at their cube and monitoring what they’re working on. Because remote people need to be “in-check”?

Just admit you’re a micromanager and you don’t trust your employees.

But I get more work done remotely than wasting my time commuting, you coming to my cube to talk about the weather when I could be getting shit done in the peace and quiet of my home office.

It’s not dumb at all. The remote workers on DCUM whine that they won’t be able to leave to pick up their kids, shuttle them to activities, do their laundry, start dinner during work hours. None of that benefits the employer one jot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what many companies are doing. Its not an uncommon practice. PreCovid we had many threads about how much of a pay cut was worth a remote position. I took one and it worked well for me for many years! No surprises here

+1 There was a hug thread about this in late 2020 (I think) when Facebook announced this approach. Even with adjusting for cost of living differences, it’s not like these big tech companies are paying small company crap wages. Why should Google pay SV wages for the employees that opted to move to Idaho?

Because wages should be tied to the work and not the location.

You can believe that all you want, but employers disagree.

That's BS. Most employee who work remotely are highly sought after. The ones who go into office have to b/c they don't have options.

That’s not always true. Plenty of grunt work that didn’t require much talent gets shoveled off to remote employees. I think some full-time remote workers think too much of themselves and that’s part of the problem. It exists in-office too, but remote workers aren’t around people who can help deflate their self-perceptions.

Just b/c someone is in the office, doesn't mean they are productive. Plenty of people go to office and waste time--go out to lunch, shop online, gossip, etc. Oh but b/c they are in person, they must be working or are more committed...

You missed the point entirely. Many full time remote workers tend to think they are more valuable than they really are. They don’t have anyone to keep them in check or to give them a sense of reality. I’m not talking strictly about productivity. You are correct that people can waste time in either setting. And just because you’re remote working full time doesn’t mean you got to do that because you’re some Demi-god.

lol this is one the dumbest things I’ve ever read. So, basically, you need to micromanage your employees to make sure they’re at their cube and monitoring what they’re working on. Because remote people need to be “in-check”?

Just admit you’re a micromanager and you don’t trust your employees.

But I get more work done remotely than wasting my time commuting, you coming to my cube to talk about the weather when I could be getting shit done in the peace and quiet of my home office.

It’s not dumb at all. The remote workers on DCUM whine that they won’t be able to leave to pick up their kids, shuttle them to activities, do their laundry, start dinner during work hours. None of that benefits the employer one jot.

Ok but how is it any better with the employee is sitting in an office not doing anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

I never denied any of what you said. I agree with some of them actually. The training one, I can actually see your kinda point on it.

But some of the other things just sound like weird experiences that you’ve had. Like having a meal in front of senior leadership, you need to be taught? No, that’s just you hiring shitty people if you have such a problem, you can gauge a lot from someone who you hire whether it be both online and in person. I’ve hired people both pre and post pandemic and my teams have always operated at a high level and were determined and hardworking, and ALWAYS had great work ethics.

Depending on your industry, you can operate very efficiently 100% remotely. Everything else you said, seems like your mindset is stuck in the 2000s or you simply don’t trust your team and hired bad talent.

Are you in senior management? Do you have access to the full financial analysis for your employer?

Yes.

How has your performance been on a percentage basis in Q3 and Q4 2021 as compared to Q1 and Q2 on a percentage basis, and what have been the primary hard drivers of any differential?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m federal government and we decrease pay based on where you live remotely. Except I think you can’t make more than where your work is located. Like we get the DC pay scale and you can’t be paid the nyc scale even if you’re working in nyc because we don’t need you to be in nyc.

This is kind of the opposite of how it works. There is a base salary for your work. Then the government increases pay based on cost of living where your work is located. If it's an office in DC, you get DC locality pay on top of the "base." If you go remote to a lower cost area, then you get whatever the locality pay is for that area because that's your new work location. E.g. Atlanta gets a slightly smaller COL increase than DC, and rural northern PA gets just the base.

You are right that you can't opt to get higher pay than where your office is located, because that would be a net loss to the government of having you work remotely.

Honestly, none of this seems remotely unfair to me.

It does to me. If we apply locality pay, I think we should also pay single people less. After all, they don’t have a family to support. Or what about people who have a working spouse?

I think an employer should pay a salary commensurate with the job and job market - not the lifestyle of the employee.

So if I can outsource most of my functions to another country and pay 75% less, should I also give my US staff a 75% pay cut?

DP. Sweet pea, you are trying to operate way above your pay grade. Maybe take an intro to economics course.

Cool.

Wanna answer the question, or just want to insult?

If your company would still need some US-based employees, then you will need to pay a salary that will attract the necessary employees, even if it more than you would need to pay similar employees in another country. If you want to outsource the rest, that is your choice.

For those US-based employees, if you need them near your physical office in a high COL area, then you need to pay huge local rate for that job. If the job can be done remotely, you can cut costs by employing people from lower COL areas. This is pretty basic management.

I am an attorney, and have been amazed at the shortsightedness of our legal assistants and other support staff clamoring to work from home full-time. They seem to have zero appreciation that if they demonstrate the job can be done just as efficiently fully remotely, there is no reason for us to pay DC wages for local legal assistants when we can hire people in the Midwest for a fraction of the cost.

Because companies are inefficient and everyone knows this. Technically anyone who works on a computer could have their job replaced via outsourcing. Including your job. But the reality is that it doesn’t happen. There are a variety of challenges in outsourcing work - the language barrier, time zone, culture, expense of one of these outsource workers traveling the globe to reach the home office etc.

Technically most office workers just demonstrated for two years that their job could be done remotely. Why don’t you try to save your company some money and hire legal assistants in India?

No, what the pandemic has demonstrated for many employers is that people can work well enough remotely in a crisis, but it often comes at some significant costs, especially if you are responsible for planning beyond the immediate moment. Now employers are trying to balance employees’ understandable interest in working from home with the employers’ interest in recapturing what was lost during WFH.

I'm not disputing what you say here. I think it is likely true. I'm wondering whether you can elaborate though? What is missing is employers clearly articulating what was "lost." I myself am currently part of management issuing "hybrid" policies that require less onsite work than remote, and am still getting resistance. It is true that I have not been able to clearly articulate what was "lost". Can you?

Here are things that I (and many of my colleagues) feel have been lost:

1. Training and mentoring. Our junior hires from 2019 onward are not where they should be in their professional development. We have tried to train them remotely, but it just isn’t as effective. I’ve done a lot of trainings in-person and virtually, and people just don’t engage the same way in virtual trainings. Far fewer questions and discussions, even in the same presentation. And spontaneous lunches out to get to know each other done happen at all when people work remotely.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down. I work with billable hours, and have compared the current numbers to pre-pandemic. The same kinds of tasks seem to be taking people at least 10% more hours now than they did pre-pandemic. Clients notice this too and don’t want to pay for increased inefficiencies, so we are having to write off more time.

3. At the same time, burn out levels are up, and the level of burn out correlates with how much time people spend working from home rather than in the office. This isn’t just my observation, we have survey data to show it’s the case. Without a clear start and end to the work day, people seem to be having a harder time disengaging from work and relaxing when they have the opportunity.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships had been negatively impacted significantly. People simply don’t know their co-workers as well, so communications aren’t as effective and people just aren’t as attuned to when someone is overloaded with work or doesn’t seem to quite grasp a project. People with years of experience working together pre-pandemic haven’t been experiencing this as much, but it’s been a significant issues for newer hires at all levels.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office. If I am putting together a team to host a client relations event, I am thinking about people in my group engage with each other, because I want to bring a team that will engage with each other well and make a good impression not just individually but also as a group. If someone hasn’t spent much time in the office, I can’t evaluate them for this purpose so they are more likely to be left out (and frankly, if I’ve never had a lunch with you to know if you have decent table manners, I am definitely not including you in a client dinner).

This is just off the top of my head. With a little time, I could probably come up with more.

I have several counterpoints to this post. This post feels very …boomerish.
1. Trainings and mentoring
- depends on the job. But even when we were in the office, some new hires would come in late, take long lunches, be texting and on their phones. You can’t really teach professional etiquette, you either adapt and do it or you get laid off.

2. Productivity and efficiency are down.
-This is just false. Many companies have said that they’ve had increased profits and productivity the last two years. Where are you getting this data?

3. burn out levels are up
- time management 101. take time for yourself. Schedule your time more efficiently. Take care of your mental health. Stop working until 9am-9pm. That’s impossible on a daily basis.

4. Team building and inter-personal relationships
-ugh why just why? If I’m getting the job done and on-time, why does this matter? A company isn’t your family. I’m not working to build relationships. That’s what my friends are for. No, Bob, I don’t need to drink a beer with you to hear about how your favorite sports team is doing. Just let me work and do my job so I can spend time with my real family.

5. People who work remotely aren’t getting the same business development opportunities as those who work together in office.
- again, says who? How can you measure this? They need to be in an office to be more professional and have proper business etiquette? Huh? So I need to be in a business to have proper lunch etiquette? Again, this is opinion based, not factual.

I’m a millennial. Using “boomer” in a professional discussion makes you sound immature.

On #1, training is more than just knowing you should be at your desk during work hours and don’t chew gum while talking to someone else. People are not learning the hard skills they need to do the job effectively and without a lot of handholding.

On #2, I told you where I am getting my data. I am literally looking at hourly billables for my group. My colleagues and people I know in senior management levels are saying the same thing. When a task that should take 3-4 hours is now taking 5-6 hours, that’s a problem. My clients won’t pay for those extra hours, so we end up eating the costs. The record profits of 2020 and early 2021 weren’t due to efficiency, they were largely driven by people not taking PTO, so they worked more hours over the course of the year than they usually would. Now that people are getting back to their usual PTO usage, those record profits are disappearing.

On #3, I cannot control what my team does when they are outside the office, so your response is worthless. All I can tell you is that WFH isn’t really helping employee mental health on average and that impacts the workplace. Why would I continue a practice that is negatively affecting our work?

On #4, when you are working at a high level, having strong working relationships is critical. You don’t have to be my best friend, but people who have solid professional relationships simply produce better work. It matters that we communicate well. It matters that we understand each others’ work styles and comparative strengths. I am not saying no one could even build a strong working relationship while working fully remote, but it takes more time and effort to build it. If I’m picking someone to be my right hand person for a significant event, it’s going to be the person I have the most confidence in. If it takes longer to build that confidence with the remote employee than the in-person employee, the in-person employee will get those good opportunities earlier, and then I will naturally gravitate toward them in the future because they’ve already proven themselves.

On #5, I literally told you that this affects how I choose my team for business development opportunities. It is a literal fact that this is part of how I choose my teams. I am not going to have my first meal with you in front of the senior leadership of a major client. That opportunity will go to someone who has attended some in-person practice group lunches and demonstrated they meet a basic standard of manners.

I realize you don’t like my opinions because they don’t align with what you want to do, but to simply deny that any of this could be true is foolish. Go ahead and be fully remote. Some people at my firm have. I will work with them, but I am not going to contort myself to accommodate their location preferences when I have excellent alternatives sitting just down the hall.

I never denied any of what you said. I agree with some of them actually. The training one, I can actually see your kinda point on it.

But some of the other things just sound like weird experiences that you’ve had. Like having a meal in front of senior leadership, you need to be taught? No, that’s just you hiring shitty people if you have such a problem, you can gauge a lot from someone who you hire whether it be both online and in person. I’ve hired people both pre and post pandemic and my teams have always operated at a high level and were determined and hardworking, and ALWAYS had great work ethics.

Depending on your industry, you can operate very efficiently 100% remotely. Everything else you said, seems like your mindset is stuck in the 2000s or you simply don’t trust your team and hired bad talent.

Are you in senior management? Do you have access to the full financial analysis for your employer?

Yep. I’ve worked two different companies during the pandemic. Productivity and financials were up in both.

In my current role, the team met up in person at a few happy hours, so that was cool. But I wouldn’t say that was a main reason it helped things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this practice can last for remote jobs. My last employer tried to cut my pay when I moved and I just quit and got a job with another company that wasn’t doing that. Why would I accept less pay just because I moved to a lower COL area? I’m doing the same job. It was particularly dumb on their part because they were already struggling to fill similar positions. Google may get away with it because they are paying above market, but even they are likely to find some of their competitors scooping up remote workers by offering to pay them SV wages in Idaho.

We are in a period of transition right now that won’t last. Once WFH policies shake out and get fully established, this won’t be controversial. If you live in Montana and are applying for remote work jobs in big tech, you will know your salary will be based in part of your location. If you work in the office in NYC but are considering moving back home to Cleveland, you will know as part of the calculus that it will come with an X% pay decrease due to locality. This is already a fact of life for many people who have coped just fine. The people who are upset now are the ones who thought they found a way to game the system and are upset they market caught up with them.

I don’t see how employers will be able to sustain that. There are already a bunch of tech companies that will pay remote workers in Boise at the same scale as SV. How is Google going to compete for those people while demanding they get paid 20% less just because COL is lower? The competitive pressure will ultimately be too much and they will have to cave.

Which employers?

I'm wondering this, too.

Yes, please do tell.