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: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.

Versus commuting for hours a week, doing pointless “team building” activities, office chitchat about nothing that wastes your time, pointless meetings about meetings, how is that any better?

If I’m home and I wanna do what you mentioned, as long as I get my work done, why do you care about those things? Do you need to know when I take a piss too? Your whole post just screams “control freak”.

[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.

And many companies have experienced the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Versus commuting for hours a week, doing pointless “team building” activities, office chitchat about nothing that wastes your time, pointless meetings about meetings, how is that any better?

If I’m home and I wanna do what you mentioned, as long as I get my work done, why do you care about those things? Do you need to know when I take a piss too? Your whole post just screams “control freak”.

I’m not the OP. I’m not a Boomer. The angry, hysterical, defensive WFH proponents make me laugh. Good luck.

[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: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.

Versus commuting for hours a week, doing pointless “team building” activities, office chitchat about nothing that wastes your time, pointless meetings about meetings, how is that any better?

If I’m home and I wanna do what you mentioned, as long as I get my work done, why do you care about those things? Do you need to know when I take a piss too? Your whole post just screams “control freak”.

I’m not the OP. I’m not a Boomer. The angry, hysterical, defensive WFH proponents make me laugh. Good luck.

I’m not even angry, lol I’m actually laughing at your excuses as to why WFH is so awful. Like picking up your kids wasn’t a problem before the pandemic. But god forbid you work remotely and have the same issue. It’s totally different!! Lol sure Jan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Why wouldn't you? Or just get rid of them entirely and outsource everything. If you could achieve the same result for a lower price, you should do that. And a public company is legally obligated to do this if it is in the best interest of the shareholders.

I'll never understand the love of working at home on this forum. People are just demonstrating the ease with which their jobs can be outsourced. I worked at home for two years out of necessity and hated it. I like having work-life separation, and I'm a shy introvert who benefits from seeing actual people in person at work. I also made the choice to live downtown within walking distance of my job, so working at home cost me real money (lights, heat, etc., plus dedicating some of my apartment space to my employer without being paid for it.

If working at home works for you, that's great, but there are many of us who hated it. As soon as the pandemic was more-or-less over (February), I left that job and took an in-person job. It was one of my better decisions.

They really can’t be. The jobs that can be outsourced are low skill jobs that don’t require fluent English and require very little training. Think about it in simplistic terms. Let’s say you decide to save $50k and outsource someone who works for you. How would you go about doing this? What about the time difference? How will you train this person? What about cultural differences? How will you find this outsourced person to begin with? What about differences in legal protections?

Do you enjoy dealing with call centers in India? Think about the experience when you call a US company and are routed to someone in India who doesn’t know how to spell the name Thomas and can’t understand your problem. It’s frustrating. Do you want to have someone like this working for you?

I get that you dislike remote work and that it was a rough change for you. But this notion that most US office workers can now be easily outsourced is just not true. Salaries for fluent English speakers overseas isn’t even that much cheaper, especially when you have to factor in additional expenses for hiring across the globe.

A lot of back office jobs are already outsourced to Poland, Philippines, India.. most of them speak passable English. It can be challenging, though, I won't sugar coat that, but it's cheap, and that's why companies do it.

Even if takes 3x longer for them to do something, they will outsource it because it's cheap. They'll live with the back/forth, redos to save $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Why wouldn't you? Or just get rid of them entirely and outsource everything. If you could achieve the same result for a lower price, you should do that. And a public company is legally obligated to do this if it is in the best interest of the shareholders.

I'll never understand the love of working at home on this forum. People are just demonstrating the ease with which their jobs can be outsourced. I worked at home for two years out of necessity and hated it. I like having work-life separation, and I'm a shy introvert who benefits from seeing actual people in person at work. I also made the choice to live downtown within walking distance of my job, so working at home cost me real money (lights, heat, etc., plus dedicating some of my apartment space to my employer without being paid for it.

If working at home works for you, that's great, but there are many of us who hated it. As soon as the pandemic was more-or-less over (February), I left that job and took an in-person job. It was one of my better decisions.

They really can’t be. The jobs that can be outsourced are low skill jobs that don’t require fluent English and require very little training. Think about it in simplistic terms. Let’s say you decide to save $50k and outsource someone who works for you. How would you go about doing this? What about the time difference? How will you train this person? What about cultural differences? How will you find this outsourced person to begin with? What about differences in legal protections?

Do you enjoy dealing with call centers in India? Think about the experience when you call a US company and are routed to someone in India who doesn’t know how to spell the name Thomas and can’t understand your problem. It’s frustrating. Do you want to have someone like this working for you?

I get that you dislike remote work and that it was a rough change for you. But this notion that most US office workers can now be easily outsourced is just not true. Salaries for fluent English speakers overseas isn’t even that much cheaper, especially when you have to factor in additional expenses for hiring across the globe.

A lot of back office jobs are already outsourced to Poland, Philippines, India.. most of them speak passable English. It can be challenging, though, I won't sugar coat that, but it's cheap, and that's why companies do it.

Even if takes 3x longer for them to do something, they will outsource it because it's cheap. They'll live with the back/forth, redos to save $.

This is not PP, but I agree. Denying that companies don’t outsource is odd. It’s been happening even before covid. If I can pay someone 40k to do a job in a week Vs paying an American 100k to get me the same result in 4 days, guess who the company will end up going with?

I don’t like it myself, honestly. But it is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Btw I am the poster at 18:59. This has been a great debate back and forth to learn more about the pros and cons of remote work. Thanks for the good discussion. Have a good night.

[Anonymous]

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.

DP.. you seem really young and idealistic. That isn't how it works. It's about COL and commiserate pay. You having kids has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer is paying for your work and will pay you market rate of where you live. That's standard practice.

Don’t see how COL is any more or less than familial status. Or perhaps suburban versus. Perhaps they should lower salaries of workers who live in exurbs? Or what about employees who inherited their home?

Again, you seem really young and naive.

Your family life choices have nothing to do with your employer.

Exurbs are still part of the metro area, and pay will commiserate.

Then why are you suggesting that moving my a family to a different city should result in a decrease in pay?

You can do whatever you want with your family. Your company won't care what you do. But, if you move, your pay will commiserate with where you choose to live. Seems like you want to game the system by first moving to a HCOL area, get paid those wages, then move to a LCOL with the same pay. If they hired you in a LCOL area, they wouldn't pay you SV HCOL, either.

Now, if you are a super achiever, and it's hard to find your skillset, then you can command high wages and live where you want to. But, the vast majority of workers are replaceable, more than likely, including you.

[Anonymous]

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.

DP.. you seem really young and idealistic. That isn't how it works. It's about COL and commiserate pay. You having kids has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer is paying for your work and will pay you market rate of where you live. That's standard practice.

Don’t see how COL is any more or less than familial status. Or perhaps suburban versus. Perhaps they should lower salaries of workers who live in exurbs? Or what about employees who inherited their home?

Again, you seem really young and naive.

Your family life choices have nothing to do with your employer.

Exurbs are still part of the metro area, and pay will commiserate.

Then why are you suggesting that moving my a family to a different city should result in a decrease in pay?

You can do whatever you want with your family. Your company won't care what you do. But, if you move, your pay will commiserate with where you choose to live. Seems like you want to game the system by first moving to a HCOL area, get paid those wages, then move to a LCOL with the same pay. If they hired you in a LCOL area, they wouldn't pay you SV HCOL, either.

Now, if you are a super achiever, and it's hard to find your skillset, then you can command high wages and live where you want to. But, the vast majority of workers are replaceable, more than likely, including you.

You seem bitter that you’re living a HCOL area.

[Anonymous]

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.

DP.. you seem really young and idealistic. That isn't how it works. It's about COL and commiserate pay. You having kids has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer is paying for your work and will pay you market rate of where you live. That's standard practice.

Don’t see how COL is any more or less than familial status. Or perhaps suburban versus. Perhaps they should lower salaries of workers who live in exurbs? Or what about employees who inherited their home?

Again, you seem really young and naive.

Your family life choices have nothing to do with your employer.

Exurbs are still part of the metro area, and pay will commiserate.

Then why are you suggesting that moving my a family to a different city should result in a decrease in pay?

You can do whatever you want with your family. Your company won't care what you do. But, if you move, your pay will commiserate with where you choose to live. Seems like you want to game the system by first moving to a HCOL area, get paid those wages, then move to a LCOL with the same pay. If they hired you in a LCOL area, they wouldn't pay you SV HCOL, either.

Now, if you are a super achiever, and it's hard to find your skillset, then you can command high wages and live where you want to. But, the vast majority of workers are replaceable, more than likely, including you.

You seem bitter that you’re living a HCOL area.

DP. What a strange comment, particularly given that this whole thread is about people whining that their employers don’t want to pay them HCOL salaries when they’re living in LCOL areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Shockingly, pp has not come back to identify the many tech companies that are paying people in Boise the same as people in SV.

Just like how all those anti-WOS “senior managers” disappeared when asked about their companies’ recent financial performance.

[Anonymous]

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.

DP.. you seem really young and idealistic. That isn't how it works. It's about COL and commiserate pay. You having kids has nothing to do with your employer. Your employer is paying for your work and will pay you market rate of where you live. That's standard practice.

Don’t see how COL is any more or less than familial status. Or perhaps suburban versus. Perhaps they should lower salaries of workers who live in exurbs? Or what about employees who inherited their home?

Again, you seem really young and naive.

Your family life choices have nothing to do with your employer.

Exurbs are still part of the metro area, and pay will commiserate.

Then why are you suggesting that moving my a family to a different city should result in a decrease in pay?

You can do whatever you want with your family. Your company won't care what you do. But, if you move, your pay will commiserate with where you choose to live. Seems like you want to game the system by first moving to a HCOL area, get paid those wages, then move to a LCOL with the same pay. If they hired you in a LCOL area, they wouldn't pay you SV HCOL, either.

Now, if you are a super achiever, and it's hard to find your skillset, then you can command high wages and live where you want to. But, the vast majority of workers are replaceable, more than likely, including you.

You seem bitter that you’re living a HCOL area.

DP but I'm totally bitter! Mid-grade fed and the locality pay doesn't cover it, IMO.

[Anonymous]

I always thought pay was determined by two factors: 1) level of skill needed; AND 2) local cost of living. I thought employers did this to attract high skill workers to cities like NYC, SF, LA, DC, Boston, Seattle etc.

I'm originally from Detroit. VERY FEW jobs in that area pay the $225k I make in DC. According to COL calculators, $140k in Detroit area is roughly the equivalent of $225k in DC. I would also say this is about right. My mortgage equivalent alone would be 62 percent less in the Detroit area.

I would never expect my organization to continue paying me $225k to live in the Detroit area. As long as I pull the equivalent, I'm good. Of course I'd love it if my org paid me $225k to live in Michigan. I could literally live like a millionaire on that DC. salary.

I have nothing against people that WFH. I just think folks should be a bit more realistic and flexible with expectations. I say as long as your purchasing power is still the same or slightly better, then what is there to complain about? Before the pandemic people were literally taking 20% salary cut for lower cost area and were super happy about it because they still did better than these high cost of living cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always thought pay was determined by two factors: 1) level of skill needed; AND 2) local cost of living. I thought employers did this to attract high skill workers to cities like NYC, SF, LA, DC, Boston, Seattle etc.

I'm originally from Detroit. VERY FEW jobs in that area pay the $225k I make in DC. According to COL calculators, $140k in Detroit area is roughly the equivalent of $225k in DC. I would also say this is about right. My mortgage equivalent alone would be 62 percent less in the Detroit area.

I would never expect my organization to continue paying me $225k to live in the Detroit area. As long as I pull the equivalent, I'm good. Of course I'd love it if my org paid me $225k to live in Michigan. I could literally live like a millionaire on that DC. salary.

I have nothing against people that WFH. I just think folks should be a bit more realistic and flexible with expectations. I say as long as your purchasing power is still the same or slightly better, then what is there to complain about? Before the pandemic people were literally taking 20% salary cut for lower cost area and were super happy about it because they still did better than these high cost of living cities.

Fair point. I made $185k in DC and moved to San Antonio, TX in October 2021. My salary was adjusted to $161k. I'm definitely doing better financially in SA than in DC even with the $24k decrease. For reference - I purchase a 922 sq ft (1 bed / 1 bath) condo in DC in 2018 for $630k. I sold my Condo in September 2021 for $717k.

I bought a DETACHED 1800 sqft 3 bd home in SA for $337k. My mortgage is nearly 50 percent less and overall everything else in SA is so much cheaper than DC. So I'M DEFINITELY winning. So I don't care that my salary was reduced to the local equivalent. My purchasing power is still better than DC.

[Anonymous]

Be careful what you ask for: if you want companies to pay for the work and not where it’s done, then get ready to compete with Indian programmer wages.