Should Google Cut Salaries For Its Remote Workers? (inc.com) 429
A columnist for Inc. writes that Google "may reduce the salaries of employees who choose to work at home full-time, based on the cost of living where they live, according to an internal calculator viewed by Reuters."
They also argue that Google's move is "likely to be a disaster." It may seem sensible, given that a salary that barely covers a San Francisco studio apartment might get you a mansion in, say, Topeka. That's the logic Google says it's using. "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location," a spokesperson told Reuters.
But cutting pay for existing employees who opt to work from home is a terrible idea and it shows a complete lack of emotional intelligence. If Google is smart, it will shelve this idea. So will Facebook, Twitter, the UK government, and any other company considering a similar move. Here's why:
1. A salary is about more than just paying the bills... In real life, a pay cut will feel like an insult to most employees, even if it has nothing to do with their performance or their value to the company. You're literally telling them that they're worth less. Is that the message you want them to hear?
2. Google is being greedy... Like other tech giants, it's thrived during the pandemic. Cutting people's salaries when your share price has more than doubled, your revenues are up 62 percent, and your profits are up even more seems like the pinnacle of corporate greed. Not a good look.
3. It will make Google even more unequal than it already is...
They also argue that Google's move is "likely to be a disaster." It may seem sensible, given that a salary that barely covers a San Francisco studio apartment might get you a mansion in, say, Topeka. That's the logic Google says it's using. "Our compensation packages have always been determined by location," a spokesperson told Reuters.
But cutting pay for existing employees who opt to work from home is a terrible idea and it shows a complete lack of emotional intelligence. If Google is smart, it will shelve this idea. So will Facebook, Twitter, the UK government, and any other company considering a similar move. Here's why:
1. A salary is about more than just paying the bills... In real life, a pay cut will feel like an insult to most employees, even if it has nothing to do with their performance or their value to the company. You're literally telling them that they're worth less. Is that the message you want them to hear?
2. Google is being greedy... Like other tech giants, it's thrived during the pandemic. Cutting people's salaries when your share price has more than doubled, your revenues are up 62 percent, and your profits are up even more seems like the pinnacle of corporate greed. Not a good look.
3. It will make Google even more unequal than it already is...
How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives? If Google is willing to pay someone in San Francisco $200,000 to do a job, why would the job be worth less if the person lived in Idaho? They are doing the same job, so the location shouldn't matter at all. This is why companies want to keep salaries secret, because they want to pay the least amount possible for the most work and why employees should discuss their salaries all the time, to keep the company honest in their pay. Working remote is working remote, regardless of the location.
Re: (Score:3)
why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Who decides the "worth" of each job?
Here's a better idea: If you aren't paid what you're worth, then go get a different job. If no one is willing to pay you what you're worth, then maybe you are worth as much as you think you are.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:4, Informative)
why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Who decides the "worth" of each job?
The market.
Here's a better idea: If you aren't paid what you're worth, then go get a different job. If no one is willing to pay you what you're worth, then maybe you are worth as much as you think you are.
That built-in assumes that the workers will not find similar or even better compensation elsewhere. They have not even reached the point yet where that is a question. Google has already set the worth of the job, by definition, because they are paying it today. Now Google wants to arbitrarily reduce the worth of the job. But the market sets the worth, not Google. The labor market of desirable workers will decide whether or not that is a good move for Google.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, Google is part of the market, like it or not.
Re: (Score:3)
During an interview at my previous employer, I gave them my actual, lowest number I would happily work for. Which was very below market rate. When asked why so low, and to take a pay cut from my then current employer -- Because I want to work for Company, and I value happiness and my time over monetary compensation.
They paid me above market rate, in line with my skillset; and I think that we are all overpaid as Software Engineeers.
I'm all for the pay-cuts to remote work. I'm also for pay cuts for work he
Re: (Score:3)
why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Who decides the "worth" of each job?
Here's a better idea: If you aren't paid what you're worth, then go get a different job. If no one is willing to pay you what you're worth, then maybe you are worth as much as you think you are.
You're talking about existing employees, not new hires. You could at any time renegotiate an employee's compensation downwards because they're less useful to you, and worth less. Your performance was substandard last year, we're lowering your salary.
Why doesn't that happen in practice? If you want someone out then just do it, let them go. I can't think of anything more insulting than lowering someone's salary because you assessed their worth lower, while you expect them to do the exact same work, while
Re: (Score:3)
That's the same idea. Google has tried to collude in an illegal fashion with it's competitors to apply similar policies here but if one doesn't stick to the agreement they can scoop up a substantial amount of Google talent without having to spend a dime more on labor than they do today. Sure Google has a buffer bec
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:4, Insightful)
This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Here's an even crazier idea. Why not demand companies pay the same salary regardless of who is doing the job? They are doing the same job so sex shouldn't matter [payscale.com].
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This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Here's an even crazier idea. Why not demand companies pay the same salary regardless of who is doing the job? They are doing the same job so sex shouldn't matter [payscale.com].
And, a female economist studied the pay gap and found that it is due to women having different priorities. Women as a group:
choose more often to work for non-profits which pay less. They often do this right our of university which decreases their earnings their entire career.
choose jobs with companies whose ideologies and policies make the women feel good over companies that pay better.
choose jobs with lower pay but have other benefits they rate more important, such as longer maternity leave, more time o
Re: How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:2)
...then sure, women make LESS...
Sorry, typo.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives? If Google is willing to pay someone in San Francisco $200,000 to do a job, why would the job be worth less if the person lived in Idaho?
Because they have to offer $200,000 to entice employees to move to San Francisco. If you're going to hang out in Idaho, they only have to pay you slightly more than what you can make there in person or on another remote work job.
In other words, Duuuh... A job is only worth what it costs to fill it from the pool of qualified candidates. No more. No less.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:4, Insightful)
they have to offer $200,000 to entice employees to move to San Francisco
So what the fuck is so important about having employees work in San Francisco? ([ed] that should be spelled Bay Area.)
Let employees pay extra to live in San Francisco if that's what floats their boat. Bear in mind that Googlers are widely hated in San Francisco for being self infatuated dorks driving up property prices. Corporate droids at HQ are proposing to pour fuel on that fire.
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So what the fuck is so important about having employees work in San Francisco?
In the long run, nothing. Remote work will migrate away from high-cost coastal cities. Workers will either have to move, eat the cost, or go back to the office.
In the short run? Google has to pay more to retain SF-BA workers because the market rate for salaries is much higher there. If they don't pay the market rate, they will lose the employees.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not about them having them work in the Bay Area. It's about being where a lot of talent is. Berkeley and Stanford, two of the best schools for CS, are constantly churning out new grads; plus there's access for them to all that VC money on Sand Hill Road; consequently, there's all these innovative start-ups to choose from to buy. As a bonus, the weather is generally pleasant most of the year.
Re: (Score:2)
This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives? If Google is willing to pay someone in San Francisco $200,000 to do a job, why would the job be worth less if the person lived in Idaho?
Because they have to offer $200,000 to entice employees to move to San Francisco. If you're going to hang out in Idaho, they only have to pay you slightly more than what you can make there in person or on another remote work job.
In other words, Duuuh... A job is only worth what it costs to fill it from the pool of qualified candidates. No more. No less.
You're going to need to put that in the employment agreement, that base pay is $100k and COLA is $100k for San Francisco, and $5k for Idaho. Not for legal reasons, or maybe for that but mainly so the expectations are known up front and very clear.
There's a reason you let poor performers, or redundant staff go, or you find other work for them. You don't just adjust their salary down to the level of worth they have to you that year. If you have no work for an engineer, you pay them as an engineer and let t
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Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are looking at it only from the companies POV. If I live in SF and they pay me $200,000 a year to do my job, then my job is worth $200,000 to them. IF I move to Idaho and continue to do the exact same job, my job is worth the same $200,000 to the company. The fact you think they should be able to pay me less simply because I moved means you believe the company is the only important part of this equation. You are basically saying they can pay me as little as they want and I should just take it and be happy. It looks at the employer as some benevolent benefactors who we are lucky to have paying us instead of a company that needs it's works to accomplish anything and should be paying it's employees a fair wage.
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Except your job clearly ISN'T worth the same $200,000 or Google wouldn't be asking you to show up to work in person. Google is a business, every decision is made for a business reason. They aren't asking employees to come into the building (a building
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You are looking at it only from the companies POV. If I live in SF and they pay me $200,000 a year to do my job, then my job is worth $200,000 to them. IF I move to Idaho and continue to do the exact same job, my job is worth the same $200,000 to the company. The fact you think they should be able to pay me less simply because I moved means you believe the company is the only important part of this equation. You are basically saying they can pay me as little as they want and I should just take it and be happy. It looks at the employer as some benevolent benefactors who we are lucky to have paying us instead of a company that needs it's works to accomplish anything and should be paying it's employees a fair wage.
The job is worth $200,000 because that is how much is required to hire and retain qualified people to work in their business where they want them to be. The don't pay you how much you think the job should be valued or what you think is your "fair wage". They would pay minimum wage if they could get qualified candidates to work for that. If you don't believe me, apply for a no-skill-
That depends (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you expect to spend exactly the same for lobster in Des Moines, Iowa as you do in Portland, Maine?
If that lobster can do a good job running a website at scale - yes.
Someone who has helped built up Google to what it is, and is well versed in its system is worth quite a lot no matter where they actually live.
Maybe on hiring you factor in where they are living but once they've been with you a while the salary should be a lot more about how valuable they are as an employee than where they live.
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A job is only worth what it costs to fill it from the pool of qualified candidates.
And the pool just got a whole lot bigger. At the scale of google, I don't think its very smart to save a few million dollars nickel and diming employees over cost of living, when its just going to make it easier for them to be poached by other big tech companies. The real question is how long until they shift development out of San Francisco.
Re:How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Because like everything in life, the worth of a job is not easily quantified.
There is an amount that as a company you think this position is going to generate. Let's make a simple example. If you can do this job, the company bottom line goes up by $60000 a year.
So fundamentally, the company is ready to pay ANY salary that is below $60000 a year. That means $30000 is OK, that means $59999 is ok. Though, the company may be able to find someone willing to do it at $55000.
Now from the employees perspective. May
Re: (Score:2)
This. There are actually few people making anything near the upper limit of their productive value but lots of people making far less, and the massive pay disparities between workers in the same role among companies where pay is secret would blow people's minds and cause management to shit all the bricks if it were ever made public.
Cutting the pay of workers who move away seems greedy and totally is, but it's part of a larger plan to ratchet down worker pay which as a side-effect could rapidly alleviate geo
Re: How about paying what the job is worth? (Score:2)
This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives? If Google is willing to pay someone in San Francisco $200,000 to do a job, why would the job be worth less if the person lived in Idaho? They are doing the same job, so the location shouldn't matter at all.
Companies aren't 'willing' to pay higher salaries in Silicon Valley, they are forced to - the cost of living in Silicon Valley forces that reality.
And why should a Silicon Valley job pay any more than the same job in Idaho? Or Kansas, or Mississippi?
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Companies aren't 'willing' to pay higher salaries in Silicon Valley, they are forced to
They are not forced to. They choose to because they are so rich they have no need to economize. Now they want their employees so subsidize that vanity project.
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This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Absolutely! A company can easily determine the value of an employee and pay that employee accordingly.
Unless the company totally invades the employee's privacy, it really cannot determine the employee's living costs in order to pay according to those costs. For example, should a company pay an employee more simply because he or she is living with someone who has a health condition that requires equipment that consumes a lot of electricity? How about paying the employee based on how many children he or sh
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This may be a crazy idea, but why not demand companies pay what the job is worth to them regardless of where the person lives?
Because pay is also livelihood. For better or worse, we've tied the two together. So your pay isn't just about the work you do, it is also about your ability to live. If people want to make the argument of a "living wage" then they have accept that a wage has something to do with how you live and not just about your job.
why would the job be worth less if the person lived in Idaho?
Because when you are in Idaho, the part of that wage that makes it okay to live in San Francisco isn't as pressing an issue in Idaho. Again, a living wage isn't just the work you do, tha
A Better Argument Google Can Make (Score:5, Insightful)
Truthfully, I wonder if other companies are getting on their case wrt this. If Google keeps paying high wages to people working in small towns in the middle of nowhere, this could upset corporate one horse town hostage economies for many large companies.
They can try (Score:4, Insightful)
It might go great, it might end up being a brain drain, it might change the market dynamics enough to destabilize Silicon Valley as a location (but not an idea). i have heard arguments for all three, but I do not have even a whisp of a guess here.
Just get a forwarding address. (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a shared mailing address in a Manhattan penthouse, so you get the cost of living adjustments for there.
Just like the corps are all 'A Delaware Corporation'
Re: (Score:2)
I know someone who did that.
Re:Just get a forwarding address. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you do that, your state income taxes will be going to the wrong state, which is going to make the state you actually live in very unhappy when they find out you're earning income in that state but not paying taxes. Don't commit tax fraud.
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Right, don't. Be perfectly honest with the tax department(s) about where you live. They are barred by law from ratting you out.
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Exactly!
And in the example, I think there are city income taxes. But you could give them a San Francisco address instead of San Dimas. That would be most excellent. As long as they aren't paying any travel expenses where the real location matters.
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Yes (Score:2)
Also double down and cut even more every time they complain until the problem is gone and nobody is complaining about the low salaries
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Oh yes, they should tell all their AI programmers that in 2 years time, they will be replaced with AI, that will do the trick just fine
No (Score:2)
What this is really about is negotiating power. Businesses sudde
Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as you add back the cost of not having to buy/rent office space, security, parking space, food in the cafeteria, exercise facilities and the taxes on all the previous back to the remote workers.
If you discuss paying people less that work remotely, depending on where they are living, you're gonna have a bad time, because just like shit minimum wage jobs, there's always someone who will pay more to remote workers, just because they're cheaper than office drones and REMF managers.
REMF (Score:2)
they're cheaper than office drones and REMF managers.
What is a REMF manager? Sounds like someone in charge of destructive operators?
INCF managers are the ones who ought to be paid higher!
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they're cheaper than office drones and REMF managers.
What is a REMF manager? Sounds like someone in charge of destructive operators?
INCF managers are the ones who ought to be paid higher!
Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers.
Re: (Score:2)
Rear Echelon Mother F---ers. People who lead from behind.
(* insult (+ injury base-injury)) ;; fuck em ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only should Google pay the employees what they are worth (regardless of location), they should pay them EXTRA for the cost of operating the at-home office. (Unless the employee can get the tax deduction and prefers that.) Office space, desk, supplies, computer and other needed gear, paper shredder, phone headsets and cameras, etc. (They can get away without the housecleaning fees for the space, if there are no clients going the house.)
Most people working from home that I talk to are having to supply not only the space and supplies, but even have to buy their own computer equipment and high-speed Internet service.
When I was a consultant, I rolled all that into my rate. And took the proper tax deductions. But employees are already on salary, and they didn't bargain for also supplying and maintaining an entire office. (And depending on various things, such as how "optional" this at-home office is, they might not be able to even get write-offs.)
The employee should be paid according to the value of their work for the company, plus proper ffice expenses.
Big companies are as a matter of policy always trying to screw the employees on compensation - this is just adding insult to injury. (Well, it's also adding injury to injury....)
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Not only should Google pay the employees what they are worth (regardless of location), they should pay them EXTRA for the cost of operating the at-home office. (Unless the employee can get the tax deduction and prefers that.)
Except that makes NO business sense.
If I can get an American to do the job for $100,000 a year. But I find someone in Bengladesh who can do the same job, should I pay him $100,000 a year? A company is NEVER goign to do that, because the guy would also do it for $50,000.
Compensation has ALWAYS been linked to location.
What is "worth" is not a well defined quantity, it is a complex assessment that is made by both the employer and the employee until they agree on a number. There is not a magic formula that give
Re: (Score:2)
overseas workers are another thing all together.
but what about someone in the bay area vs someone in utah? do you pay both of them $100k?
Are you fuc*ing out of your mind? (Score:2)
I mean: Google doesn't pay the electricity, cleaning, hardware, etc. to workers working at their homes and now Google wants to even cut their salaries?
To what? To gain even more money?
No. (Score:2)
Sure, if... (Score:2)
If Google can prove that they have unquestionably, formulaically and uniformly integrated estimated living costs into salary offers, then ya, decrease the wages for people who people who move out of the area. But if they just say that "we offered high wages assuming they'd live locally and have to pay ridiculous housing expenses", then no, they shouldn't reduce the wages.
Google should not be dicks (Score:2)
Remember the old company slogan "don't be dicks?" Oh, that wasn't quite it. Maybe it should have been.
Happened to me a while ago (Score:5, Informative)
Looks Like Google and Facebook Want to Lose Staff (Score:2)
To say that a person's work is worth X when they live in one area and less in another is pure horse feces. What Google is really revealing, and Facebook too since they have also been toying with this notion to, do not really give a crap about their workers.
Good thing there are other companies who will snatch up these people.
So much for "Don't be evil"
So if I ... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are usually differentials (Score:5, Interesting)
to help make it affordable to live in certain markets - Bay Area, DC, NYC. If you are no longer living in those areas, you shouldn't get the differentials. You were being paid more living in the Bay Area than someone living in Topeka. Now you want to move to Topeka and keep the differential? Would the person originally in Topeka move to the Bay Area without getting a differential? Of course not.
Can google afford to do it? (Score:3)
Assuming they ended their illegal no-call agreement [wikipedia.org], Is google willing to lose their remote employees to whichever FAANG company abandons regional salary adjustments first?
I disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google is smart, it will shelve this idea. So will Facebook,
The less people that work at Facebook (aka Privacy Rapists Inc.), the better.
Commercial Real Estate Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
How about instead we all just pay a tax to bail out the corporate real estate market that is going to tank if we cannot somehow think of the billionaires?
That's effectively what's being discussed: either come work in our overpriced building/city/area because we say so, or get paid less as punishment. That sounds an awful lot like a luxury tax. Maybe it's time to let the market crash. The US is absolutely full of underutilized land. There's really no good reason to force everyone into these shitty cities, it's making everything expensive and making our country less competitive. Let it fail. Ultimately land is and always will be valuable, there are jobs that will necessarily need to be "on-site" and the people that work there should not be paying arbitrarily high premiums for it. Things will balance out eventually as we rediscover how the world can work. Do we really want to keep this shitshow floating?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Where I live has no impact on my employer. This just shows what total scumbags these companies really are.
Yes, but where you live and how much money you make does have an impact on the community around you.
I used to work for a big tech company and made money hand over fist. When I retired, I moved to a backwater town in the mid-west because it had much lower costs of living.
I could have gone into any store in town and bought literally everything off the shelf. Prices were cheap because nobody could afford to pay higher prices.
Of course, buying up everything would have been a super scumbag thing to do. Imagine a
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Now imagine an entire army of rich SOB's coming to every backwater town like that and doing this over and over again as each outlandish paycheck (for the area) gets delivered.
This is the literal solution to stagnant small town economies. You pump money into the business owners who then can hire and expand if they are actually serving all these rich scumbags. There are thousands and thousands of examples of this maybe not helping everyone equally, or sufficiently, but improving the situation overall.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Funny)
So this is how trickle-down economics works!
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not fair, it's not even. But all attempts to force equality have had far worse results for everyone. That said, lack of regulation also has a long history of bad results. You want a happy middle ground. Don't try to force everyone into one category, but don't let folks dump toxic waste into rivers. The most healthy economies aren't pyramids, they're diamonds. Very few ultra rich, very few ultra poor. Most of the wealth being in the middle, who tend to spend small amounts at lots of places. Rather than the ultra rich transferring large amounts to a narrow number of places. $300 million at thousands of businesses employs a lot more than one painting, boat, etc. And grows the economy more.
So yea, lots of folks making Silicon Valley or NYC wages in tiny towns will have an outsized contribution to lots of small towns. And likely grow the entire country's economy rather than keeping it centralized in overpriced small areas.
Re: Yes, but your reason is horse hockey (Score:3)
Re: Yes (Score:3)
I know what you mean, but it could have an impact on employers. Case by case i guess. If you moved an hour out of the city, probably not. If you moved to a different timezone however, it just may. Unless i guess if you were willing to work weird hours where you were to comply with the employment agreement you started with.
I do think these new across the board policy changes are obvious for what theyvare, and i dont think tgey should be retroactively applicable. Should have been discussed before the move.
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I'm guessing most readers of slashdot are in USA and in one of four contiguous timezones, so timezone not really an issue for 90% of them. To take the extreme cases, going from bedroom to den to work for 8:30am-5pm NY company living in California means 5:30am to 2:pm job, not a big deal. Or you're on east coast working 8:30am-5pm for Silicon Valley 11:30am to 8pm, that sounds nice to me.
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Basically, Larry is the self centered scumbag. Everybody takes their lead from him.
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This.
The thing is, employees (salaried staff, not hourly) should be able to work anywhere. Period. At any time.
Hourly staff, there needs to be an actual reason to be at the office at that time, and for tech work that is always "never". Only banks and restaurants operate this way. Clearly you can't deposit physical cash or checks somewhere where the bank doesn't exist, and you can't order food from a restaurant that is 4 hours away.
There is no reason for Google to be in San Francisco. Therefor there is no re
An engineer would presumably use logic (Score:3)
Where I live has no impact on my employer. This just shows what total scumbags these companies really are.
Nope. Companies have to match local conditions to get talent in the first place. If they locate in an area of a high cost of living then salaries have to be adjusted upwards just to get people to relocate. Basically salaries are heavily inflated by where some companies choose to locate.
An engineer would presumably use logic. They understand the above. They would do a comparison of their reduced living expenses, their reduced traffic expenses and associated grief, the improved office conditions (no shitty
Re: (Score:3)
> why would anyone agree to a salary cut?
Because being unemployed sucks.
Re:Pay what the market will bear (Score:4, Insightful)
If the worker is paid less, they should provide less work effort. If a commodity (labor) is worth a certain amount, and you pay less for it, you get less in return.
That's how capitalism works.
After all, the workers are not charities.
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:5, Insightful)
I live and work in the suburbs. My precovid commute was about 25 minutes. My post covid commute is either zero or 15 minutes with reduced traffic.
If my employer were to move offices to downtown Boston and require that I show up at 8 on the dot every morning, they're going to have to pay me a shit ton more than they do now with they're mostly so-long-as-the-work-gets-done system that let me roll in whenever and roll out whenever precovid.
It really works both ways.
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:5, Funny)
> In the downtown Boston case, they're unilaterally altering the deal after the fact, to your detriment.
Pray they don't alter it any further.
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:3)
Uh...yeah...that's exactly my point.
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If the worker is paid less, they should provide less work effort.
That only works until the company replaces you with someone willing to do a better job.
you pay less for it, you get less in return.
Or you take your business elsewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
If the worker is paid less, they should provide less work effort.
That only works until the company replaces you with someone willing to do a better job.
That only works if there is a competent worker willing to do the job for the reduced pay.
you pay less for it, you get less in return.
Or you take your business elsewhere.
Again, that only works if if there is an elsewhere to go to. You seem to consistently argue that the business has sole and ultimate power to set pay rates. That is just not true. You have a weird view of capitalism as a one-way street. If a single player or small group of players can entirely control market prices, then it is not capitalism. I think maybe you are not a capitalist, but rather a corporatist.
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That only works if there is a competent worker willing to do the job for the reduced pay.
There are plenty of competent people in Topeka willing to work for way less than $200k, and Google knows it.
You seem to consistently argue that the business has sole and ultimate power to set pay rates.
Absolutely not. Google has to pay the market rate in order to find employees.
But the "market rate" in Topeka is way less than the market rate in SF.
If you live in Topeka and want to be paid more, move to SF. Trade-in your $200k 4 bedroom house for an $800k studio apt.
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well in theory these workers can refuse renegotiation and find jobs elsewhere that are willing to pay as more than Google.
If those jobs exist, that is great. Google will have to raise salaries to compete.
Google is betting they don't exist, and they are almost certainly correct.
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:3)
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I guess they're betting employees will accept a pay cut without searching for a new job.
Google will win that bet. If you live in Topeka, no "new job" will pay anywhere near a SF-BA tech salary.
Re:Pay what the market will bear (Score:5, Interesting)
If the worker is paid less, they should provide less work effort.
They are currently paid *more* for the same effort. That is what cost of living adjustment is about.
You don't expect people in low cost of living areas to put in less effort. They are also full time employees.
If a commodity (labor) is worth a certain amount, and you pay less for it, you get less in return.
That's how capitalism works.
That is not at all how the labor market works. The value of your labor sets the upper bound for the salary. The lower bound is the lowest amount you are willing to accept. The actual salary will be somewhere in between, and depends on supply and demand. COL adjustments show there can be quite a gap between upper and lower bound.
How would you feel if we live in the same city, do the same job for the same company, but you get paid less than me because you remote in to an office in a low COL area, but I remote in to an office in an expensive area? That's the flip side of keeping the salaries for remote workers.
This is not an easy problem to solve for the companies.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you retarded? Seriously, are you?
They are currently paid *more* for the same effort. That is what cost of living adjustment is about.
Last I checked, $100K = $100K. But then you blubber about Cost of Living and how it's "unfair" that one person can put up with the things you have to give up in a place with a lower cost of living.
Well guess what buttercup, the person in the higher cost area? Nothing is stopping them from moving to a lower cost area too! Well, other than they are spoiled idiots who would rather inconvenience everyone else just so they don't have to have any inconvenience in their own liv
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And as a customer, you don't expect to pay less for google products based on region.
What are you talking about? Almost everything in the entire world have different prices depending on what region you buy it in.
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Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:2)
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:5, Interesting)
That's actually what I think is going to back fire on them the most.
If they have 40% of their work force working from home, how are they going to justify H1B hiring?
Re: Pay what the market will bear (Score:5, Funny)
If they have 40% of their work force working from home, how are they going to justify H1B hiring?
Once they get WFH running smoothly, they can all work from Mumbai.
Re: (Score:2)
If they can cut salaries for remote workers, and still retain and recruit, then that is what they should do.
They can cut salaries for whoever they want, until the bidding war starts. Google is no longer the plum assignment it once was.
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I kinda like the idea of Google cutting the pay for remote workers, because it will likely cause the most talented employees to leave and work somewhere else.
Both Google and Apple have too much power in the tech industry now, and I'm hopeful that their lousy policies towards remote work will cause us to eventually get us a new competitor in the mobile device space.
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So move the fucking office to a more sensible location. Convert the downtown one into a combination museum amusement park, that's nearly what it is now anyway.
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I have people who are working remotely and people who come to the office. People working from home are objectively less productive, what I see is that some are now doing 2 jobs simultaneously. Under these conditions I am considering either cutting their rates and/or not giving raises. Still this is a stupid question for /., the majority here are employees, not employers and this is clearly between Google and its workforce.
Please try to keep people and cut their salaries, I hope lots of "loyal" employees take your offer and stay.
I'm in a Union. (Score:5, Interesting)
I work the FAA. The way they (govt) handles this is you get a base + locality pay for your job description.. so the base depends on your job and your level. Most of the govt uses gs , FAA use core. More or less a GS-11 = G, GS-12 = H, GS-14 = I etc .. whatever your base is. say you are systems analyst H making 75k a year + that locality pay. For most of the us like 90% its the same say 15k so you make 90k. If you are in NY or SF, LA one if the higher locality's to live you get say 30k so now you make 115k a year. It makes sense that you are paid for where you live. I can't just move to NY and ask for higher locality pay. However if I get moved because of my job, they pay automatically goes up.
Thats fair.
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On the other hand I would kinda like to see it happen, but only for vindictive, selfish reasons. Many employees of
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Googler's have not previously been allowed to work from wherever they choose. The situation has changed - if they don't want a pay cut, they can choose to go back to working in the office. Seems some want to have their cake and eat it, too.
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There's a difference. When you started, this pay system was in place and you assented to it. AFAIK, the Google employees have not previously been subject to pay reductions based on location du jour. Google is changing the rules after the game has started. As a comparison, what if the FAA decided it wasn't contributing to the health care and retirement of employees below executive grade?
Really, a googler in Bangalore was always being paid as much as one in San Francisco?
When you sign an employment contract, you also have the location of your employment specified. I.e. you have to show up at 9am at such and such location. If that changes, so can the compensation.
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Of course people expect to be paid more if they are required to live in an expensive location, but they also don't take kindly to pay cuts. Google's problem is that cutting pay makes people feel like they are valued or rewarded, and some of them will leave because of it.
This is Google's fault. They decided to have their campus in an extremely expensive area, so ended up having to pay very high wages and offer a lot of benefits. They could have kept wages down by having offices in cheaper areas, but decided
Re:Bollocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
People communicate more effectively face to face. Fact.
I don't. Fact.
It requires extra effort on my side to actually "read" a person sitting with me at a table. I generally don't get any additional information from this compared to a written conversation. I am thus at an advantage in any written conversation, much like a blind person would be at an advantage fighting in a pitch black room.
I'm used to that lack of information.