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1. "change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay" => that would be fraudulent 2. "What about when moving

by sytse 7y ago

1. "change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay" => that would be fraudulent 2. "What about when moving, are employees' pays docked too?" => Please see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-compensation/#relocating https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c... 3. "Compensation should be based on output performance and the difficulties and complexity of the work being done." => Opinions differ about this across companies and some of them like Basecamp use your method. For our take Please see the section "Standard pay eats away at production and personnel" in https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/ https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/

coryfklein 7y ago
Re: relocation The justification in the link essentially sounds to me like, "If you worked in the office at another company and moved to a lower cost of living city you'd also get your pay docked. We do the same because we're following the precedent and because you don't have other options." This fails to mention the flip side - we developers do have other options. There are certainly SF companies I'm aware of that will be happy to outbid Gitlab's desire to pay a software engineer $75k because they moved to rural Nebraska.
- sytse 7y ago
  I agree that more and more companies will start hiring remotely and the market will get more competitive. As I said in the blog post: "I hope the distance between those stances becomes smaller as more companies offer remote work opportunities."
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    In other words: "we pay less because we feel that's what we can get away with. if we face more competition in the future, we might have to pay more, but right now we don't see that competition". Interesting, but admittedly honest perspective from a CEO.
  - Raphmedia 7y ago
    I understand the reason and how it is a necessary evil. But it's still an evil. Simply put, it is discrimination. Paying the poor less and the wealthy more. It makes no sense that two employees with the same workload and same credentials would get a different pay based on their primary address' geolocation. Just off the top of my head : - Employee resides at their rich parent's home and get a higher pay vs. employee move near their mother's elderly care center in a ghetto and dock their pay. - Employee lives alone with no dependents in a high pay area vs. employee being a single-parent in a low pay area. - Employee lives on a native reservation and get less pay. - Employee lives in a co-location in a high pay area vs. employee lives alone in a low pay area. - Employee has impressive credentials in a low pay area vs. employee with no credential living in a high pay area. - etc. This is nothing more than a loophole that allows you to give a bonus to employees living in high pay areas while keeping a clear conscience. If anything, kudos for being open about the whole situation.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Compensation is never about "fairness". It's about what you can negotiate.
  - imsofuture 7y ago
    It is competitive, but you don't see that competition because you flat-out tell people you won't pay them competitively. I would never consider Gitlab for that reason, it just doesn't make financial sense. Money isn't everything, I've certainly taken a significant paycut to take a job I wanted and believed in. But I'd have to take a 50% paycut to work at Gitlab, so... no thanks. And worse yet, you'd openly pay a city dweller on my team twice as much to do the same work.
    - literallycancer 7y ago
      They most likely pay competitive rates if you ask for them. They can't really lose anything by having a document with compensation rules for the gullible folk that fall for the "rules apply to everyone" spiel.
- scarface74 7y ago
  If you have other options and Gitlab wants you bad enough, it's just boils down to regular negotiations.
Raphmedia 7y ago
> 1. "change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay" => that would be fraudulent Would it be though? If my legal address is a small apartment shared with 5 other individuals in a city I never go to, there's no legal reason pushing me to disclose any secondary housing I might own. Another reason for such as situation is someone being homeless/nomad and having their address set to some organization or PO box in the city.
- diminoten 7y ago
  Not illegal necessarily, but still fraudulent.
  - Raphmedia 7y ago
    You would have to explain to me how providing your legal address could be constituted fraud.
    - txcwpalpha 7y ago
      An employee at GitLab clearly knows that their compensation is based on their address, and is done so because the compensation is matched to local cost of living. Doing anything (including giving an address, even a legal one) that artificially changes their compensation so that it doesn't match their local cost of living is knowingly deceptive, which is the definition of fraud. To be clear, I wholeheartedly disagree with GitLab's practice of docking people's pay just because they live somewhere cheaper (are they charging less to companies who are based in cheaper COL areas? no), but their policy is still their policy, and fraud is fraud.
      - Raphmedia 7y ago
        Would this be any different if the employee actually lived there? Say they own a house in a rural town that has been handed down from their parents, yet they decide to live in an apartment in some big city. They receive an interesting job offer and start working remote at Gitlab but haven't changed their legal address. Suddenly, they paycheck is reduced unless they disclose their secondary address and somehow make it their main address. Should that employee be required to sell their house? I would say no. Well, it's no different if you live in a big apartment out of town and decide to rent a cheap broken down apartment in the city. What if the employee does not have a fixed address? Are they fired on the spot? Perhaps never hired out of discrimination? Is their pay adjusted for each city they drive their van to? Do the employer require them to stop travelling? What if that person's fixed address is already registered at some organisation or mail center in a "high pay area"? Should they be required to change it to a "low pay area" to be ethical?

by sytse 7y ago

coryfklein 7y ago

Re: relocation The justification in the link essentially sounds to me like, "If you worked in the office at another company and moved to a lower cost of living city you'd also get your pay docked. We do the same because we're following the precedent and because you don't have other options." This fails to mention the flip side - we developers do have other options. There are certainly SF companies I'm aware of that will be happy to outbid Gitlab's desire to pay a software engineer $75k because they moved to rural Nebraska.

sytse 7y ago
I agree that more and more companies will start hiring remotely and the market will get more competitive. As I said in the blog post: "I hope the distance between those stances becomes smaller as more companies offer remote work opportunities."
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  In other words: "we pay less because we feel that's what we can get away with. if we face more competition in the future, we might have to pay more, but right now we don't see that competition". Interesting, but admittedly honest perspective from a CEO.
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  I understand the reason and how it is a necessary evil. But it's still an evil. Simply put, it is discrimination. Paying the poor less and the wealthy more. It makes no sense that two employees with the same workload and same credentials would get a different pay based on their primary address' geolocation. Just off the top of my head : - Employee resides at their rich parent's home and get a higher pay vs. employee move near their mother's elderly care center in a ghetto and dock their pay. - Employee lives alone with no dependents in a high pay area vs. employee being a single-parent in a low pay area. - Employee lives on a native reservation and get less pay. - Employee lives in a co-location in a high pay area vs. employee lives alone in a low pay area. - Employee has impressive credentials in a low pay area vs. employee with no credential living in a high pay area. - etc. This is nothing more than a loophole that allows you to give a bonus to employees living in high pay areas while keeping a clear conscience. If anything, kudos for being open about the whole situation.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Compensation is never about "fairness". It's about what you can negotiate.
- imsofuture 7y ago
  It is competitive, but you don't see that competition because you flat-out tell people you won't pay them competitively. I would never consider Gitlab for that reason, it just doesn't make financial sense. Money isn't everything, I've certainly taken a significant paycut to take a job I wanted and believed in. But I'd have to take a 50% paycut to work at Gitlab, so... no thanks. And worse yet, you'd openly pay a city dweller on my team twice as much to do the same work.
  - literallycancer 7y ago
    They most likely pay competitive rates if you ask for them. They can't really lose anything by having a document with compensation rules for the gullible folk that fall for the "rules apply to everyone" spiel.
scarface74 7y ago
If you have other options and Gitlab wants you bad enough, it's just boils down to regular negotiations.

Raphmedia 7y ago

> 1. "change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay" => that would be fraudulent Would it be though? If my legal address is a small apartment shared with 5 other individuals in a city I never go to, there's no legal reason pushing me to disclose any secondary housing I might own. Another reason for such as situation is someone being homeless/nomad and having their address set to some organization or PO box in the city.

diminoten 7y ago
Not illegal necessarily, but still fraudulent.
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  You would have to explain to me how providing your legal address could be constituted fraud.
  - txcwpalpha 7y ago
    An employee at GitLab clearly knows that their compensation is based on their address, and is done so because the compensation is matched to local cost of living. Doing anything (including giving an address, even a legal one) that artificially changes their compensation so that it doesn't match their local cost of living is knowingly deceptive, which is the definition of fraud. To be clear, I wholeheartedly disagree with GitLab's practice of docking people's pay just because they live somewhere cheaper (are they charging less to companies who are based in cheaper COL areas? no), but their policy is still their policy, and fraud is fraud.
    - Raphmedia 7y ago
      Would this be any different if the employee actually lived there? Say they own a house in a rural town that has been handed down from their parents, yet they decide to live in an apartment in some big city. They receive an interesting job offer and start working remote at Gitlab but haven't changed their legal address. Suddenly, they paycheck is reduced unless they disclose their secondary address and somehow make it their main address. Should that employee be required to sell their house? I would say no. Well, it's no different if you live in a big apartment out of town and decide to rent a cheap broken down apartment in the city. What if the employee does not have a fixed address? Are they fired on the spot? Perhaps never hired out of discrimination? Is their pay adjusted for each city they drive their van to? Do the employer require them to stop travelling? What if that person's fixed address is already registered at some organisation or mail center in a "high pay area"? Should they be required to change it to a "low pay area" to be ethical?