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That is similar to paying an employee more because they have children and need it more.
by systemtest 7y ago
That is similar to paying an employee more because they have children and need it more.
- dudul 7y agoI've never heard of a company doing that.
- dx034 7y agoAnd yet, a lot of remote companies pay differently based on location. I'm also not quite sure why the choice of location should be factored in but family planning not. Paying the same, regardless of location, would maybe motivate some people to move away from crowded areas, one of the big chances remote work offers.
- fernandotakai 7y agoi remember one company (i wanna say basecamp?) that pays everyone as if they lived in the bay area. i found that to be super amazing -- if they are profiting like bay area companies, why not also pay like bay area companies?
- davnicwil 7y agoI think the standard argument is not that they're paying according to need, they're paying according to market norms. Thing is, in high cost of living areas the living cost is extremely pegged to job opportunities, it's almost tautological. Where there are more job opportunities, you have to pay people more to stop them working for competitors. A confounding factor is a hypothesised (not sure if backed by data) trend of talent concentration - that is, areas with lots of job opportunities attract most of the most talented people, driving salaries up further. All that's to say, if Gitlab want to hire someone living in such an area, the market dictates they must pay more in order to attract that person over a local competitor (for jobs). It's not due to the person needing the money more for a higher cost of living, at all.
- imsofuture 7y agoGitlab's idea of market norms is "market where you live + us, literally the only company that hires remote in the world". Spoiler: that only works hiring those who are ignorant of the remote employment market.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoAssuming I'm currently ignorant of the remote employment market, where would I go to find data or job listings that would give me a sense of what competitive rates are for remote engineers?
- imsofuture 7y agoI'm not sure there's a great canonical and generalized source of this information. Anecdotally, 7 years ago, remote, at a bootstrapped 15 person company, I made ~10% more than the absolute max Gitlab would pay me right now. The difference is wildly worse now.
- stubish 7y agoWhat is never factored in is the feeling of resentment people get for doing the same or better work for less pay. While companies can rationalize these pay scales and maybe even require them to be sustainable, loyalty and engagement suffers noticeably.
- Crontab 7y agoThe only one I know of is the military.
- systemtest 7y agoIf your boss asks you to work overtime or on the weekends, explaining that you need to bring the kids to soccer is a more convincing argument than explaining that your WoW guild is depending on you for a raid. Having kids is hard but may make things easier at the office.
- austhrow743 7y agoNot unless there's an incredibly strong link between having children and having strong alternative employment prospects. Which I don't have data on but doubt, and if I had to take a guess would assume actually works the other way. That the childless have more options.
- imsofuture 7y agoThis is a bad argument, because there are many other remote employers. I do not live in a low CoL area because I'm from here and never left, nor did I move here to save money. I moved here because I was able to keep a high paying career, and live somewhere I wanted to live. Gitlab is flat-out non-competitive.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- caymanjim 7y agoThere is an incredibly strong link between having children and alternative employment prospects. People with kids in school have complicated scheduling needs and can't easily relocate, unless they homeschool all their kids.