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As someone who gave up 15% of his salary when moving from Germany to Sweden, let me give you a different perspective on location-based pay. 1. How much do you
by anticristi 6y ago
As someone who gave up 15% of his salary when moving from Germany to Sweden, let me give you a different perspective on location-based pay.
1. How much do you value commuting by bike 15 minutes, instead of taking the tube for one hour?
2. How much do you value walking 15 minutes to the nearest forest, instead of being surrounded by highways, buildings and artificial parks?
3. How much do you value having a proper lunch break, instead of taking a sandwich in front of the computer?
4. How much do you value your male CEO regularly staying home with sick kids, instead of women getting that task by default?
5. How much do you value not having to see beggars and homeless people everywhere you look?
6. How much do you value living in a 9-5 culture, instead of a "constant death march" one?
7. How much do you value pedestrians being given priority, instead of a honk?
8. How much do you value breathing in fresh air, instead of getting smog alerts every week?
I could go on and on.
Once you put a value on all of the above, location-based pay actually makes sense. Maybe not based on your exact zip code, but when moving from a large city to a smaller city, or from one country to another, you get certain things "for free" that you might value more than total compensation.
- locuscoeruleus 6y agoYou gave up 15% of your salary to work in a company where, presumably, everyone earns 15% less than your previous salary. Would you accept earning swedish wages working remote from sweden in a german company?
- xyzelement 6y agoI bet he would, because he's saying "this is the quality of life I want and this is the price I am willing to pay to get it." In your book "I want to live in Sweeden. I am happy to give up 15% less. But I won't do it to somehow spite my company for paying more to its German employees." He's be an idiot to think like that.
- anticristi 6y agoWell, if I work as hard as a small-town Swede, with the quality of life of a small town Swede, then it makes sense to me to work at Swedish rate for a German company.
- Aeolun 6y agoI feel like you should be able to get all of those in Germany too? At least it doesn’t sound at all representative. More likely you switched from a bad company to a good one.
- anticristi 6y agoUnfortunately, I don't have sufficient data to compare, but I believe that big cities come with a "work hard, play hard" attitude that is not for everyone.
- runarberg 6y agoI think this is a false dichotomy. In reality if your employer can afford to pay you this salary while you live in Germany, they should be able to pay you the same salary in Sweden (before taxes). So in reality without location based pay you can have all that without taking a paycut. Another way to look at it, if these social changes were to happen in Germany, would you expect salaries to go down as a result?
- anticristi 6y agoIf Germany started handing out 480 days of parental leave per child and virtually unlimited "stay at home with sick child", plus a culture where everyone contributes equally to parenting, then I would definitely expect the overall German (net) salary to go down.