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> “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this ‘I’m in Colorado . . . and getting paid like I’m sitting in New York City,’” he s

> “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this ‘I’m in Colorado . . . and getting paid like I’m sitting in New York City,’” he said. This is interesting. I wonder if companies will start to try and tier wages according to where the possible new hire resides.

reallydontask 5y ago
The British civil service has London and National salaries. I think based on your home address but not sure.
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  And in academia and many large companies with standard rates of pay - “London Weighting”
wrs 5y ago
“Start to try?” Many, many companies do this.
alexives 5y ago
This is definitely done already. GitLab (where I work as an engineer) has done it for a number of years. They used to publish the numbers and ranges for every role/location but they made it internal only a year or so back for reasons that I can't remember. You can still see the old calculator thanks to the internet archive - https://web.archive.org/web/20200606161551/https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/calculator/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200606161551/https://about.git... I don't want to debate whether this is the best approach in terms of treating employees fairly, but it certainly seems to have it's advantages for the company - they get to save money by hiring people in places with a lower compensation rate.
- danenania 5y ago
  Apart from saving money, another aspect of their reasoning iirc was that paying a single rate would create a very lopsided team in terms of geography: the company would be offering the “best” salary to employees in the lowest cost of living places, and so the incentives would lead these places to be dramatically over-represented relative to higher cost of living places. That’s the theory anyway. I haven’t heard people in favor of geography-agnostic salaries address this concern, which seems legitimate from the company’s perspective. I suppose there are tradeoffs either way.
  - throw_away 5y ago
    > paying a single rate would create a very lopsided team in terms of geography > the incentives would lead these places to be dramatically over-represented relative to higher cost of living places. vs. the not-at-all-lopsided and equally-represented status quo, where everyone lived in the same high-cost-of-living city?
    - danenania 5y ago
      That’s not even close to the status quo for most distributed companies—-it definitely isn’t for Gitlab.
    - pksebben 5y ago
      So much this. I'm still hoping for the work-from-home revolution's best possible side effect: the leveling of the political playing field as safe districts get flooded with politically urban expats.
      - danenania 5y ago
        Unless a company limits its hiring to the US, the entire country can be described as “high cost of living” in terms of the incentive I’m describing. Imagine a company offering a simple 100k geography-agnostic salary for an engineer. They’ll get some junior-to-mid-level candidates applying from lower cost of living places in the US, sure, and they’ll also get a lot of excellent senior applicants from India, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. If they hire based only on merit, they likely won’t be hiring from the US at all.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  +1 this is already being done at some large tech companies.
throwawaysea 5y ago
It is frustrating and illogical. Why do companies think they can do this to individual workers instead of just trading money for value? Imagine if a company suggested doing this in a B2B contract - it wouldn’t work and it would look absolutely absurd: “Oh your company is in Backcountry Town, Flyover State? Well we will pay 20% less for your widgets then.”
- lordnacho 5y ago
  But that is what happens via negotiation, isn't it? Just like people in lower cost countries can accept lower pay and sometimes do, there are firms with lower cost bases that can accept lower offers for their widgets and sometimes do so. Inflexible entities either find someone willing to pay up or they have to find something else to do.
- CleverLikeAnOx 5y ago
  Outsourcing is an attempt to do exactly that.
- throwaways885 5y ago
  There's two reasons IMO. The first is that being in-person is valuable to many companies, enough so they're willing to pay a significant premium for it. If you're remote, then you get less. The second is that it's all about negotiation. Companies by and large have the upper hand here, and would pay much lower wages if they could. FAANGs do not pay 2-300k salaries for fun, but because of the local competition. Software developers are finally getting a taste of what the average citizen has to deal with compensation-wise, no wonder people are reacting badly.
  - tayo42 5y ago
    Don't we have more competition for employers now though. That's what I don't get. I have a whole world of companies to work remotely at, judging by my inbox alot want me. They will of course have to give me a pay increase to move. this seems logical to me but not to hr departments. Or even morale, is making your employees unhappy worth 30k a year.
  - 5y ago
kelnos 5y ago
This is already happening. Even existing employees who moved to a lower cost area during the pandemic have seen their salary cut at many employers.
- speedster217 5y ago
  Yep that happened to me when I moved to be closer to family

reallydontask 5y ago

The British civil service has London and National salaries. I think based on your home address but not sure.

helsinkiandrew 5y ago
And in academia and many large companies with standard rates of pay - “London Weighting”

wrs 5y ago

“Start to try?” Many, many companies do this.

alexives 5y ago

This is definitely done already. GitLab (where I work as an engineer) has done it for a number of years. They used to publish the numbers and ranges for every role/location but they made it internal only a year or so back for reasons that I can't remember. You can still see the old calculator thanks to the internet archive - https://web.archive.org/web/20200606161551/https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/calculator/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200606161551/https://about.git... I don't want to debate whether this is the best approach in terms of treating employees fairly, but it certainly seems to have it's advantages for the company - they get to save money by hiring people in places with a lower compensation rate.

danenania 5y ago
Apart from saving money, another aspect of their reasoning iirc was that paying a single rate would create a very lopsided team in terms of geography: the company would be offering the “best” salary to employees in the lowest cost of living places, and so the incentives would lead these places to be dramatically over-represented relative to higher cost of living places. That’s the theory anyway. I haven’t heard people in favor of geography-agnostic salaries address this concern, which seems legitimate from the company’s perspective. I suppose there are tradeoffs either way.
- throw_away 5y ago
  > paying a single rate would create a very lopsided team in terms of geography > the incentives would lead these places to be dramatically over-represented relative to higher cost of living places. vs. the not-at-all-lopsided and equally-represented status quo, where everyone lived in the same high-cost-of-living city?
  - danenania 5y ago
    That’s not even close to the status quo for most distributed companies—-it definitely isn’t for Gitlab.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    So much this. I'm still hoping for the work-from-home revolution's best possible side effect: the leveling of the political playing field as safe districts get flooded with politically urban expats.
    - danenania 5y ago
      Unless a company limits its hiring to the US, the entire country can be described as “high cost of living” in terms of the incentive I’m describing. Imagine a company offering a simple 100k geography-agnostic salary for an engineer. They’ll get some junior-to-mid-level candidates applying from lower cost of living places in the US, sure, and they’ll also get a lot of excellent senior applicants from India, Eastern Europe, Latin America, etc. If they hire based only on merit, they likely won’t be hiring from the US at all.
seanp2k2 5y ago
+1 this is already being done at some large tech companies.

throwawaysea 5y ago

It is frustrating and illogical. Why do companies think they can do this to individual workers instead of just trading money for value? Imagine if a company suggested doing this in a B2B contract - it wouldn’t work and it would look absolutely absurd: “Oh your company is in Backcountry Town, Flyover State? Well we will pay 20% less for your widgets then.”

lordnacho 5y ago
But that is what happens via negotiation, isn't it? Just like people in lower cost countries can accept lower pay and sometimes do, there are firms with lower cost bases that can accept lower offers for their widgets and sometimes do so. Inflexible entities either find someone willing to pay up or they have to find something else to do.
CleverLikeAnOx 5y ago
Outsourcing is an attempt to do exactly that.
throwaways885 5y ago
There's two reasons IMO. The first is that being in-person is valuable to many companies, enough so they're willing to pay a significant premium for it. If you're remote, then you get less. The second is that it's all about negotiation. Companies by and large have the upper hand here, and would pay much lower wages if they could. FAANGs do not pay 2-300k salaries for fun, but because of the local competition. Software developers are finally getting a taste of what the average citizen has to deal with compensation-wise, no wonder people are reacting badly.
- tayo42 5y ago
  Don't we have more competition for employers now though. That's what I don't get. I have a whole world of companies to work remotely at, judging by my inbox alot want me. They will of course have to give me a pay increase to move. this seems logical to me but not to hr departments. Or even morale, is making your employees unhappy worth 30k a year.
- 5y ago

kelnos 5y ago

This is already happening. Even existing employees who moved to a lower cost area during the pandemic have seen their salary cut at many employers.

speedster217 5y ago
Yep that happened to me when I moved to be closer to family