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I don't get your reasoning on why you expect that people will have to take a pay cut for working remotely. Would have thought it would be the opposite. Office s

I don't get your reasoning on why you expect that people will have to take a pay cut for working remotely. Would have thought it would be the opposite. Office space, hardware and energy cost a bit.

willio58 5y ago
This will only happen at companies that required people to live in extremely expensive areas like silicone valley. I’m not in that situation, but I’d quit immediately and go somewhere else. For example Google is doing this, there is no reason Google needs to save money on these developers. None at all.
hiddencache 5y ago
Managers cite efficiency losses in terms of communication, team building, training new staff, and idea generation in general. Not my arguments, just what I've seen written...
- Spare_account 5y ago
  The reasons you've cited ought to be reasons for an employer to require office attendance. If employees are less efficient when working from home, then they shouldn't be offered full-time wfh. As I understand it, the rationale behind offering pay-cuts to full time wfh employees is that the pay cut is relative to the employee's lower cost of living. The employer sees an opportunity to avoid including the cost-of-living salary-uplift that is required to attract people to San Francisco etc.
code_duck 5y ago
It sounded unfair and summer opportunistic to me at first too, since like you say, employers could be saving a lot of money by having you use your house as an office. The rationale that Google is citing is that they pay based on location. They say remote workers will make the same as office workers in the same city, which sounds reasonable.
oblio 5y ago
Ah, that's easy. The negotiating power of a company, which is practically a group of people, is much higher than that of employees, which are just 1 person. A big company loses what? 0.00001% of its revenue if it doesn't hire the right person for a specific position? An employee loses 100% of their revenue if they don't get hired or get fired. So companies can pretty much do what they want (up to a point where they cause uproar and those individuals to bunch up into a group fighting the company).
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  This is mistaken. Companies need good employees, and particularly skilled developers. If you're a skilled developer, I urge you to exercise your negotiation power. You have much more than you think. The problem is, most people aren't willing to walk from job offers. Walk. There are more.
  - Cookingboy 5y ago
    > and particularly skilled developers. skilled developers are much more common than people think. We get the impression of rarity precisely because we limit the search pool to local areas where very often many top companies are competing for the same talent pool. But at the end of the day there are a ton of super smart developers in EU, China, India, Japan, South America or even lower to mid COL areas in the U.S. who are more than happy to take 50% of Silicon Valley pay and just do as well of a job. At the very end of the day vast majority of software engineering is far from rocket science, and you don't need someone who can re-invent MapReduce out of thin air just to refactor that clusterfuck of Redux code.
    - joelbluminator 5y ago
      There's not much need to outsource as long as companies are swimming in cheap money. For most U.S companies dev money is barely an issue and in Europe they mostly don't earn that much to begin with. If this bubble bursts then yeah painful changes will likely come.
    - laszlojamf 5y ago
mytailorisrich 5y ago
How much employers may save is not really relevant. What's relevant is what employees want and are willing to accept. If people prefer remote work and that also saves them time and money then they will probably be willing to accept a lower salary than they will for the same job on-site. IMHO that's the logic of companies that are suggesting pay cuts for employees that won't come back to the office.
kube-system 5y ago
Wages are more determined by supply/demand of labor and less so by the value generated. You’ll make comparatively less working remotely because the pool of workers willing to work remote are higher in supply. Office jobs will be forced to offer higher wages because their supply of candidates has shrunk.

I don't get your reasoning on why you expect that people will have to take a pay cut for working remotely. Would have thought it would be the opposite. Office space, hardware and energy cost a bit.

willio58 5y ago

This will only happen at companies that required people to live in extremely expensive areas like silicone valley. I’m not in that situation, but I’d quit immediately and go somewhere else. For example Google is doing this, there is no reason Google needs to save money on these developers. None at all.

hiddencache 5y ago

Managers cite efficiency losses in terms of communication, team building, training new staff, and idea generation in general. Not my arguments, just what I've seen written...

Spare_account 5y ago
The reasons you've cited ought to be reasons for an employer to require office attendance. If employees are less efficient when working from home, then they shouldn't be offered full-time wfh. As I understand it, the rationale behind offering pay-cuts to full time wfh employees is that the pay cut is relative to the employee's lower cost of living. The employer sees an opportunity to avoid including the cost-of-living salary-uplift that is required to attract people to San Francisco etc.

code_duck 5y ago

It sounded unfair and summer opportunistic to me at first too, since like you say, employers could be saving a lot of money by having you use your house as an office. The rationale that Google is citing is that they pay based on location. They say remote workers will make the same as office workers in the same city, which sounds reasonable.

oblio 5y ago

Ah, that's easy. The negotiating power of a company, which is practically a group of people, is much higher than that of employees, which are just 1 person. A big company loses what? 0.00001% of its revenue if it doesn't hire the right person for a specific position? An employee loses 100% of their revenue if they don't get hired or get fired. So companies can pretty much do what they want (up to a point where they cause uproar and those individuals to bunch up into a group fighting the company).

sillysaurusx 5y ago
This is mistaken. Companies need good employees, and particularly skilled developers. If you're a skilled developer, I urge you to exercise your negotiation power. You have much more than you think. The problem is, most people aren't willing to walk from job offers. Walk. There are more.
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  > and particularly skilled developers. skilled developers are much more common than people think. We get the impression of rarity precisely because we limit the search pool to local areas where very often many top companies are competing for the same talent pool. But at the end of the day there are a ton of super smart developers in EU, China, India, Japan, South America or even lower to mid COL areas in the U.S. who are more than happy to take 50% of Silicon Valley pay and just do as well of a job. At the very end of the day vast majority of software engineering is far from rocket science, and you don't need someone who can re-invent MapReduce out of thin air just to refactor that clusterfuck of Redux code.
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    There's not much need to outsource as long as companies are swimming in cheap money. For most U.S companies dev money is barely an issue and in Europe they mostly don't earn that much to begin with. If this bubble bursts then yeah painful changes will likely come.
  - laszlojamf 5y ago

mytailorisrich 5y ago

How much employers may save is not really relevant. What's relevant is what employees want and are willing to accept. If people prefer remote work and that also saves them time and money then they will probably be willing to accept a lower salary than they will for the same job on-site. IMHO that's the logic of companies that are suggesting pay cuts for employees that won't come back to the office.

kube-system 5y ago

Wages are more determined by supply/demand of labor and less so by the value generated. You’ll make comparatively less working remotely because the pool of workers willing to work remote are higher in supply. Office jobs will be forced to offer higher wages because their supply of candidates has shrunk.