In case author is reading this thread: > When I told her the story, my girlfriend argued that HR should have found a term that conveyed the meaning of “discoun

In case author is reading this thread: > When I told her the story, my girlfriend argued that HR should have found a term that conveyed the meaning of “discount” without its negative feeling. > I think this is impossible. Employees in some locations are paid less than employees in other locations, and that kinda sucks for the lesser-paid employees to remember. Any word that accurately conveys the situation will also convey it kinda sucks. An example of term you can use is ”high ROI location”. Conveys HR-magical-thinking that the company invests in its employees (ha), and that the output from Detroit is better return on investment than the output from New York.* Further, since ROI is the actual thinking that has — for instance — all the banks moving from New York to Houston and Tampa, so unlike much of corporate speak, it doesn’t bring that 1984 black-is-white dissonance if you understand what’s really going on. Finally, well paid individuals from Brooklyn and San Jose are moving to e.g. Buffalo or Minneapolis for the ROI. The term “high ROI location” is a location classification that makes them feel clever, not bad. *. There’s a better algo than median pay or cost of living for where to put your headquarters: (talent pool x domain learning opptys) per median salary rate. If you are doing knowledge work there’s no point in moving your HQ to discount low-cost towns without a vibrant ecosystem of similar domain firms and independent meetups for the crafts needed by the firm. This tends to surface not just Austin, Charlotte, or San Diego, but even more so, Kyiv or Minsk. **. If you want to use an employee-centric term instead of a company-centric term, use “affordable” and the word “location”: https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/2022-most-affordable-small-towns-also-desirable/ https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/2022-most-affordable-sma...