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One of the problems I've always had with remote work is how do you justify large differences in pay between the US, Europe, and Asia if the location of an emplo

One of the problems I've always had with remote work is how do you justify large differences in pay between the US, Europe, and Asia if the location of an employee is not supposed to matter?

mardifoufs 4y ago
Some people have convinced themselves that they are amongst best simply because they are paid a lot, which obviously means that they deserve the pay no matter where they are. So they can just work remotely, because it doesn't change the value they produce, right? And look I'm all for extracting maximum pay from employers, but it's a bit delusional to not realize that it was mostly because they were in silicon valley/the west coast that the pay was so high. Not because they were literally leagues ahead of everyone else. I'm sure there is a much higher concentration of top talent in SV, but the pay was, at least in part still, inherently due to the location. The weird part is that it is usually highly paid techies that push so hard for fully (out of state, or even international) remote work. A position which to me is completely against our own self-interests, because it takes for granted salaries that surely won't adjust to international competition because they just...won't?
- selfmodruntime 4y ago
  Paying people obscene wages in SV really makes them overestimate their own abilities by a large margin.
ProjectArcturis 4y ago
The C-Suite has been trying to outsource for 30+ years now. It doesn't work because the talent just isn't there.
- matwood 4y ago
  There's talent, but unless the company is huge and can open a whole office, things like time zones, culture and language are very hard to overcome. And to your point, the most talented come to the US where they can make the most money.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I work with a company that has an office in Inida. It is really hard to manage people in that office, the timezone means that just to have a conversation someone needs to work bad hours. I've had to be in 5:30am meetings to catch them before them get home, other times they have put their kids to bed and then called me. The only way you can make this work is if the people "there" are mostly self directed. that means the management needs to be able to make the right decisions when faced with a question, without calling back to "the main office". If any of the words or similar phrases are uttered it cannot work.
  - piva00 4y ago
    > And to your point, the most talented come to the US where they can make the most money. I don't agree with the "most talented". For sure a lot of talented people move to the US as they can make more money but that's a subset of the talented people, a subset that intersects with the ones that are willing to work harder/longer, or with less social benefits, etc. I've worked with a lot of talented individuals that were unwilling to relocate to the US even though they could get much better pay, simply because they were happy enough in their societies and weren't all in chasing only money. Different people value different things, reducing that to a simple transactional value is rather inhumane.
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  For most it is working because talent is not what they are looking for, but cheap labor. I saw companies that prefer to pay 3 people in India to deliver less than 1 person in UK just because they want to have people in low cost locations no matter what the productivity is. They believe most/all people are equal in skills and output, it is linked to the the "equality" part of DEI.

One of the problems I've always had with remote work is how do you justify large differences in pay between the US, Europe, and Asia if the location of an employee is not supposed to matter?

mardifoufs 4y ago

Some people have convinced themselves that they are amongst best simply because they are paid a lot, which obviously means that they deserve the pay no matter where they are. So they can just work remotely, because it doesn't change the value they produce, right? And look I'm all for extracting maximum pay from employers, but it's a bit delusional to not realize that it was mostly because they were in silicon valley/the west coast that the pay was so high. Not because they were literally leagues ahead of everyone else. I'm sure there is a much higher concentration of top talent in SV, but the pay was, at least in part still, inherently due to the location. The weird part is that it is usually highly paid techies that push so hard for fully (out of state, or even international) remote work. A position which to me is completely against our own self-interests, because it takes for granted salaries that surely won't adjust to international competition because they just...won't?

selfmodruntime 4y ago
Paying people obscene wages in SV really makes them overestimate their own abilities by a large margin.

ProjectArcturis 4y ago

The C-Suite has been trying to outsource for 30+ years now. It doesn't work because the talent just isn't there.

matwood 4y ago
There's talent, but unless the company is huge and can open a whole office, things like time zones, culture and language are very hard to overcome. And to your point, the most talented come to the US where they can make the most money.
- bluGill 4y ago
  I work with a company that has an office in Inida. It is really hard to manage people in that office, the timezone means that just to have a conversation someone needs to work bad hours. I've had to be in 5:30am meetings to catch them before them get home, other times they have put their kids to bed and then called me. The only way you can make this work is if the people "there" are mostly self directed. that means the management needs to be able to make the right decisions when faced with a question, without calling back to "the main office". If any of the words or similar phrases are uttered it cannot work.
- piva00 4y ago
  > And to your point, the most talented come to the US where they can make the most money. I don't agree with the "most talented". For sure a lot of talented people move to the US as they can make more money but that's a subset of the talented people, a subset that intersects with the ones that are willing to work harder/longer, or with less social benefits, etc. I've worked with a lot of talented individuals that were unwilling to relocate to the US even though they could get much better pay, simply because they were happy enough in their societies and weren't all in chasing only money. Different people value different things, reducing that to a simple transactional value is rather inhumane.
AdrianB1 4y ago
For most it is working because talent is not what they are looking for, but cheap labor. I saw companies that prefer to pay 3 people in India to deliver less than 1 person in UK just because they want to have people in low cost locations no matter what the productivity is. They believe most/all people are equal in skills and output, it is linked to the the "equality" part of DEI.