5 ms·

Money talks, bullshit walks. If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remune

Money talks, bullshit walks. If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remuneration. If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site; but if not, then those are just empty words, not real preferences. On the other hand, I do see employees choosing a lower-paid role/employer just to ensure remote work, so that preference seems genuine.

BossingAround 3y ago
> If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site That would effectively mean increasing salary of the current employees that choose to go to the office by 20%. Alternatively, that'd mean reducing salary of current employees that choose not to. Either way, that seems like a horribly inefficient way to deal with the problem. Most companies choose much more subtle approaches, such as: 0) Stop hiring remote -> build a new workforce that does not expect remote conditions 1) Mandate RTO (just like Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, and others did) 2) Start putting people who do not respect RTO on PIP, or on some other bullshit process that'll threaten to fire those that do not conform while giving you, the company, enough time to replace them with new hires. 3) Slowly and silently follow through 2) until remote is a thing for <10-15% of the workforce. This gives the company a number of advantages, such as: 1) Not appearing evil 2) Not dealing with disruptions caused by mass employee exit Companies that really want RTO don't have to do it in a "big bang" way. Such companies would rather do it silently while telling you how they value your opinions on what the future workplace policy should be. They'll get away with it IIF point 0 is possible. I hope it is not, but who knows.
- zer8k 3y ago
  My company had a mandatory come-to-office for every but people who are truly remote. For the truly remote (e.g. me) they cut all fringe benefits. They also have gone out of their way to find subtle ways to rub it in our face: expensive lunches and dinners for people who come in, all "fun events" happen locally and to attend you have to pay your own way, etc. So remote workers like me are second-class citizens. I've even heard "remote work will hurt your ability to advance in the company". They'll never stop hiring remote. Remote workers will simply become second class citizens at a company with fewer benefits for the same work. Most people, including myself, will happily sacrifice beer coolers and ping pong for the privilege of never having to deal with an office again. I do feel bad for people who are coming into the office. I hope those fun events and food are worth the gas money, increased risk, and reduced health going into the office entails.
  - spankalee 3y ago
    increased risk, and reduced health?
    - zer8k 3y ago
      Simply getting in your car and driving to work increases your all-cause mortality significantly. I'd wager more people die in car accidents on their way to work than DUIs. Anecdotally I've been nearly killed several times because someone was late for work and ran a red light, cut me off, etc. Road rage incidents increase because you have to be in the office by X hour. Reduced health, of course, because of driving. You can also consider most employers aren't going to stock a full kitchen so you're probably eating more fast food and garbage snacks. You're more sedentary because you typically can't walk out of the office for a quick trip to the gym, etc. Oh, also, your sleep is probably worse because you have to be up 2 hours early to get ready for work and drive.
      - genocidicbunny 3y ago
        Even if you're not driving to get to work, simply going outside and taking any form of transport (even walking) increases your risk. And for most people, if you can reasonably walk to work, you're probably going to be exposed to all sorts of particulates from the roadway you're likely walking along. Exhaust fumes, rubber particulates..etc, none are exactly health-boosters.
      - kaylynb 3y ago
        Most people don't realize how dangerous automobiles really are. Accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the US until people get to be 45+ and cancer starts overtaking it. Even in 2020-2021 CDC data that probably has less people driving than usual: https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home. One thing I liked about living in a city was being able to walk to work. I'm reluctant to work anywhere I have to commute because the last few years have likely significantly reduced my chance of accidental death purely due to remote work. In some ranges it's the leading cause, although overdose deaths sometimes win out. It's kind of absurd that this isn't brought up in articles about remote work. Newspapers run articles about gun violence every day despite it being wwaaaayyyy less likely than dying in an automobile accident, but the far greater danger of commuting is almost never discussed.
- startupsfail 3y ago
  The reality is, video conferencing gives you almost all of the benefits of being in office and of face to face communications. While efficiency of using meeting recordings and not being stuck wasting time at the meetings stays. You can cut away useless air travel, hotels costs, remove rush time traffic. And give employees more flexibility. Source global workforce efficiently. Or you can try copying Google and Apple. Without having a $1B half-empty campus that is currently pretty pleasant to work at, because it is not crowded. The results will be very predictable.
- read-burn-999 3y ago
  Wish Grindr's relatively new CEO was reading your comment. The company was remote-first/friendly since day 1 years ago, and along comes this guy, and gives a RTO ultimatum to all employees. That was couple of weeks ago. 3/4 (no joke) of engineering dept took severance. Other departments lost more than a half too. The company lost more than 60% of employees in 2 weeks. There are lawsuits now because 2 weeks before RTO ultimatum, a employee union was formed so a lot of people think that RTO ultimatum was a Unfair Labour Practice or a union busting move. The move was so boneheaded and uncomprehensible that a lot of people suspect that the CEO simply wanted to destroy the union even if that takes sinks the company.
electrondood 3y ago
Exactly. Now they want up the employee to again pick up the costs of 1-2 hours of commuting each day, just to be physically in a meeting room to take a zoom call that they could have taken at home. Oh, now you have to take hotel seating instead of your own desk and setup, where you have to take whatever equipment is available. Pay me 20% more and give me a dedicated desk, and I'll go into the office.
- DrBazza 3y ago
  > give me a dedicated desk A dedicated *office*. I neither want to see, hear, or smell the guy at the open-plan desk next to me eat his lunch at his desk.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    A dedicated, exclusive office. When I'm not in the building, I still don't want my office space being used by someone else. As far as I am concerned, I need to have a dedicated exclusive work area that is used only by me when I am physically present, and used by no one when I am not.
    - fb03 3y ago
      you know what, just give me a dedicate, exclusive building.
- djbusby 3y ago
  That zoom call could have been an email. But see up-thread about managers not wanting to put things in writing.
- pg_1234 3y ago
  Pay me (time and costs) from the moment I step out my front door on the way to work. Because I'm sure as hell not doing it for my benefit ...
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago
Vinnl 3y ago
> On the other hand, I do see employees choosing a lower-paid role/employer just to ensure remote work, so that preference seems genuine. That implies that other employers could have offered lower salaries if they had allowed remote work - and thus that they are paying a premium for getting/keeping people in the office, no?
osigurdson 3y ago
At least for the moment, it isn't necessary. All costs and time associated with commuting are pure externalities.
clnq 3y ago
There's a risk of significantly upsetting the employees by discriminating against remote work, so this experiment is probably not worth trying. Another reason it's not worth trying is that the conclusion might be already evident - many top-skilled people are leaving their jobs and taking a pay cut to work in companies that respect their work-life balance. A pay differentiation will not make the best employees self-neglect. I think the pandemic reset a lot of things, made a lot of us look at the bigger picture. Certainly not everyone, but some people probably thought they wouldn't be proud of their lives if they died of Covid when all they've achieved after school, college and uni was wage-slaving in an open office, sandwiched in between two rounds of commute each day.
candiddevmike 3y ago
Businesses should pay for commute time or deduct it from expected hours.
lumost 3y ago
Aye - this seems like a genuine problem for employers pulling people back to the office. Rents are pushing 2-3k per bedroom to be within 45 minutes of an office. This puts folks at around a 150k minimum compensation to not feel rent burdened as a single person. Many employees avoided the expense of moving during Covid. Unless employers want to pay these new found expenses… people won’t go back to the office. I’m sure there is a good chunk of staff who are insulated from this reality due to home ownership and seniority - but that won’t last long when people realize market rates for junior staff have risen to that of tenured staff.
Hamcha 3y ago
I'd choose a lower paid role, I'd be a minority but I don't think I'd be the only one, two reasons come to mind why 20% less would be appealing: - People like me value their work/life balance and satisfaction with the job. I could easily be making 2x what I do now but I'd hate every single second of my job. My old boss taught me "Work is 1/2 of your waking day so you better enjoy it". - I'm currently working remote for a german company for their average salary. The italian average salary for a developer is around half that. So realistically unless I moved to Germany working remote would still be the most profitable option.
SpicyLemonZest 3y ago
The problem is that pay cute are a huge feel-bad moment; many employees who are otherwise perfectly happy will simply quit rather than accept one. Some companies did it anyway in the first RTO wave, typically under the fig leaf of location-based pay. Others look towards a less disruptive strategy (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/07/12/1110510488/lean-out-employees-are-accepting-lower-pay-in-order-to-work-remotely https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/07/12/1110510488/lea...) of slow rolling raises and inflation adjustments for remote roles.
devoutsalsa 3y ago
Then they could do a cost benefit analysis of which employees tended to be more productive.
lafar6503 3y ago
I think once a privilege has been given (to employees) it's impossible to take it away without a fight. Suddenly something that was a non-issue became a life or death matter. So you're right, now people would expect to be paid extra for working in the office, even if they did that for free two years ago.
- pg_1234 3y ago
  It's a bit rich to call not having someone dictate where you go most days a "privilege". A more accurate wording might be "once you stop imposing a hardship" ... it's hard to convince people to let you re-impose it (for free).
  - lafar6503 3y ago
    Work is a voluntary contract for both sides and the terms are agreed before signing it, not dictated afterwards . And the standard so far was that the work is done at location specified by the employer. So it's not something that's suddenly been invented to oppress the employees.
    - DeathFindsAWay 3y ago
      [dead]
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    I mean, it is a privilege. One many industry are physically unable to do even if they wanted to. We shouldn't forget that tech really is in a special situation for a lot of these factors that are being treated as novel in the 2020's.
pandaman 3y ago
In the recent tech layoffs, how do you figure the distribution of WFH employees was among those who were let go, higher or lower than average at the company? Also, with the office attendance being part of performance review in some companies [1], how do you think the compensation will look for a WFH individual after a couple of review cycles? 1. https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/google-makes-office-attendance-part-of-performance-reviews/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/google-makes-office-a...
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remuneration. "We've tried nothing and we're out of options". I'm sure they do have preferences, but they don't care enough to put work into the solution. so, bringing people back into office isn't worth a 20% raise in this case. But that's not surprising; nothing seems to be worth a raise compared to hiring and re-training new employees. As companies have long since abandoned retention.
chrismcb 3y ago
I think the plan is to pay onsite people infinitely more the remote, as they won't pay those that work remotely.

BossingAround 3y ago

> If some employer is paying on-site workers 20% more than the exact same work for the same company remotely, then I'll believe that they truly want people to be on-site That would effectively mean increasing salary of the current employees that choose to go to the office by 20%. Alternatively, that'd mean reducing salary of current employees that choose not to. Either way, that seems like a horribly inefficient way to deal with the problem. Most companies choose much more subtle approaches, such as: 0) Stop hiring remote -> build a new workforce that does not expect remote conditions 1) Mandate RTO (just like Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, and others did) 2) Start putting people who do not respect RTO on PIP, or on some other bullshit process that'll threaten to fire those that do not conform while giving you, the company, enough time to replace them with new hires. 3) Slowly and silently follow through 2) until remote is a thing for <10-15% of the workforce. This gives the company a number of advantages, such as: 1) Not appearing evil 2) Not dealing with disruptions caused by mass employee exit Companies that really want RTO don't have to do it in a "big bang" way. Such companies would rather do it silently while telling you how they value your opinions on what the future workplace policy should be. They'll get away with it IIF point 0 is possible. I hope it is not, but who knows.

zer8k 3y ago
My company had a mandatory come-to-office for every but people who are truly remote. For the truly remote (e.g. me) they cut all fringe benefits. They also have gone out of their way to find subtle ways to rub it in our face: expensive lunches and dinners for people who come in, all "fun events" happen locally and to attend you have to pay your own way, etc. So remote workers like me are second-class citizens. I've even heard "remote work will hurt your ability to advance in the company". They'll never stop hiring remote. Remote workers will simply become second class citizens at a company with fewer benefits for the same work. Most people, including myself, will happily sacrifice beer coolers and ping pong for the privilege of never having to deal with an office again. I do feel bad for people who are coming into the office. I hope those fun events and food are worth the gas money, increased risk, and reduced health going into the office entails.
- spankalee 3y ago
  increased risk, and reduced health?
  - zer8k 3y ago
    Simply getting in your car and driving to work increases your all-cause mortality significantly. I'd wager more people die in car accidents on their way to work than DUIs. Anecdotally I've been nearly killed several times because someone was late for work and ran a red light, cut me off, etc. Road rage incidents increase because you have to be in the office by X hour. Reduced health, of course, because of driving. You can also consider most employers aren't going to stock a full kitchen so you're probably eating more fast food and garbage snacks. You're more sedentary because you typically can't walk out of the office for a quick trip to the gym, etc. Oh, also, your sleep is probably worse because you have to be up 2 hours early to get ready for work and drive.
    - genocidicbunny 3y ago
      Even if you're not driving to get to work, simply going outside and taking any form of transport (even walking) increases your risk. And for most people, if you can reasonably walk to work, you're probably going to be exposed to all sorts of particulates from the roadway you're likely walking along. Exhaust fumes, rubber particulates..etc, none are exactly health-boosters.
    - kaylynb 3y ago
      Most people don't realize how dangerous automobiles really are. Accidents are one of the leading causes of death in the US until people get to be 45+ and cancer starts overtaking it. Even in 2020-2021 CDC data that probably has less people driving than usual: https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home. One thing I liked about living in a city was being able to walk to work. I'm reluctant to work anywhere I have to commute because the last few years have likely significantly reduced my chance of accidental death purely due to remote work. In some ranges it's the leading cause, although overdose deaths sometimes win out. It's kind of absurd that this isn't brought up in articles about remote work. Newspapers run articles about gun violence every day despite it being wwaaaayyyy less likely than dying in an automobile accident, but the far greater danger of commuting is almost never discussed.
startupsfail 3y ago
The reality is, video conferencing gives you almost all of the benefits of being in office and of face to face communications. While efficiency of using meeting recordings and not being stuck wasting time at the meetings stays. You can cut away useless air travel, hotels costs, remove rush time traffic. And give employees more flexibility. Source global workforce efficiently. Or you can try copying Google and Apple. Without having a $1B half-empty campus that is currently pretty pleasant to work at, because it is not crowded. The results will be very predictable.
read-burn-999 3y ago
Wish Grindr's relatively new CEO was reading your comment. The company was remote-first/friendly since day 1 years ago, and along comes this guy, and gives a RTO ultimatum to all employees. That was couple of weeks ago. 3/4 (no joke) of engineering dept took severance. Other departments lost more than a half too. The company lost more than 60% of employees in 2 weeks. There are lawsuits now because 2 weeks before RTO ultimatum, a employee union was formed so a lot of people think that RTO ultimatum was a Unfair Labour Practice or a union busting move. The move was so boneheaded and uncomprehensible that a lot of people suspect that the CEO simply wanted to destroy the union even if that takes sinks the company.

electrondood 3y ago

Exactly. Now they want up the employee to again pick up the costs of 1-2 hours of commuting each day, just to be physically in a meeting room to take a zoom call that they could have taken at home. Oh, now you have to take hotel seating instead of your own desk and setup, where you have to take whatever equipment is available. Pay me 20% more and give me a dedicated desk, and I'll go into the office.

DrBazza 3y ago
> give me a dedicated desk A dedicated *office*. I neither want to see, hear, or smell the guy at the open-plan desk next to me eat his lunch at his desk.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  A dedicated, exclusive office. When I'm not in the building, I still don't want my office space being used by someone else. As far as I am concerned, I need to have a dedicated exclusive work area that is used only by me when I am physically present, and used by no one when I am not.
  - fb03 3y ago
    you know what, just give me a dedicate, exclusive building.
djbusby 3y ago
That zoom call could have been an email. But see up-thread about managers not wanting to put things in writing.
pg_1234 3y ago
Pay me (time and costs) from the moment I step out my front door on the way to work. Because I'm sure as hell not doing it for my benefit ...
- mikhailfranco 3y ago

Vinnl 3y ago

> On the other hand, I do see employees choosing a lower-paid role/employer just to ensure remote work, so that preference seems genuine. That implies that other employers could have offered lower salaries if they had allowed remote work - and thus that they are paying a premium for getting/keeping people in the office, no?

osigurdson 3y ago

At least for the moment, it isn't necessary. All costs and time associated with commuting are pure externalities.

clnq 3y ago

There's a risk of significantly upsetting the employees by discriminating against remote work, so this experiment is probably not worth trying. Another reason it's not worth trying is that the conclusion might be already evident - many top-skilled people are leaving their jobs and taking a pay cut to work in companies that respect their work-life balance. A pay differentiation will not make the best employees self-neglect. I think the pandemic reset a lot of things, made a lot of us look at the bigger picture. Certainly not everyone, but some people probably thought they wouldn't be proud of their lives if they died of Covid when all they've achieved after school, college and uni was wage-slaving in an open office, sandwiched in between two rounds of commute each day.

candiddevmike 3y ago

Businesses should pay for commute time or deduct it from expected hours.

lumost 3y ago

Aye - this seems like a genuine problem for employers pulling people back to the office. Rents are pushing 2-3k per bedroom to be within 45 minutes of an office. This puts folks at around a 150k minimum compensation to not feel rent burdened as a single person. Many employees avoided the expense of moving during Covid. Unless employers want to pay these new found expenses… people won’t go back to the office. I’m sure there is a good chunk of staff who are insulated from this reality due to home ownership and seniority - but that won’t last long when people realize market rates for junior staff have risen to that of tenured staff.

Hamcha 3y ago

I'd choose a lower paid role, I'd be a minority but I don't think I'd be the only one, two reasons come to mind why 20% less would be appealing: - People like me value their work/life balance and satisfaction with the job. I could easily be making 2x what I do now but I'd hate every single second of my job. My old boss taught me "Work is 1/2 of your waking day so you better enjoy it". - I'm currently working remote for a german company for their average salary. The italian average salary for a developer is around half that. So realistically unless I moved to Germany working remote would still be the most profitable option.

SpicyLemonZest 3y ago

The problem is that pay cute are a huge feel-bad moment; many employees who are otherwise perfectly happy will simply quit rather than accept one. Some companies did it anyway in the first RTO wave, typically under the fig leaf of location-based pay. Others look towards a less disruptive strategy (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/07/12/1110510488/lean-out-employees-are-accepting-lower-pay-in-order-to-work-remotely https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/07/12/1110510488/lea...) of slow rolling raises and inflation adjustments for remote roles.

devoutsalsa 3y ago

Then they could do a cost benefit analysis of which employees tended to be more productive.

lafar6503 3y ago

I think once a privilege has been given (to employees) it's impossible to take it away without a fight. Suddenly something that was a non-issue became a life or death matter. So you're right, now people would expect to be paid extra for working in the office, even if they did that for free two years ago.

pg_1234 3y ago
It's a bit rich to call not having someone dictate where you go most days a "privilege". A more accurate wording might be "once you stop imposing a hardship" ... it's hard to convince people to let you re-impose it (for free).
- lafar6503 3y ago
  Work is a voluntary contract for both sides and the terms are agreed before signing it, not dictated afterwards . And the standard so far was that the work is done at location specified by the employer. So it's not something that's suddenly been invented to oppress the employees.
  - DeathFindsAWay 3y ago
    [dead]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I mean, it is a privilege. One many industry are physically unable to do even if they wanted to. We shouldn't forget that tech really is in a special situation for a lot of these factors that are being treated as novel in the 2020's.

pandaman 3y ago

In the recent tech layoffs, how do you figure the distribution of WFH employees was among those who were let go, higher or lower than average at the company? Also, with the office attendance being part of performance review in some companies [1], how do you think the compensation will look for a WFH individual after a couple of review cycles? 1. https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/google-makes-office-attendance-part-of-performance-reviews/ https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/google-makes-office-a...

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>If employers really wanted employees to abandon remote work, that would be obviously visible as a significant difference in remuneration. "We've tried nothing and we're out of options". I'm sure they do have preferences, but they don't care enough to put work into the solution. so, bringing people back into office isn't worth a 20% raise in this case. But that's not surprising; nothing seems to be worth a raise compared to hiring and re-training new employees. As companies have long since abandoned retention.

chrismcb 3y ago

I think the plan is to pay onsite people infinitely more the remote, as they won't pay those that work remotely.