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Are there significant cost savings? Remote workforce management costs a TON. Are we able to hire anywhere? Crazy costs associated with contract and tax residen
by lijok 3y ago
Are there significant cost savings? Remote workforce management costs a TON.
Are we able to hire anywhere? Crazy costs associated with contract and tax residency management, complexity managing timezone overlap both during hiring stage and in the workplace, etc
And frankly, you don’t need to, and you wont be able to hire the best talent unless you’re doing envelope pushing work.
I work at a “hip remote-first startup that raised a ton of money” and we still only hire from within the country we’re based in, still have to have an office + office space for remote workers that require it, and have exploded the complexity of workforce management.
I’m just not seeing the benefit to the employer. To the employees, absolutely, but not employer.
- frfl 3y agoThere's an app for that. Sorry I meant SaaS. Its 2024 not 2014 after all. remote.com and other similar companies that specialized in employer of record services. For example remote charges $600/month per employee, $30/month for contractor, and provide the tax and legal stuff for hiring in like 200 countries. Thats $7200/yr per employee. I dont know what it costs per employee if you hire a dozen and provide a 5000/sqft or whatever office space for them to work in. I heard rents in NY are crazy, _may_ actually be cheaper to hire remotely than pay for an office and all the rest. I dont know for sure, I haven't run the numbers. ...I checked quickly. Say 5000sqft. Google says $80-$90/sqft rent annual, lets use $80. Thats $80 x 5000 = $400,000/yr in rent alone. Its $80,000/for 1000sqft, but idk if you can squeeze a dozen people in 1000sqft for 8 hours. Plus you need offices for CTO/CEO/C-whatever-O, managers, conference room(s), 2 washrooms, kitchen/break room/area. And the upkeep, furniture, heating, electricity, water, internet, insurance, security system, whatever else.
- monero-xmr 3y agoMy company is a remote only business and somehow HR and IT have figured out how to hire US / Canada / EU / Philippines / various South American countries. But I’m not the accountant or HR expert. I don’t know why you need offices, that’s absurd
- lijok 3y agoRegulatory requirement. The question isn’t whether it’s possible, the question is whether remote-first is a significant value-add to the employer.
- monero-xmr 3y agoIt's unfortunate your industry is regulated in such a way that you need a physical office location for many employees. That seems like a fixed cost for anyone in your line of work. Mine does not have such onerous requirements, and I would assume that's the case for most tech companies.
- lijok 3y agoIt depends on what you mean exactly by “tech companies”. Physical PoP comes up as a requirement in many places. Even the famously remote-only GitLab, has offices throughout the globe.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoSo...hire within the same state/timezone/whatever. The savings? Potentially up to: Your entire building lease, utilities, maintenance, and furnishing costs. Hiring compensation incentives. Relocation costs. Talent loss from a commute-radius hiring pool. Spend to battle weaker morale. Crucial morning employee energy that was formerly burned in traffic, etc. Remote work has such obvious, massive upsides that I'm baffled anyone could miss them. Excluding bad-faith doubt, perhaps the cause is worker Stockholm syndrome.
- lijok 3y agoYou’re very emotionally charged on this topic. Kind of pointless to engage in the discussion in this state, don’t you think?