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There's been some recent speculation about the effects working from home will have on various parts of the economy, particularly the commercial real estate market. If companies can figure out how to keep employees productive, coupled with the desire for some to relocate to more rural areas (and consequently, farther away from the office), it's possible some companies may reconsider continuing to carry all the overhead associated with having an office.
Which leads to the question: should remote workers accept a pay cut for working remotely?
A recent survey of 600 U.S. adults found 66 percent willing to take a pay cut for the flexibility of working remotely.
To what degree varied, however.
- Fourteen percent would take a one to four percent cut;
- Twenty-nine percent would take a five-to-14 percent cut;
- Seventeen percent would take a 15-to-24 percent cut;
- Seven percent would take a 25 percent or more cut;
- Thirty-four percent would not take a lower salary for flexible remote work.
The survey, taken from July 5 through 7 from Fast, a start-up specializing in online checkout, found COVID-19 safety concerns part of the current appeal of remote working. Thirty-nine percent were less comfortable returning to their physical office compared to 30 days before. However, 65 percent preferred a workplace that gives employees the flexibility to choose where and when they work remotely.
[...] The concept of "localized compensation" or paying someone less for the same work because of where they live is being hotly debated in human resources circles. In May, Facebook drew some backlash after announcing that employees choosing to permanently work remotely will receive salary cuts if they move to less expensive areas.
Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 27 2020, @01:10PM (1 child)
There are whole industries that have been offshored already, and a huge reflected wave of "jobs that came back home" because offshoring didn't work for one or more of a thousand potential reasons. Some have stayed overseas: if you need warm bodies to read troubleshooting flowcharts in English, India can do that, although the cost of living in North Dakota is competitive...
If majority WFH becomes permanent, new skillsets will come into play defining who is a valuable employee and who isn't. I'm hopeful that 30 years of in-office experience, coupled with 5 years of prior WFH experience have left me in a good position to continue riding this particular wave - I'm damn tired of the pickup work game, it's too much like dating.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:53AM
One very open question is whether Americans working remotely will experience some of the same problems that offshore workers do.
My personal experience, from working at $major_tech_company, is that there was definitely something about the physical location that made a difference. Like so many large tech companies, we had Indians working in India, Indians working in America, and Americans working in America. Developers in India did by far the worst job. It wasn't the race, or even the education. Indians in America did work that was on par with the native Americans. Not, you know, Native Americans, by which I could also say Indians, but, uh, never mind. Anyway, in many cases it was the actual same people. A developer would move from India to America and magically get better, or from America to India and magically get worse. Eventually we sent one of our best development managers, who was also a native of India, over there to, not to put too fine a point on it, straighten the Indians out. And she had an impact. But the developers in India still did worse than the ones in America. (Maybe someone at Boeing working on the Starliner project has a similar experience).
So, was it physically being in the American office that made the difference? If so, maybe remote work isn't going to work out long term. But if it was something about the Indian office - who knows what, maybe just the time zone difference - then it won't matter too much. I don't know the answer, but it's definitely a question that needs an answer if there's going to be a major shift to remote work.