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Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

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Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#31

Post by cameronbrown »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #7

No. Scaling income with CoL is just subsidizing the housing costs of people who want to live in more desirable locations. If someone wants to spend part of their compensation on living in a nice area, fine. But if someone else would rather take that compensation and live in a lower CoL area then let them.

But we're not paid by CoL, rather, the job market. If I move to a very small but expensive village, I'm not going to get paid more than being in London. Silicon Valley is just a weird edge case where there's so much talent in one place that it's affecting CoL.

Regardless, there's always going to be a premium on in-person talent.

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#32

Post by bboygravity »

newsbinator wrote: post #3

Yes, and it should also be tied to their spouse's income, their sex, gender, age, and skin color, to keep things fair. Perhaps their sibling's/ancestor's income too. Make sure you account for all these factors to keep things equal. But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully co…

> But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully communicate & do the work, regardless of their circumstances or physical attributes?

Sounds good to me. I'd be a retired millionaire at age 30 something if any of the companies I've worked for (remotely or otherwise) followed that logic.

Example: I found the correct root causes of failures in an aerospace product within months. The company's own R&D team had been trying different "fixes" that weren't fixes for at least 5 years. They had spent 1 million EUR in R&D material cost alone (not counting engineering time cost). They lost multiple clients to competitors (> 15 years contracts worth millions per client) due to the malfunctioning product. After I came through the problem was fixed, tested, confirmed to be fixed and implemented within months.

And that's an example of one project of a few months for one of my clients.

hmmm. Maybe I should start charging differently. :D

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#33

Post by bsenftner »

Of course, there are two correct answers: those employees able to negotiate away their location having any relevance to their pay, and those who due to hierarchy position or lack of negotiating skills have their pay pro-rated against their location and potentially a giant host of additional factors beyond the employee's control. The course of action is clear: learn to negotiate.

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#34

Post by davidgay »

verdverm wrote: post #6
elmerfud wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rare to find a large national or international business that doesn't price differently based on location. This sometimes is due to taxation difference but mostly due to regulatory differences that effect the cost to deliver. Even companies that have flat list prices, what you'll find is that discounts are offered based on a number of factors with economic location being one. If location was the only factor that…

If you sell a physical product, this is often the case. When I sell license for access, I charge based on value, not how much it costs me to deliver. Even physical products, which have not been commoditized, see value based pricing. When a person moves, what other factors are effecting the company which justified the reduced salary? If someone did that to me, is be looking for new work while grumbling doing old work.…

> When I sell license for access, I charge based on value, not how much it costs me to deliver.

The value often depends on the customer's location. Or do you think, e.g., Photoshop provides the same value to a photographers in New York and Cairo?

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#35

Post by netsharc »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #7

No. Scaling income with CoL is just subsidizing the housing costs of people who want to live in more desirable locations. If someone wants to spend part of their compensation on living in a nice area, fine. But if someone else would rather take that compensation and live in a lower CoL area then let them.

It's interesting to look at the inverse... would/should the company pay more if someone moved from a low to a high CoL place?

Obviously SV companies offer high salaries because they want to attract people to work on-location, which means they'd have to live nearby, in a high-CoL area. If the job was made remote with the same salary offer, there would be so many candidates, that it would make sense to lower the salary offer, like in any supply-demand problem...

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#36

Post by paulgb »

simmons wrote: post #15

I think the relationship of geography to salary is going to be dictated by the biggest factors in all pricing -- supply and demand. Cost of living adjustments are really just a proxy for acknowledging that a prospective remote worker in Des Moines will have fewer local opportunities (lower demand) than a similar worker in New York, and so will be in a less favorable negotiating position. If remote work continues to g…

Exactly this. We can talk all day about whether it's fair for companies to pay people in low COL locations less. But if a company can get the same work output from two different people at two different prices, that's an opportunity that the hidden hand of the market will find and close.

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#38

Post by kyriakos »

s1t5 wrote: post #28
newsbinator wrote: post #3

Yes, and it should also be tied to their spouse's income, their sex, gender, age, and skin color, to keep things fair. Perhaps their sibling's/ancestor's income too. Make sure you account for all these factors to keep things equal. But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully co…

> determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company Nobody does this. It's not even possible apart from the most contrived cases. Salary is determined by a number of factors none of which have anything to do with the employee's worth to the company.

I agree that it's not happening but this is how it should be happening.

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#39

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

s1t5 wrote: post #28
newsbinator wrote: post #3

Yes, and it should also be tied to their spouse's income, their sex, gender, age, and skin color, to keep things fair. Perhaps their sibling's/ancestor's income too. Make sure you account for all these factors to keep things equal. But if you're not able to account for all these factors, why not determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company, and pay that amount to anybody who can successfully co…

> determine what an employee at a given level is worth to the company Nobody does this. It's not even possible apart from the most contrived cases. Salary is determined by a number of factors none of which have anything to do with the employee's worth to the company.

> "none of which have anything to do with"

This is hyperbole, right?

Re: Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location?

#40

Post by WhompingWindows »

cameronbrown wrote: post #31
R0b0t1 wrote: post #7

No. Scaling income with CoL is just subsidizing the housing costs of people who want to live in more desirable locations. If someone wants to spend part of their compensation on living in a nice area, fine. But if someone else would rather take that compensation and live in a lower CoL area then let them.

But we're not paid by CoL, rather, the job market. If I move to a very small but expensive village, I'm not going to get paid more than being in London. Silicon Valley is just a weird edge case where there's so much talent in one place that it's affecting CoL. Regardless, there's always going to be a premium on in-person talent.

I don't understand your comment...What's your point here as it relates to remote employees? They by definition are not in the job market of "in-person" laborers, so shouldn't we confine the conversation to remote employees' comp?
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