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Google employees who work from home could lose money

reuters.com

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Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#311

Post by deanclatworthy »

jensensbutton wrote: post #43

Companies were never paying based on value provided. They pay market rate which, until recently, was artificially limited to a few expensive markets. With remote, these companies are now able to do what every other large labor driven industry has done and lower their costs by finding labor in cheaper markets.

This. I’ve been saying it all along. This is what is going to happen to all the SV bros on their 6 figure salaries.

You’re no better than someone on the other side of the globe who will have lower living expenses. If your employer doesn’t see value in having you on site, location is meaningless. If I were Google I’d start looking aggressively into labour markets that are cheaper but with good education. Poland, Phillipines, Romania. Just three I’ve worked with that have been exceptional.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#312

Post by DharmaPolice »

easytiger wrote: post #165
ekianjo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> good public transportation. Public transportation has a higher environment cost than staying at home to work. That should be fairly obvious.

This reductive argument is rather tiresome. All human activity has a cost. Humans are social beings. HN may want to shill for being cooped up but that doesn't represent how most of the world live or want to live

Isn't this story about people who want to work from home?

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#313

Post by 52-6F-62 »

wutbrodo wrote: post #282
52-6F-62 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.

> Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". Honesty, in my experience this impression is just desperate cope from people with worse work environments. My time at Google was the easiest/most relaxing of my career by far. Hell, that's why I left. But whenever people would ask me about…

Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.

But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled.

I don't think I would be—I covet my time. But I recognize that it wasn't designed around me, so whatever.

It's a fact of the process though: Google wanted people in the office longer, so they installed resources to keep people in the office longer. In that way, it's not overly surprising to me that they're trying to get people back into the office. Similarly with Apple: they didn't build that big fancy ring for nothing.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#314

Post by glenneroo »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #176
Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…

Lots of people in Europe also take the car to work. At my work I would say definitely more than 50%.

To contribute to the anecdotal evidences, at our company I would guess 25% and AFAIK they all live in the suburbs and drive to the nearest subway station in the city and use public transit the rest of the journey because traffic at start/end workday hours is a nightmare.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#315

Post by macksd »

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140
boplicity wrote: post #99

The cost of commuting on the environment is extremely high. We should be offering incentives to companies to switch to remote work. If 20% of jobs permanently switched to remote, the impact on carbon emissions would be immediate, and extremely positive.

I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…

I see a lot of "this is a US-only problem" comments here lately on many topics and I just don't get it because it's usually just not remotely correct at all, nevermind relevant if most of the discussion IS based in the US, like for a US-based company. I lived in 3 different countries growing up, mostly with far more European influence than the US has now, and never at any time did most people I saw live in anything but individual houses that needed to be heated in the winter, and never at any time did my Dad not spend 1-2 hours commuting in a car every day. Yesterday someone was claiming MTV was a US-only thing. Sure, it's not universal, but claiming that it's US-only says more about their world view than any American IMO.

But aside from that, when I started being remote my social interactions went way up in terms of quantity and quality. I was free to choose where I lived, had lower cost of living, and had more time and less stress and other factors that would put me in a bad mood. Consequently, I spent more time with extended family members on both sides of my family. I played more with my children. I picked up healthier hobbies, including one where I train with a team at the gym. My social circle is far more diverse, more distinct from work. As others have experienced during COVID: I got to know my neighbors better, and we look out for each other. Having your social interaction primarily at work is very far from ideal, and in my experience and from many anecdotes here, cutting down the work interaction helps most others.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#316

Post by CydeWeys »

vitus wrote: post #89

If anyone's curious about the underlying details: Each state has an associated salary band. For certain metropolitan statistical areas (defined by the OMB to encompass certain counties), as noted in the article, there is an overriding (typically higher) salary band. This leads to quirks like someone in Milford, PA (~70 miles northwest of NYC) being paid top dollar, as part of the NYC metro area, but someone in Bethle…

> (The 15% paycut for moving to Tahoe is most likely cherrypicked as crossing the state border into Nevada, which is in a lower band than California.)

Nevada doesn't have a state income tax though, so most people making that move will barely see a change in net pay. Washington is 10% off Bay Area/NYC peak salary for similar reasons.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#317

Post by jethro_tell »

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #205
mumblemumble wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the USA, people staying home to work might have a positive impact on social interaction in the long run. I'm pretty sure a large part of the reason why Americans are so lonely compared to the rest of the world is that the suburban bedroom community model physically divides us and makes it much more difficult to get to know one's neighbors. By the time you get home from work at 6:30 in the evening, it's…

Interesting. I'm symmetrically not used to think about those problems from an american perspective. Thanks for the insight. I can indeed see a world where working from home might in the short term infuse some life in local life, from neighbors to associations etc.. So maybe it's actually a positive change!

I know that in my city, some restaurants closed in the downtown core but out in the population centers new restaurants open, a few friends in the business said revenue went up mostly in lunch service and afternoon happy hour time frame. That's after having 50% less tables because inside dining was closed.

The shift from doing lunch with your coworkers to doing lunch around your neighbors seems really positive to me.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#318

Post by CapmCrackaWaka »

eru wrote: post #147
CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but that isn't typically how the value-cost balance between employee and employer works, unless there is regulation in play. Working from home is a benefit which many people would be willing to trade X% salary for. This is just market forces at work. I've been curious how the market for remote work would play out - I'm especially interested in knowing what X ends up being.

But: if you can add a benefit that employees value a lot at zero or negative cost to the company, competition will go that way. No need for regulation in this regard: greed will do the work. Of course, if the cost to companies is positive, things are less clear cut. If you want any regulation here, the boring standard econ answer applies: a carbon tax.

Yes one of the most interesting bits of information we will get from the market forces of remote work is seeing how much value being in the office brings to an employer. Obviously this will vary by industry, but if we see huge differences in salary between in-office and remote employees, then that means companies are willing to pay that premium to some people to be in the office. If there is no/little difference in salary, then I think it would be fair to assume that the value of in-office work to employers is negligible. These types of things are rarely this simple though, so I'm going to hold off on having any strong opinions.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#319

Post by ghaff »

rattlesnakedave wrote: post #82
rexreed wrote: post #71

Does this mean employee agreements are up for renegotiating? Salary / compensation for work is the key element to an employee agreement. If employers can change compensation at will without employee consent then the employee agreement is truly meaningless and simply a tool for the employer to wield against the employee. I'd imagine a few employee lawsuits on breach of contract that will test that.

I'd say the logic is "We entered this agreement with the understanding that you would be in the office x% of the time. We would like you to return to the office at that original capacity. If you would not like to do so, we need to renegotiate our agreement." Not that I agree with any of this, nor am I sure that any of this is even written, but that's probably what it is. All of these gigs being at will employment cer…

Many/most contracts--to the degree they're even contracts in this case--embody common understandings. In the case of employment agreements, they usually assume that, absent agreements to the contrary, you're usually coming into some particular office 5 days per week, between the hours of whatever, unless you're traveling.
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