Google employees who work from home could lose money • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#431

Post by notsureaboutpg » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:06 PM UTC

Necromant2005 wrote: post #181

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

Sounds funny. The real reason for google office is unlimited work, you have food, relax aka dance/yoga classes on site. It’s not necessary to have a home. Home is a rudimentary stuff for google workers. The whole your life is your work. It’s great for a company. But keep8ng employees on long distance force people to look around: on a local restoran, outside activities, local community. And in one moment person who wa…

I work longer now that I am permanent WFH, so I wonder what that means about office perks

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#432

Post by throw123123123 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

washadjeffmad wrote: post #274

ashtonkem wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also awful timing. After what, 18 months of productive WFH now they want to cut salary?

People collectively don't seem to know how to value their labor. If anything, they should argue for a pay increase to offset the costs Google is externalizing in utilities, on-site benefits, need for security, food, space, etc. If Google is progressive, they should buck the trend and do something like build sound-proof office-apartments that employees can hotel in for a few days at a time, and allow children. That wo…

Workers collectively dont get to value their own labor. There price is the market price, and remote work always paid a lot less than in-office work, for obvious economic reasons.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#433

Post by textbookrental » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:08 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #8

Yeah I think we've been through this. Your salary isn't purely a function of how much value you bring to the company. It also depends on how much other people are willing to work for. That's how markets work.

This doesn't sound right. Google gets millions of applicants per year. Surely some of those appliacants would be willing to work for less.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#434

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #201

> Screenshots of Google's internal salary calculator seen by Reuters show that an employee living in Stamford, Connecticut - an hour from New York City by train - would be paid 15% less if she worked from home, while a colleague from the same office living in New York City would see no cut from working from home. Screenshots showed 5% and 10% differences in the Seattle, Boston and San Francisco areas. This makes no s…

> Hence the company should have one uniform rate for full time work at home employees, high enough so that they can get fill all their openings.

There’s a common misconception that engineers are paid for the value they provide or according to how expensive their cost of living is. It’s not true, though.

We’re paid market rate, which is a balance of supply and demand that determines whether or not someone is incentivized to take and keep a job relative to their other options. If someone lives somewhere where they have more local options, it makes sense to pay them more even if they’re working remotely.

If you try to push companies to having one WFH rate for everyone, the end result isn’t high salaries for all. The end result is a median salary for everyone that eliminates anyone living in a high cost of living area. The company starts scouring the country and eventually the world for bargain employees who will accept lower and lower salaries. The end result is a much lower fixed salary for everyone.

So no, you do not actually want a one-size-fits-all WFH compensation if you live basically anywhere in the US, unless you’re cool with salaries going down to match the much lower global median wages for developers.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#435

Post by dqpb » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:09 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #385

dqpb wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think they should reduce salary for people who have paid off their mortgage? Those people also have lower cost of living.

How about people living with multiple roommates, or renting out part of their house (I used to live in one of those situations)? Those people have a lower cost of living as well compared to others in the area. Or does it only count if you're talking someone's sole and primary mortgage and where that's physically located? Even mortgages can vary wildly. In my city I can buy a condo for $100k or I could buy a mansion f…

Exactly!

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#436

Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

bennyp101 wrote: post #244

ghaff wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people own a house anyway, working in it during the day doesn't really add much in the energy use. Maybe there's a few degrees more heating or cooling at the margins. Maybe there are more trips to a store--on the other hand, restaurants and cafeterias aren't necessarily super-efficient.

Perhaps, but anecdotally my electricity and gas bills have been much higher since I've been working at home - YMMV of course

I'm sure it varies by the house/apartment.

I don't really see a difference in electricity unless I'm traveling for an extended period but I have very limited AC which I don't use much. As for heat, the difference associated with dropping the temperature maybe 10 degrees F for 8 hours a day doesn't add up to a lot.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#437

Post by throw123123123 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #138

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

"Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space." They are locked into leases and/or have purchased the buildings outright. So the cost is sunk. This is why google is upset and will take salary away from remote workers.

Building costs are relatively small vs productivity costs.

If the mass of employess is 30% less productive from home, it is way more expensive than the buildings.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#438

Post by globular-toast » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #156

> One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time, according estimates by the company's Work Location Tool launched in June. > The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. This seems…

It's also a good reason to live below your means. The main reason why people can't take a pay cut is it would mean a lifestyle cut. If you require 100% of your pay for your expected lifestyle then your employer pretty much has you by the balls.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#439

Post by Jach » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

bsagdiyev wrote: post #382

Jach wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think everyone should fight against it if they think it's going to happen, whether they've come to terms with it or not. I heard about an employee who moved to Canada, got her manager to agree to no pay cut, but HR went over the manager's head. Certainly a rage-quit moment if it had been me, though of course international concerns were a factor. Admittedly it's easier to fight if your move is domestic. "Cost…

So I’ll be a little blunt about this: why does the employer care if the employee is good or bad at finances? I understand some places are expensive and that can’t be helped but living within your means and being financially smart are totally possible as much as people love to harp about the cost of living. I somehow manage to pay a mortgage, day care and still put $xxxx in savings every month. What’s keeping these pe…

> They got used to an expensive lifestyle?

That, among other reasons, like wanting more or nicer things, across many possible dimensions of meaning for 'nice'. Same reasons at play for why when people get a raise, or take a job with higher pay, the surplus is rarely converted fully into savings. Another though also not the only reason left is a simple "keeping up with the Jones'" mentality, though this problem may affect Americans more.

It's useful to be aware that the median American household has $1000/mo in surplus funds after all 'ordinary expenses', which notably are greater than 'necessary expenses' the 'living wage' people tend to focus on. But that $12k/yr typically gets spent rather than saved or invested.

> That isn’t the fault of the employer.

Nope, nor is it really their business, so they shouldn't try, and people should fight, these underhanded "adjustment" tactics of "oh, you moved to an area where the average rent is $1000/mo less, these common foods are a bit cheaper, etc., so clearly you can get by on less now, and so we'll cut your salary by x%." (Typically being a percentage cut rather than global absolute amount cut is another indicator of its badness.) Even the hypothetical reverse case of moving back and getting an increase is false generosity; if moving back raises my cost floor, I'm not going to do it unless I can afford to, automatic adjustment or not, and it's very possible the divined adjusted increase might not be high enough.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#440

Post by lamontcg » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:13 PM UTC

bennyp101 wrote: post #186

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 guess in a purely commuting way, perhaps. But if 100 employees are all at home and are heating/cooling their houses all with different levels of insulation and efficiency, how does that compare to an office building that is controlled and built to be efficient? Or the amount of electric they use to power their home workstation and radio, rather than a shared office radio? Or lower power machines. Or the more shoppi…

Those are really bizarre levels of trying to be counterintuitive. For lunch you can now walk to your refrigerator to get a sandwich. It burns much less carbon to just walk or drive to your nearest watering hole for a beer rather than driving to work in rush hour and then back in order to get a beer. Total transportation carbon emissions from the average household are also twice the total HVAC emissions, and carbon consumption due to appliances like refrigerators, washer/driers and hot water heaters should be relatively constant (could even go down if you just wear the same pair of sweatpants for a week).