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

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#441

Post by agloeregrets » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:13 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…

Here is the thing: All of this money as a whole amount makes the choice seem silly.

What happens when you factor in cost of living is that the 10% starts growing incredibly fast.

If their current spend is 80% of their salary, then the 10% is actually a 50% post-expense difference. Suddenly that drive makes sense.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#442

Post by lamontcg » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #434

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 incentivi…

Wages are sticky and employers have gotten used to paying a certain rate for employees and employees have gotten used to be paid that rate.

If Google wants to try to cut that rate, its likely that someone else who is hungry for Google engineers (like Facebook which is going full-time WFH) will be willing to pay that rate (also understanding that they have some terrible PR issues and will need to pay a bit higher due to that).

That is likely to cap how much Google is actually able to do this if someone can phone up Facebook and get an immediate >20% raise over what Google will "calculate" their pay should be.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#443

Post by oceanplexian » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

igetspam wrote: post #355

washadjeffmad wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Came here looking for this. Back in my G days, before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation. The first corporate response was absolutely tone-deaf. They created a tool for you to see your total compensation that included all-in values like on-site amenities. The natural response was one of unhappiness and people requesting to opt out of eating at work and pr…

The cost of the A/C and janitorial staff is peanuts compared to the money they spent on commercial real estate. If they don’t get ROI, someone is going to be held accountable. If the offices close and the value of commercial real estate plummets there are huge players that are going to be wiped out, with macro-economic ramifications. It’s a perfect example of sunk cost fallacy, but on the scale of billions of dollars.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#444

Post by hh3k0 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:18 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…

> 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.

This is absolutely correct.

If Google would tell me that I'll see my pay cut by about 10% for working remotely, I'd put in 25% less effort – 15% for space, power, etc., and 10% to make up for the cut.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#445

Post by bennyp101 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #440

bennyp101 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

Completely :)

I was just trying to point out that just the fact of stopping people commuting doesn't really mean a lot, there are a lot more things in play.

I'm in the UK, and our houses are not really built for extreme temperature fluctuations, so in the summer I run the portable AC - which is terrible but otherwise we can't sleep. In the winter, it's crazy cold - but at least now we have the log burner in so not as bad.

I think it does depend on where you are in the world, I can't walk to a pub, or a shop where I live. I have to drive further than my office to get to a supermarket or town.

But yes, I may have not made great points in that post!

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#446

Post by ghaff » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #425

glenneroo wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both of you are making a lot of assumptions without providing any sources to back up your own anecdotal experiences. Also related, but HN could really use an optional country-flag next to each user's name so that we could at least see what country people are referring to respective their experiences which they state as "the way it is". > Home temperature is fairly consistent over the day. You must live in a m…

> Assuming usage of cars. Leave the US and generally public transportation is a thing used by most people. The trains/trams/buses still travel the same routes and times as before-pandemic times. Across the US and presumably the world mass transit reduced service in response to reduced ridership. If WFH becomes more common that will definitely cover more areas as schedules very much are based on demand. Ex: https://ne…

And then people stop using it as much and, in many cases, drive instead because transit becomes less attractive.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#447

Post by tnorthcutt » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #441

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…

Here is the thing: All of this money as a whole amount makes the choice seem silly. What happens when you factor in cost of living is that the 10% starts growing incredibly fast. If their current spend is 80% of their salary, then the 10% is actually a 50% post-expense difference. Suddenly that drive makes sense.

This is an interesting and thought-provoking way of framing this! I'd never thought of pay increases/decreases in these terms before (or not consciously), so thanks for sharing this.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#448

Post by handrous » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #364

misnome wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if they were paying him 10% more based on home location and commuting then there is a somewhat reasonable argument to be made. But of course, almost none of these companies are actually paying the people who live further away more, it's just management trying to enforce their will over the "peons". Our company is trying to force everyone back into the office 5 days a week. Their arguments for doing so were "p…

> My working theory is that the upper management's jobs are more boring, and harder to coast on, when they can't "count heads" and have the illusion of progress. It's really exposed good and bad managers this past 1.5 years. A lot of upper management jobs consist solely of attending meetings for projects they are only vaguely aware of so that they can ask questions about irrelevant things, interrupting people who are…

I have had a little exposure to high-end (you know the company) management consultants. They have far more exposure to C-suite folks than most. Their view of them is... not flattering. Which is kinda funny considering how many of the consultants will end up in those positions—though, I mean, who wouldn't want to, if you knew how well they're paid, the kinds of perks and deference they get, the coddling, the valuable information and opportunities that are handed to them, and yet how little actual work they can do for all that (remember the experienced CEO who came in to be the real pro manager in charge of the company early-ish in the show Silicon Valley, but was absent screwing around with his hobbies or other business ventures half the time? That's not fiction).

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#449

Post by physicsguy » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

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 haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life.

Think that depends a lot on where you live. When I was a student, I didn't use a car at all, but my wife did during my PhD to get to work, and now we both have to have cars because our commutes are not practical by public transport. This is living in the Midlands in the UK.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#450

Post by mytailorisrich » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

cycomanic wrote: post #344

mytailorisrich wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of people do need a car even in Europe. In France, unless you live in central Paris you do. In the UK, unless you live in central London yo do. Now, if you live around Paris or London you may be able to commute to work by public transport, and many people do, indeed, but many also commute by car, and the vast majority do outside of these areas. I'm sure the same applies to many other countries. Edit: By…

>The majority of people do need a car even in Europe. >In France, unless you live in central Paris you do. In the UK, unless you live in central London yo do. Now, if you live around Paris or London you may be able to commute to work by public transport, and many people do, indeed, but many also commute by car, and the vast majority do outside of these areas. I'm sure the same applies to many other countries. Actuall…

> It's funny how people regard reducing carbon emissions by changing behaviour (e.g. moving to flats, using less cars ...) unrealistic, but then put suggestions like this forward.

I'm not suggesting that this is unrealistic or that we should not reduce emissions.

However, my view is that we live and work to make our lives more interesting and enjoyable, not to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of squeezing ever more of us on the planet.

The end of population growth, and even more population reduction, are massive changes to the way society and our economy work, I fully agree.

But ultimately this is unavoidable if we accept that population cannot grow forever on a finite planet (and it is already expected that it will stabilise of even decrease by the end of the century). I'm suggesting that we should therefore embrace this and see it as a positive rather than a negative (which is the usual view) because it has tremendous potential for making quality of life better for all humans in a sustainable way.