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Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

nytimes.com

81–90 of 250 posts

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#81
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

> Or put another way, your competitors can compensate me less and I'll consider it a better deal.

It seems a lot of people disagree with you:

> In an accompanying survey of more than 1,200 technology professionals, Hired found that 75% of employees would begin looking for a new job if their salary were to decrease, while 45% of candidates disagreed with using the cost of living of the employee's location as a baseline.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/tech-jobs-salaries-are-flatten...

I'm one of them. If my work is bringing in $X in revenue whether I'm sitting in a chair in an office building you're leasing or at home, I don't see why my share of that should be any less.

Put another way, if I'm worth $Y to you sitting in an office, and I can accomplish the same work at home, from anywhere, just as effectively, why should I get paid any less?

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#82
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some companies might do that. I think they'll wind up losing money as a result. If you're willing to pay more for identical work because your employee chose to live somewhere more expensive, you're encouraging your employees to live in the most expensive places. On the other hand, if you offer a fair wage for the work done regardless of location, your employees get better value by living somewhere inexpensive…

If the cost of living adjustment were “perfect” then it wouldn’t encourage employees to live in any particular place, right? Presumably the whole point is to give each employee the same “effective compensation” for their particular place of residence. Of course, it’s not so easy to agree on what the ideal method of cost of living adjustment would be.

The thing is that even if the cost of living adjustment was perfect, that still incentivizes living in a high cost of living area.

It's much easier to move from an expensive city to an inexpensive city than vice versa since your savings will go much further in the inexpensive city.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#84
The problem is that if everyone doesn’t come back in the office you just end up spending your time on zoom in an office desk which negates the whole point. Working in a large bank in europe where we observed the same, between a third and half of the staff decline to come back

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Nobody forced them into slavery, why didn't they just go somewhere else?'

Slavery, by its very definition, involves force. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary: Someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay

That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#86
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

> Or put another way, your competitors can compensate me less and I'll consider it a better deal. It seems a lot of people disagree with you: > In an accompanying survey of more than 1,200 technology professionals, Hired found that 75% of employees would begin looking for a new job if their salary were to decrease, while 45% of candidates disagreed with using the cost of living of the employee's location as a baselin…

But what if you turn that around? If you are currently remote but considering an offer from a place that's in-office, wouldn't you want a higher wage to compensate you for the extra hassle of commuting? That's extra free time you're never getting back.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#87
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and the company still needs to know/decide which locale you get taxed in and which regulation to follow. Even in California, SF has different payroll taxes and regulation than other cities in the area. Massachusetts requires employers to open a unemployment account in state. If the employee moves to a state the employer doesn’t have a employees previously, you need to register in the state and it might mean you h…

More and more remote companies use PEOs. No need to incorporate in 50 states, you just pay someone else to.

I worked at a company that switched to a PEO, people seemed weirdly outraged.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#88
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

> Or put another way, your competitors can compensate me less and I'll consider it a better deal. It seems a lot of people disagree with you: > In an accompanying survey of more than 1,200 technology professionals, Hired found that 75% of employees would begin looking for a new job if their salary were to decrease, while 45% of candidates disagreed with using the cost of living of the employee's location as a baselin…

Your compensation could change because of market forces, modern salaries are a product of supply and demand. Previously both supply and demand for high paying jobs was restricted to relatively small geographic areas. Now that remote working is in the supply can move out of high cost areas. However, the converse is also true, the demand can reach people who were not previously eligible. Some of those people would be happy with a significantly lower compensation package.

So to summarize, your compensation could decrease because there are now a lot more people competing for your job. Or it could increase because there are a lot more companies competing for your services.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#89
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

> Or put another way, your competitors can compensate me less and I'll consider it a better deal. It seems a lot of people disagree with you: > In an accompanying survey of more than 1,200 technology professionals, Hired found that 75% of employees would begin looking for a new job if their salary were to decrease, while 45% of candidates disagreed with using the cost of living of the employee's location as a baselin…

I'm on the other side of the coin. I view the associated costs of working in an office as built into my salary. For example, if I go to an office, I suddenly now have to buy gas/repairs for my car, I have to buy office clothes, and I have suddenly lost days per year to commutes. If I work from home, I see myself as freed from those costs.

Put another way, I see my salary as the sum of the cost of the work that I do PLUS the costs associated with me getting the job done. Working from home is simply more economical (and my work/life balance is significantly improved).

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#90
post #20

While I do think that attitudes towards remote work have fundamentally changed, it'll be interesting to see how things shake out over the next 5-10 years. I suspect that as people start to go into the office more, there will be pressure to do so for your career to advance, in many fields. If your boss's boss works in the office, who is more likely to get a promotion, the person that works from home or the person who…

What's a "promotion"? Is it like quitting and getting a nicer job in another company?
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