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How to Pay Remote Workers

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Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#11

Post by [deleted] »

romanovcode wrote: post #8
gjulianm wrote: post #4

Salaries based on cost of living are always a mistery to me. If the company wants to have an honest relationship with the worker, the salary should be based on the value the employee is bringing, and that does not depend on where they live. Tying the salary to the cost of living looks like a way to cheat a worker out of the value they generate.

> Tying the salary to the cost of living looks like a way to cheat a worker out of the value they generate. Seems like you solved your mistery after all! As abusiness you want to spend as little as possible.

[deleted]

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#12

Post by oAlbe »

romanovcode wrote: post #7

> Why on earth would it matter where your desk is? It matters to product managers. Managing remote team is more difficult therefore PMs will always push against this.

Why is it more difficult? Do you have some data or anecdotes to back up your claim? I'm really interested.

I've been working remotely for years now, and my relationships with the various PMs I've had has always been: talk about what needs to be done, and then be left alone to actually do it, check back when I have progress or if I have outstanding questions that arose from better understanding the problem domain. Plus the daily stand up meetings that have always been optional to attend. Done, nothing else, nothing complicated.

Is this uncommon across the industry?

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#14

Post by buboard »

Hard_Space wrote: post #2

As a remote worker, I think there is an assumption of 'necessary common suffering' which continues to make remote work a 'privilege' rather than a simple logistical alternative. So long as there are on-location cubicle-dwellers who might get disgruntled to know that other employees are living some kind of fantasy high life from home (working in PJs, etc., all the tropes), then providing any remote working options bec…

> Making a remote worker's income less attractive is one way to redress that balance of perception.

That sounds wrong, and there are now plenty of companies that are fully remote , for which it is the stationed-worker who are a burden

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#16

Post by cyborgx7 »

gjulianm wrote: post #4

Salaries based on cost of living are always a mistery to me. If the company wants to have an honest relationship with the worker, the salary should be based on the value the employee is bringing, and that does not depend on where they live. Tying the salary to the cost of living looks like a way to cheat a worker out of the value they generate.

>Tying the salary to the cost of living looks like a way to cheat a worker out of the value they generate.

Where do you think profits come from? Profit is the difference between what you pay your workers and the value of their work.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#17

Post by pfisch »

gjulianm wrote: post #4

Salaries based on cost of living are always a mistery to me. If the company wants to have an honest relationship with the worker, the salary should be based on the value the employee is bringing, and that does not depend on where they live. Tying the salary to the cost of living looks like a way to cheat a worker out of the value they generate.

"the salary should be based on the value the employee is bringing"

This is really so vague as to be meaningless. A McDonalds can't operate without someone at the drive through. So isn't the value of the drive through worker incredibly high since they are essential to the operation of the business?

No. Labor Economics tells us that an employee will be paid at the market rate. They are paid based on how many other people are willing and capable of doing the job and what rate they will accept.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#18

Post by stakhanov »

Hard_Space wrote: post #2

As a remote worker, I think there is an assumption of 'necessary common suffering' which continues to make remote work a 'privilege' rather than a simple logistical alternative. So long as there are on-location cubicle-dwellers who might get disgruntled to know that other employees are living some kind of fantasy high life from home (working in PJs, etc., all the tropes), then providing any remote working options bec…

First: It's just horrible to build a company culture around assuming pettiness. I'm not saying that it isn't true that human beings are often petty. But you shouldn't optimize around being a great place for petty people to work at.

Second: Being forced into an onsite job in a city with high rents and bad traffic is bad. Being taken advantage of on salary for living in a low cost-of-living area is also bad. One badness doesn't cancel out the other. There are just so many instances I can think of of going to a manager and making some argument that's a variation on the theme "Can you please stop treating me badly?" and the response being "We treat all these other people badly, so if we stop treating you badly, that would be unfair to them!" Well, that's just not a valid argument! I don't want to be treated badly, and if not treating me badly implies not being able to treat these other people badly, then maybe that's the route you should be taking, goddammit!

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#19

Post by armonge »

Used to work in Nicaragua for a US company with a local office. We were definitely being paid a lot less than our peers working directly in the US locations, at the same time we were being paid what was at the moment a lot more than the standard for other devs in the country.

There would have been no incentive for that company to open an office in Nicaragua if they would have had to pay similar salaries than what they were paying in USA, i mean, we have a lot more employee benefits and protections. Of course i would have loved to get more money out of it, and i feel we were delivering equal value than our peers, but if i think about it, the economics wouldn't have made sense.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#20

Post by ta980345 »

oAlbe wrote: post #12
romanovcode wrote: post #7

> Why on earth would it matter where your desk is? It matters to product managers. Managing remote team is more difficult therefore PMs will always push against this.

Why is it more difficult? Do you have some data or anecdotes to back up your claim? I'm really interested. I've been working remotely for years now, and my relationships with the various PMs I've had has always been: talk about what needs to be done, and then be left alone to actually do it, check back when I have progress or if I have outstanding questions that arose from better understanding the problem domain. Plu…

I've been working for a company where people optionally do remote work from home; the difference in communication and team cohesiveness is stark to me.

When people are colocated in an office (and I guess this is a generalization), there are more incidental chats, knowledge-sharing, status-updates, stress/challenge-sharing etc.

I do better work and get more done at home though, and from an environmental perspective it seems like an obvious choice.

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