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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

#251

Post by rowland66 »

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…

If Google is going to allow US employees to work from anywhere in the US, they should not be adjusting wages based on an employee's residence. Where an employee chooses to live becomes no different from what car they choose to buy. Google should pay a consistent wage scale based on a median cost of living across the US. This would probably be an unpleasant adjustment for many Googlers in high cost locales.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#252

Post by what-the-grump »

ctvo wrote: post #180
swader999 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really need sources to decide that reducing commuting is a good idea for the environment?

I need sources on two claims: > The cost of commuting on the environment is extremely high. Reasonable, but source please so I can learn more. > If 20% of jobs permanently switched to remote, the impact on carbon emissions would be immediate, and extremely positive. A more extraordinary claim. I also need sources to learn more.

Would like sources and measurement as well however, just in NYC the lockdown had a significant impact on the nature around the city, the air was clean. Unfortunately we are back to precovid traffic levels.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#253

Post by tzs »

namdnay wrote: post #129
MartinMcGirk wrote: post #37

I can see why you’d pay a remote staff member differently from an on-prem staff member. As others have said if you’re hiring remote then your talent pool is effectively the whole world, so price competition is fiercer. But if everyone is remote or everyone is on-prem, then location-dependent pricing is complete nonsense. The employees are all still providing the same value to the company. Claiming that you can’t pay…

If you remove location-dependent pricing, which location do you align the new single price on? Mountain View? London? Hyderabad?

You don't align the price for remote work to a location. You set it to whatever it takes to get enough qualified people to do the work you need done.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#254

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

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…

It's fair in the sense that they provide each with the means to live at roughy the same standard-of-life: a Stamford $ has more buying power because local prices are lower, so they need fewer of them.

Or, one could simply see it as answering a different question. Not "how much are you worth", but rather "how much do you need". If that sounds unfair, consider that it's close to the principle by which most parents care for their children' needs.

Or, more prosaically, the New York employee simply has more options besides Google, and they might chose to work in an office if it means a 15% difference.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#255

Post by ryan93 »

agilob wrote: post #16
brown9-2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the article makes it pretty clear that it’s a cost of living adjustment

but my cost of living is now higher when Im using more electricity and water at home, and i had to refurbish my room for home office.

You can buy a home for 7 figures cheaper if you leave silicon valley. Why are you worried about a water bill/

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#256

Post by textbookrental »

textbookrental wrote: post #189

It was always a HN mantra that one got paid for the value they create. I guess it is more likely that where you sit is more important than what you do. Also, I see a lot of comments about higher productivity in the office. Google has had record revenue and profits during this time. Clearly that wouldn't be the case if productivity was negatively impacted. This seems to be more about what's good for managers and less…

Or it could be that technology companies will start to use the investment banking model. Where the only way to tell if someone will make a good investment banker is to see if they can spend 100 hours a week in the office doing the most mundane work for a couple of years.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#257

Post by wutbrodo »

mojuba wrote: post #229
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…

> a 25% increase in the amount of their time that's committed to work I think you mean committed to life rather than work? Remember, people normally commute outside of work hours. Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase. But I think your point is still valid. Personally I'd "buy" my extra 2 hours of daily life for a 10% decrease in salary. Given that I'm awake for…

> Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase.

What? Going from 8 to 10 hours is absolutely a 25% increase. 10 is 125% of 8

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#258

Post by bnycum »

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…

I've worked from home for almost 12 years now, and I have always thought about the reverse. How much of an increase in pay would it take for me to go back into the office? Probably about 20% at least. If I were working in an office with a 2 hour commute I'd definitely take that 10% paycut to live a much better life.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#259

Post by misnome »

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…

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 "projects have been late" and pointed at projects that were delayed due to unrelated external supplier reasons as justification.

They claim the benefit of people paying less to heat their houses, as though people don't have pets/family.

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.

In theory, this is exactly what unions are supposed to be for, I guess we'll see from this if the ones that are there, are worth anything.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#260

Post by ashtonkem »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #240
chitowneats wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google felt that WFH had no negative effect on productivity, they could go the route of Twitter and others. The C-level clearly disagrees that this arrangement is ideal for the company, and are disincentivizing it with pay cuts.

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.

Given what we know about longer hours and productivity, plus Google’s low retention figures, I’m going to go with the latter.
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