How to Pay Remote Workers • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#41

Post by cyborgx7 » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:14 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #36

cyborgx7 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Where do you think profits come from? Profit is the difference between what you pay your workers and the value of their work. I don't think the OP is refuting that. Paying someone 50% of the value they generate is fine. That's how businesses work. Paying someone 2% of the value they generate because they live in is much less easy to justify.

It's trivial to justify. Companies exist to maximize profit. You make more profit by paying your employees less.

Also, plenty of people in my responses are denying that this is what profit is.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#42

Post by oAlbe » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:16 AM UTC

spurdoman77 wrote: post #28

oAlbe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point though. Having an honest relationship with your employees and treating everybody fairly doesn't prevent you from profiting. It think this point is explained really well in the article: why should someone who lives in a city with a high cost of living be paid more than someone who lives in a low cost of living one? Effectively, what you are doing is giving the person in, say, SF, more money to be…

But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? Does it bring me more profit? To me it sounds like paying too much. I pay market rates which doesnt consider cost of living or value produced, but the the average salary for the skillset/experience.

> But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness?

In an ideal world, you would because you would care for people. If not everybody, at least the people around you. As an employer, you are hiring people who will spend the majority of their waking hours working for you, with you, at your company. In theory, you would care if they are happy or not, motivated or not, paid fairly or not. You would care if they can afford that visit to the doctor they need, if they are taking enough breaks, enough time off. Ideally, you would keep an eye on your employees to make sure nobody is overdoing, to watch out for for employees whose performance is going down and figure out if they are getting burnt out or what's actually going on. All those things would pay back in the end. Happy employees do better works. Burnt out employees don't. Recovering from that is hard, and even though you can say "who cares, I'll fire them and hire someone else", there's still the fact that the hiring process is expensive.

In an idea world though. But I guess I do understand that for many people the only thing that matters is squeezing as much money for their business out of society as they can get away with. Though, this becomes a somewhat philosophical discussion at this point, and I think that's beside the point.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#43

Post by cyborgx7 » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

spurdoman77 wrote: post #34

cyborgx7 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extra value generated from the combination of efforts is still generated by the workers who combined their effort to generate it. Why are the owners more deserving of that "extra value" than the workers?

The owners started the business, took the risk, etc. If an employee isnt happy with the salary, he can always ask for more, change employer, or start his own business. It is a fair game IMO.

So he can start his own business, with no capital of their own, so at an inherent disadvantage, or sell their work under value to someone else. This world view only works if you only see people as atomized units and have no sense of a concept of class. And even then it barely works.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#44

Post by cyborgx7 » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:21 AM UTC

oAlbe wrote: post #42

spurdoman77 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? Does it bring me more profit? To me it sounds like paying too much. I pay market rates which doesnt consider cost of living or value produced, but the the average salary for the skillset/experience.

> But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? In an ideal world, you would because you would care for people. If not everybody , at least the people around you. As an employer, you are hiring people who will spend the majority of their waking hours working for you, with you, at your company. In theory, you would care if they are happy or not, motivated or not, paid fairly or not. You would care if they ca…

If people were driven because they care about other/all people rather than about their own material benefit, we wouldn't have designed a system based on the profit motive in the first place. Because it wouldn't have motivated people.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#45

Post by angarg12 » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

You might not need to compete with Google, but I see an opportunity there.

Pay average Bay Area salaries to full remote workers in low CoL areas. Most likely top tech companies have no offices there, and even if they do, chances are you pay more.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#46

Post by gjulianm » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:29 AM UTC

spurdoman77 wrote: post #27

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.

So, how do you calculate value for developer?

That's a whole different question and I don't think nobody has a definitive answer. Market rate seems to be a "consensus" of how much does a developer add to a company. But paying less to a developer just because they live in a different country throws that out of the window completely.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#47

Post by gjulianm » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

tdfx wrote: post #31

oAlbe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point though. Having an honest relationship with your employees and treating everybody fairly doesn't prevent you from profiting. It think this point is explained really well in the article: why should someone who lives in a city with a high cost of living be paid more than someone who lives in a low cost of living one? Effectively, what you are doing is giving the person in, say, SF, more money to be…

Workers should not be expected to be paid "fairly" or according to some broader social expectation. The company is not your friend and you are not the company's friend. They are paying you for sacrificing your time for their benefit. You are worth exactly the minimum that you're willing to accept in payment based on your individual circumstances.

"Expecting" is not the same as hoping that things would change.

> You are worth exactly the minimum that you're willing to accept in payment based on your individual circumstances

This is what I would like to change. There's an asymmetry of power in employment (if you lose an employee it's just a nuisance, if a person loses employment it can destroy their life) that is exploited by business and it can lead to terrible situations, such as people that are generating value for a company that posts heavy benefits but in return they don't even get a living wage.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#48

Post by gjulianm » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:37 AM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #44

oAlbe wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? In an ideal world, you would because you would care for people. If not everybody , at least the people around you. As an employer, you are hiring people who will spend the majority of their waking hours working for you, with you, at your company. In theory, you would care if they are happy or not, motivated or not, paid fairly or not. You would care if they ca…

If people were driven because they care about other/all people rather than about their own material benefit, we wouldn't have designed a system based on the profit motive in the first place. Because it wouldn't have motivated people.

Profits and caring about employees are not exclusive.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#49

Post by gjulianm » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

cyborgx7 wrote: post #16

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.

I am not that naive, thanks. One can understand that you generate X value in part due to your own skill and time, in part due to the company environment. You get a percentage of that value as a salary, the other part goes to the company as profit in a more or less fair partition. But if another developer receives less for the same work you're definitely making it unfair and taking advantage of the fact that the business has more negotiating power than the employee. That's why I say it's cheating and dishonest.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#50

Post by fuzz4lyfe » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:45 AM UTC

spurdoman77 wrote: post #28

oAlbe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point though. Having an honest relationship with your employees and treating everybody fairly doesn't prevent you from profiting. It think this point is explained really well in the article: why should someone who lives in a city with a high cost of living be paid more than someone who lives in a low cost of living one? Effectively, what you are doing is giving the person in, say, SF, more money to be…

But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? Does it bring me more profit? To me it sounds like paying too much. I pay market rates which doesnt consider cost of living or value produced, but the the average salary for the skillset/experience.

>But as an employer, why I should strive for honestness? To me it sounds like paying too much.

In my case honestness would have made several firms more profitable. I'm a high school drop out but lifelong programmer from a early age. As such I've had to work for well below market rates on my way up. Generally I do better than most of my college educated peers but since I lack the education I have been compensated much less. As a result I leave jobs every year or two, often around the time I'm really hitting my stride and providing significant value to the organization. As I tend to be above the median I end up on the projects that are critical to the company so what you end up with is someone building a quarter of your infrastructure and then leaving because "its corporate policy to max raises out at 5%" or some other nonsense. At that point you have to go back to the market (counter offers when you told me raises are warranted but impossible are an insult and I refuse to accept them) and likely pay at least market rate for a new employee then get him or her up to speed all as deadlines slip.

When I explain this to whomever I'm giving my notice to I am frequently asked "why would I pay you more than I need to" as a retort. I just shrug my shoulders and move on to the next job.