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How to Pay Remote Workers

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Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#61

Post by onion2k »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #55
ehnto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still doesn't make sense, because the remote worker pool is global. If that were supposed to make sense then we would all be getting paid third world rates and cost of living would still have nothing to do with it.

Well being onsite adds value to buyers. If you dont think so, the only way to proce that is by starting your own company with remote-only. Remote devs are cheap so you should be rich very quickly, if they provide the same value as locals.

There are some very big remote-only companies. Canonical and Trello are and they're unicorns. There's also Automaticc, Digital Ocean, Basecamp, etc..

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#62

Post by t34543 »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #55
ehnto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still doesn't make sense, because the remote worker pool is global. If that were supposed to make sense then we would all be getting paid third world rates and cost of living would still have nothing to do with it.

Well being onsite adds value to buyers. If you dont think so, the only way to proce that is by starting your own company with remote-only. Remote devs are cheap so you should be rich very quickly, if they provide the same value as locals.

Remote work is a skill like anything else. Your litmus test is a gross over simplification of workplace dynamics.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#63

Post by goatinaboat »

ehnto wrote: post #40
biblytens wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries are based on supply and demand. Think this one through with that in mind and it'll make more sense.

It still doesn't make sense, because the remote worker pool is global. If that were supposed to make sense then we would all be getting paid third world rates and cost of living would still have nothing to do with it.

then we would all be getting paid third world rates

That’s the end goal of large corporations, yes. Why are we so eager to help them? Developers already undermine their own value by crowing to everyone who will listen “anyone can be a developer and do what we do”.

What do you think your boss thinks when he or she hears you say all these things?

(Not you in particular, devs in general)

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#64

Post by buboard »

biblytens wrote: post #24
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.

Salaries are based on supply and demand. Think this one through with that in mind and it'll make more sense.

Then it makes even less sense, for a remote company.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#65

Post by buboard »

goatinaboat wrote: post #63
ehnto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still doesn't make sense, because the remote worker pool is global. If that were supposed to make sense then we would all be getting paid third world rates and cost of living would still have nothing to do with it.

then we would all be getting paid third world rates That’s the end goal of large corporations, yes. Why are we so eager to help them? Developers already undermine their own value by crowing to everyone who will listen “anyone can be a developer and do what we do”. What do you think your boss thinks when he or she hears you say all these things? (Not you in particular, devs in general)

Not just large corporations, also small ones. I think it's a good thing - paying high wages in countries that need it most.

> their own value by crowing to everyone who will listen “anyone can be a developer and do what we do

I sincerely doubt developers believe that, or at least not experienced developers. Software is cutthroat: anything that can be automated is already automated. People who can't work beyond that are useless.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#66

Post by notacoward »

I've been a fully remote worker for almost a decade. I appreciate the fact that my compensation is on a scale implicitly tied to a higher cost of living than where I am. Nonetheless...

Companies don't set pay to be fair. They set pay to attract and retain the talent they need. Otherwise, companies that employ people in India wouldn't have a 3x pay spread for people doing the same work (hi Red Hat). Software developers in general wouldn't make more than, say, plumbers. The potential employees' perception of fairness does come into the picture a bit, but that takes a distant back seat to good old supply and demand. If a company needs to pay more to attract and retain talent in area X, they pay more. If they need to pay less to attract and retain talent in area Y, they pay less. This is just basic business. Companies pay local prices for real estate or electricity, and they pay local prices for personnel.

The only thing different about remote workers is that there's no single local standard to measure against. So you have to tailor things more specifically to the individual. But if you think that you should pay remote workers more or less because they're more or less productive, or because you're saving money by not having to provide them an office, you're forgetting the purpose of pay. Attract and retain. Supply and demand. That's it.

P.S. I'm not trying to make a moral argument here. I'm certainly no laissez-fair "markets uber alles" greed funnel. Quite the contrary. Companies are free to make their decisions on some different basis and more power to them, but there's no escaping the fact that most will cut costs wherever they can. Of the places they might cut corners, geographic salary differences are far from the worst option. If and when salary fairness gets to the top of the list, I'd start with not paying women less.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#67

Post by cyborgx7 »

gjulianm wrote: post #48
cyborgx7 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point is that the entire reason why people say we need the profit motive to motivate people, is because caring for other people is not enough to motivate their behavior.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#68

Post by em-bee »

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.

not only that, the cost-of-living estimates are often wrong. sure, it is cheaper to live in some places, but then you spend a lot more traveling to other places to get things that your local place doesn't have. in some places the cost-of-living also depends on your life-style.

if i live in a country where the average cost-of-living is low, i find that it's because of a generally poorer living standard and i have to spend a lot more compared to the local average to get the same standard that i'd have elsewhere.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#69

Post by jacknews »

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.

indeed, in some ways 'profit' is tantamount to 'cheating the people who made that profit (employees) out of their fair share' - certainly when it comes to many big tech companies.

Re: How to Pay Remote Workers

#70

Post by gjulianm »

pfisch wrote: post #59
gjulianm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. The drive through employee is essential, but the cook is also essential, and the restaurant manager is also essential probably... The value is shared among them. Also, Labor Economics tells us what happens, and I do not argue with that. I am saying that we should take more into account actual value and avoid extreme profit-driven views, such as reducing someone's salary for the exact same job just be…

What you are describing isn't how the free market works though. It is just a fantasy of yours. In an efficient market your theoretical business would be driven into bankruptcy or bought out by the competition that is properly allocating capital. Also the ceo answers to the shareholders who hired him with the job of maximizing returns. Unless this is a coop there is no reason for it to operate the way you are talking…

I know that's not how the free market works now, precisely I'm arguing for changing that.

> In an efficient market your theoretical business would be driven into bankruptcy or bought out by the competition that is properly allocating capital.

And as a good theoretical exercise it's pretty useless. In reality most of the markets are not efficient, changing salaries is not 'free' (i.e., employees work differently depending on how you treat them, and replacing unhappy employees has a cost), and there's more to companies and employees than pure economics.

> Also the ceo answers to the shareholders who hired him with the job of maximizing returns

This is what I am criticising, the 'maximize returns over everything' philosophy. Any company already has a lot of power over any employee, and they abuse that position to the point of cheating people out of their fair share of what they produce just because they live in a different place. And in this case we're talking about a relatively benign situation, but the same philosophy pushes companies to lower wages below a living level, condemning people to poverty so that the company "maximizes profits".

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