Reality setting in for employees in expensive cities who clamour for fully remote work (employee, sample)
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I talked with a buddy yesterday who lives in an expensive city but has always been underpaid for his position at a local company. He started looking for new jobs and only wants fully remote. His salary expectations are based on the "local market," per se. Well it was a real wake-up call for him when he talked with recruiters for fully remote work and they told him that his salary expectations are too high because their company's pay is based on the "national average."
This is only the beginning of a much greater trend. The job market the past 2 years was somewhat artificial because the pandemic economy was a boom for companies who employed highly paid desk workers, so the pay of such workers was not really put under a microscope.
An additional variable that will come into play is the actual amount of work that highly paid desk workers are getting done from home. A big difference between working from office and from home, especially at companies with intense work cultures, is that in office there's more of an incentive to stay busy, not take 2-hr lunch breaks or be the first to leave the office. Some percentage of employees working from home will use any productivity increase (say a task that used to take them 6 hours now takes 3) to simply not work, although they may do some minimal activity such as answering an email every so often in order to appear fully focused. This is especially easy in more "creative" roles where output of employees in such roles is harder for employers to quantify. This will have to lead to a decrease in compensation (over time) as employers have to account for a "fudge factor" in unstructured remote work.
I talked with a buddy yesterday who lives in an expensive city but has always been underpaid for his position at a local company. He started looking for new jobs and only wants fully remote. His salary expectations are based on the "local market," per se. Well it was a real wake-up call for him when he talked with recruiters for fully remote work and they told him that his salary expectations are too high because their company's pay is based on the "national average."
This is only the beginning of a much greater trend. The job market the past 2 years was somewhat artificial because the pandemic economy was a boom for companies who employed highly paid desk workers, so the pay of such workers was not really put under a microscope.
An additional variable that will come into play is the actual amount of work that highly paid desk workers are getting done from home. A big difference between working from office and from home, especially at companies with intense work cultures, is that in office there's more of an incentive to stay busy, not take 2-hr lunch breaks or be the first to leave the office. Some percentage of employees working from home will use any productivity increase (say a task that used to take them 6 hours now takes 3) to simply not work, although they may do some minimal activity such as answering an email every so often in order to appear fully focused. This is especially easy in more "creative" roles where output of employees in such roles is harder for employers to quantify. This will have to lead to a decrease in compensation (over time) as employers have to account for a "fudge factor" in unstructured remote work.
Cool hypothesis. Would love to see your peer-reviewed research.
I have no idea what will happen. I’m in the Boston area where is seems like everyone is already making a big salary around here. No one is going to get a salary decrease at this point. I’m in my 40s with a family, my family lives here and if it weren’t for that I’d probably move. If I were in my 20s or 30s I probably wouldn’t stay here.
I have no idea what the future holds but right now it seems like people have plenty of money. I don’t think major cities will feel the effects of remote work too much. There are so many people who are hybrid plus people who were never remote in the first place working in the city. I’m sure other cities are seeing increasing real estate costs because maybe some people did move and also these filthy rich people who get paid in the big city are buying second and third homes in other areas. Must be nice.
It honestly feels like there are a lot of over paid people in corporate America. The bonuses I see people get in addition to crazy salaries are just wow. Wouldn’t hurt for some of that to be taken away or shifted to other people in the companies who might deserve it as well. But of course it will just go to the leadership people at the top. Extra money never seems to go to the employees. For the past decade or so many lower level white collar jobs (admin assistants, payroll jobs, customer support roles) have been eliminated. Plenty of people are doing the job of 2 or 3 people so SOME folks actually deserve the money…but not all.
I talked with a buddy yesterday and it exactly proved my pre-conceived notions on what we were talking about and, after that, proved that I'm not slowly going bald.
Cool hypothesis. Would love to see your peer-reviewed research.
^^^ Yes, this.
Remote jobs are paid both by "national average" and per the local market. It is not like every employer is that dumb and greedy. Although a lot are. In my field (software development) I live in a location with average cost of living (with the notable exception of property tax burden) so I would probably do okay with the national average, whatever exactly that is precisely. A lot of people moved out of expensive cities precisely because of remote work no longer requiring them to cope with the expense and stress and time suck of all that anymore.
I am about 100% more efficient at my work when remote, exactly because I am not interrupted by an "intense work culture" such as micromanaging bosses strolling around their panopticon, noisy open office, residual commute stress, constant meetings (although in some remote roles, there are actually more rather than less meetings, because managers are terrified they will be exposed for not contributing all that much, so they need ways to urinate on as many things as possible).
The general pattern is that the cat's out of the bag -- employees have figured out that they don't have to prostitute themselves to some contrived daily commute / in-office experience to get their work done and that they have more options than that. Too bad, so sad for businesses I guess, although the more enlightened ones are adjusting to a more sustainable world that we should have been transitioning too a long time ago anyway.
The simple fact is that the sky didn't fall when offices closed, employees are actually loving being treated like adults, and for many types of jobs, it's really pretty much a wash and should be an employee preference. Business should have always managed to objectives, not to "keeping busy", anyway.
As I've noted elsewhere, the ones leading the charge back to the office for us wasn't the senior management. They're fully on board with remote work. It was the younger junior and middle management seeking to justify their jobs. What WFH really showed was how many middle management didn't know what their staff were actually doing, didn't know how to measure it, and didn't know how to assign it. There was no one in the office to send on busywork tasks and no one to call meetings to look important in.
I talked with a buddy yesterday who lives in an expensive city but has always been underpaid for his position at a local company. He started looking for new jobs and only wants fully remote. His salary expectations are based on the "local market," per se. Well it was a real wake-up call for him when he talked with recruiters for fully remote work and they told him that his salary expectations are too high because their company's pay is based on the "national average."
This is only the beginning of a much greater trend. The job market the past 2 years was somewhat artificial because the pandemic economy was a boom for companies who employed highly paid desk workers, so the pay of such workers was not really put under a microscope.
An additional variable that will come into play is the actual amount of work that highly paid desk workers are getting done from home. A big difference between working from office and from home, especially at companies with intense work cultures, is that in office there's more of an incentive to stay busy, not take 2-hr lunch breaks or be the first to leave the office. Some percentage of employees working from home will use any productivity increase (say a task that used to take them 6 hours now takes 3) to simply not work, although they may do some minimal activity such as answering an email every so often in order to appear fully focused. This is especially easy in more "creative" roles where output of employees in such roles is harder for employers to quantify. This will have to lead to a decrease in compensation (over time) as employers have to account for a "fudge factor" in unstructured remote work.
What a giant lump of ridiculous generalizations that are nothing but your personal opinion.
"I talked to a buddy and he said..........." is never a good way to start a thread, not your first thread, not any thread. Nobody cares what some random guy's buddy thinks.
BTW, I spoke to my friend yesterday and he said the world is flat. So there's that.
What a giant lump of ridiculous generalizations that are nothing but your personal opinion.
"I talked to a buddy and he said..........." is never a good way to start a thread, not your first thread, not any thread. Nobody cares what some random guy's buddy thinks.
BTW, I spoke to my friend yesterday and he said the world is flat. So there's that.
Don't you just love empirical research conclusions based on a sample size of ONE? Anecdote schmanecdote.
As I've noted elsewhere, the ones leading the charge back to the office for us wasn't the senior management. They're fully on board with remote work. It was the younger junior and middle management seeking to justify their jobs. What WFH really showed was how many middle management didn't know what their staff were actually doing, didn't know how to measure it, and didn't know how to assign it. There was no one in the office to send on busywork tasks and no one to call meetings to look important in.
My concern is for those that hold custodial jobs in the office buildings, public transportation workers and those who are employed by businesses near the offices (ex. restaurants) that rely on their employee foot traffic.
Ehh no. Not sure what remote has anything to do with it.
Companies who want to pay lower for remote workers will attract lower quality remote employees. Plus, any remote worker looking at jobs should review where the company is based out of. A company based in San Francisco will likely pay more than one based in Phoenix. I literally had this happen to me as I was interviewing. It was a 40% difference. So if he's applying with companies based in areas with lower cost of living areas then that's on him. Not his location nor the companies.
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