posted in article comments:
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Quote: "Over time, we’ve encountered some remote candidates who want London rates whilst living in a lower-cost country. I don’t mean them any harm, but can’t think of any other term but “greedy”."
Julien, I'm sorry, but if I were considering your company as a potential employer, a statement like this would immediately make question your good faith. Ensuring that I can afford an "identical standard of living" as my colleagues is an extremely questionable principle, even if you were able to actually objectively determine that (which you can't).
What business of yours is it that I choose to live in Berlin vs. Zurich or Bratislava? You wouldn't pay more a person with a severely disabled dependent requiring round the clock care, would you, even though this circumstance will affect her happiness and productivity greatly. You wouldn't be able to pay less a person that lives in a London suburb an hour and a half away on a train. The choice of locale and cost of living is one of principal advantages of working remotely, and it's the employee's decision and not yours whether the net benefit of their arrangement (salary + cost of living + subjective locale benefits) is adequate.
You may think that your ability to hire doesn't suffer as a result of your beliefs on this point, but I suspect that you're (perhaps knowingly) giving up on a category of highly qualified senior candidates that are smart enough to not accept your self-proclaimed bullshit right to decide (conveniently) what compensation is fair based on their locale alone.
Hi Paul, thanks for taking the time to read this and for the comment. I faced similar reactions while setting this up, so I may be somewhat equipped to respond.
I’m not hoping to convince you here but I'll still try to provide a more complete picture.
From a team perspective, let's take a first example. Two senior engineers, Alice and Bob, work for company X. They have similar experience and roles. Alice lives in Central London, and Bob lives in Sofia, Bulgaria. In both cases that's because their respective families live there.
Say we chose to pay both the same exact amount: 75k£ gross per year, a fair senior wage in London.
In real terms, adjusting for difference in cost of living (for which hard data exists), Bob makes the equivalent of 150k£ per year; twice more than Alice, and also over twice what others in Sofia make for a similar job.
Such effective compensation discrepancies in a team can rapidly create extremely nasty jealousies.
In a word, balance in a team is important.
The principle we’ve tried to live by here is “fairness”. To the point I asked for my salary to be cut by 20% when I went remote myself. Perhaps this proves my “good faith”.
We did try to provide identical standards of living, be we’re of course not imposing lifestyles—the point of remote, as you point out, is in part that you can choose where and how you live.
For a practical example: living in the countryside in France, I have to spend money on a car but my rent is lower; I go to the restaurant less often but I spend more on food. In other words, I balance my lifestyle and budget differently but my “living standards” are similar.
To be coldly statistical about it, I was in the Xth percentile in terms in revenue or taxes in the UK, and I’m probably in the same percentile in France.
Let’s consider your examples. I’ll ignore the dependent person example, as that’s not relevant to the discussion (not being locale dependent).
Regarding the example of the person living in the London suburbs, you’re correct. We probably couldn’t pay them less for a similar job in absolute terms. But the example makes my point: for various reasons that person balances their lifestyle differently: e.g. spend more money and time on transport, less on rent. In my experience, they probably still have the same “living standards” (again, not a very precise term).
Finally, regarding having a “right” to decide what compensation is fair… well, that’s an employer’s prerogative.
It is, indeed, the employee’s decision whether their salary+costs+locale benefits is suitable, but as an employer it’s also possible to use factual data to keep balance.
Note that given our math involved tax systems in various countries, which can be hairy, we’d openly discuss this with candidates and make sure we’d reach an understanding.
Perhaps you’re correct and this kept us from hiring some of the talent out there. We still did hire several brilliant folks I enjoyed working with (and vice versa, from what they tell me), so it’s still an improvement over the previous status quo.
We don’t expect to have the ultimate answer to remote comp this or anything else — please remember, all I’m doing here is laying out what we attempted, how we reasoned on it, and what worked. I’m hoping others with similar experiences will come forward to complete the picture. Perhaps theirs will prove me completely wrong!
reposting again from article comments -- I guess I'm just trying to score HN points :))
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Hi Julien! Thanks for engaging in discussion :)
Your argument is certainly reasonable and logical! What I disagree with is the starting premise of "fair == same standard of living == same % of disposable income" and your characterization of candidates not subscribing to that reasoning as "greedy". ("Same standard of living" would make a lot of sense if your company was based in Bangalore and trying to hire in London -- e.g ensuring "minimum standard of living" -- not that you'd be able to hire in London with Bangalore rates.).
You're absolutely right that ultimately it all boils down to what the market will bear, and you're happy with your ability to hire to your desired standard the way you're doing it -- which is great! I'm afraid however that it's a bit overly enthusiastic to say that this has anything to do with whether your compensation policy is fair.
As a candidate, I would expect to at least be told about this compensation policy before spending any time on the interview process -- I'm sure you'll agree, and perhaps start doing so if you're not doing so already :)
You don't need to think of any other term - 'greedy' is correct. London rates are London rates because the work is in London, with all the baggage that involves. Take a look at the job listings for non-London work.
or get better working conditions, not being interrupted every 20 minutes. This is a major motivation for me to find remote work (as well as the fact that the pay is fairly poor where I am).
Completely agree this is a major issue in many companies.
This said, I'd call it more a problem with how a given company works on-site (open plan offices) than an inherent advantage of remote work; in other words, it's incidental.
But then you can't easily convince anyone to abandon silly open spaces these days :)
8 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 28.9 ms ] threadQuote: "Over time, we’ve encountered some remote candidates who want London rates whilst living in a lower-cost country. I don’t mean them any harm, but can’t think of any other term but “greedy”."
Julien, I'm sorry, but if I were considering your company as a potential employer, a statement like this would immediately make question your good faith. Ensuring that I can afford an "identical standard of living" as my colleagues is an extremely questionable principle, even if you were able to actually objectively determine that (which you can't).
What business of yours is it that I choose to live in Berlin vs. Zurich or Bratislava? You wouldn't pay more a person with a severely disabled dependent requiring round the clock care, would you, even though this circumstance will affect her happiness and productivity greatly. You wouldn't be able to pay less a person that lives in a London suburb an hour and a half away on a train. The choice of locale and cost of living is one of principal advantages of working remotely, and it's the employee's decision and not yours whether the net benefit of their arrangement (salary + cost of living + subjective locale benefits) is adequate.
You may think that your ability to hire doesn't suffer as a result of your beliefs on this point, but I suspect that you're (perhaps knowingly) giving up on a category of highly qualified senior candidates that are smart enough to not accept your self-proclaimed bullshit right to decide (conveniently) what compensation is fair based on their locale alone.
Hi Paul, thanks for taking the time to read this and for the comment. I faced similar reactions while setting this up, so I may be somewhat equipped to respond.
I’m not hoping to convince you here but I'll still try to provide a more complete picture.
From a team perspective, let's take a first example. Two senior engineers, Alice and Bob, work for company X. They have similar experience and roles. Alice lives in Central London, and Bob lives in Sofia, Bulgaria. In both cases that's because their respective families live there.
Say we chose to pay both the same exact amount: 75k£ gross per year, a fair senior wage in London.
In real terms, adjusting for difference in cost of living (for which hard data exists), Bob makes the equivalent of 150k£ per year; twice more than Alice, and also over twice what others in Sofia make for a similar job.
Such effective compensation discrepancies in a team can rapidly create extremely nasty jealousies.
In a word, balance in a team is important.
The principle we’ve tried to live by here is “fairness”. To the point I asked for my salary to be cut by 20% when I went remote myself. Perhaps this proves my “good faith”.
We did try to provide identical standards of living, be we’re of course not imposing lifestyles—the point of remote, as you point out, is in part that you can choose where and how you live.
For a practical example: living in the countryside in France, I have to spend money on a car but my rent is lower; I go to the restaurant less often but I spend more on food. In other words, I balance my lifestyle and budget differently but my “living standards” are similar.
To be coldly statistical about it, I was in the Xth percentile in terms in revenue or taxes in the UK, and I’m probably in the same percentile in France.
Let’s consider your examples. I’ll ignore the dependent person example, as that’s not relevant to the discussion (not being locale dependent).
Regarding the example of the person living in the London suburbs, you’re correct. We probably couldn’t pay them less for a similar job in absolute terms. But the example makes my point: for various reasons that person balances their lifestyle differently: e.g. spend more money and time on transport, less on rent. In my experience, they probably still have the same “living standards” (again, not a very precise term).
Finally, regarding having a “right” to decide what compensation is fair… well, that’s an employer’s prerogative.
It is, indeed, the employee’s decision whether their salary+costs+locale benefits is suitable, but as an employer it’s also possible to use factual data to keep balance.
Note that given our math involved tax systems in various countries, which can be hairy, we’d openly discuss this with candidates and make sure we’d reach an understanding.
Perhaps you’re correct and this kept us from hiring some of the talent out there. We still did hire several brilliant folks I enjoyed working with (and vice versa, from what they tell me), so it’s still an improvement over the previous status quo.
We don’t expect to have the ultimate answer to remote comp this or anything else — please remember, all I’m doing here is laying out what we attempted, how we reasoned on it, and what worked. I’m hoping others with similar experiences will come forward to complete the picture. Perhaps theirs will prove me completely wrong!
Hi Julien! Thanks for engaging in discussion :)
Your argument is certainly reasonable and logical! What I disagree with is the starting premise of "fair == same standard of living == same % of disposable income" and your characterization of candidates not subscribing to that reasoning as "greedy". ("Same standard of living" would make a lot of sense if your company was based in Bangalore and trying to hire in London -- e.g ensuring "minimum standard of living" -- not that you'd be able to hire in London with Bangalore rates.).
You're absolutely right that ultimately it all boils down to what the market will bear, and you're happy with your ability to hire to your desired standard the way you're doing it -- which is great! I'm afraid however that it's a bit overly enthusiastic to say that this has anything to do with whether your compensation policy is fair.
As a candidate, I would expect to at least be told about this compensation policy before spending any time on the interview process -- I'm sure you'll agree, and perhaps start doing so if you're not doing so already :)
Cheers!
P
- more senior, so they'd get paid relatively more anyways;
- exceptional, so they'd get paid relatively more anyways;
- working too many hours, which is never a good idea for knowledge workers, and doesn't last long.
Completely agree this is a major issue in many companies.
This said, I'd call it more a problem with how a given company works on-site (open plan offices) than an inherent advantage of remote work; in other words, it's incidental.
But then you can't easily convince anyone to abandon silly open spaces these days :)
http://www.designcurial.com/news/survey-reveals-open-plan-44...