This doesn’t make sense. Paying someone less because they work from home. It costs a company way more to house someone in an expensive office. Sure office workers should be paid less because of the additional cost?
Am I mad here?
Because I still have to pay to commute to work as my job cannot be done from home.
Everyone in the accounts office has effectively had a £4K pay rise for not coming to the building every day.
How is that fair?
Because you aren’t bowing to your boss flattering his ego.
The only thing I do find unfair about this situation currently is the amount of people working from their homes outside of London while still getting hugely inflated London salaries.
It leads to situations where two people can be doing the same role at the same company, with a now identical cost of living, but one earning 30% more than the other because they’re still on the London salary.
If you think something you have is a benefit to your employer then you expect to be paid more for it.
If you go to the shop and they have 2 things, and you prefer one, the chances are you will pay more for that one than the other.
This is exactly the same principle. If you think WfH is better, some kind of perk, then you’ll take the job for less money. Or maybe “you” won’t, but someone will.
All the hand-wringing about what “should” or “shouldn’t” be the case is entirely immaterial.
Think of it like you have been offered 2 jobs, one is with google and it’s close to home, the other is amazon and it’s a 2 hour commute. The google job pays £50k and the Amazon one £65k. You pick one. You post a humble brag post saying how difficult this decision is and take the advice of all the minimum wage retail people secretly (or not so secretly) seething at your life.
Similarly, perhaps most people are not going to have a choice at all. They have to go into work, and probably for less money. The bottom line here is : if WfH is seen by other people who can do your job as worth the pay a company is offering then someone will take it.
If they don’t, well, then your employer is going to have to pay more.
The other thing to consider (although it has some complicated issues perhaps, especially over taxation) is that if your job can be wfh, it can probably be worked from anywhere with reasonably good internet access – thus you might find yourself competing against English-speaking workers located anywhere – and they may well work for significantly less than you.
Can I get a Durham component please?
Technically people should be paid more to work from home cos you’re using your own leccy, heating etc. For me the convenience of not having to catch two buses made it worthwhile. The money and time saved on that also made up for it. But there’s no way anyone should be forced to take a pay cut, this is a dangerous precedent. You’re still doing your job!
Don’t be surprised if there isn’t much sympathy in the real world outside the r/uk echo chamber. WfH / non-WfH may well become the new social divide. In fact the chattering classes obsession with WfH could even drive factory workers, shop workers, warehouse workers, NHS workers, delivery workers etc. away from the Labour party.
Meanwhile rural house prices soared as WfH’ers priced out the locals (easy to buy a rural house when you have a London wage, not so easy if you work in a rural industry).
Doesn’t matter whether you like this or not, but an adept populist politician could make “WfH culture” as toxic as “woke culture” for large segments of society.
If you’re being paid London wages and living in say Norwich, that’s putting people who are living and working in Norwich at a heck of a disadvantage with house prices…
Why should you be paid less? Because you’re less able to do the job[1], and your remuneration no longer needs to take into account the commuting, lunch and other costs and the London weighting that it previously did.
[1] Yes, yes. I’m fully expecting the usual uninformed Reddit kneejerk reaction here of “I’m doing my job better when WFH”. I accept that there may be some cases where that’s true. But it’s certainly not true in my line of work, and my gut feeling is that my case is probably more representative of the general population. Yes, my staff are getting through as much, or sometimes even more work than they were when they were in the office. But it’s of lower quality, and a big part of that is almost certainly down to communication. Yes, you can have a video call with your colleagues when you want to discuss something. But there’s a higher barrier to that than there is to just walking over and asking them, and what we’re seeing is that people generally aren’t bothering except for the bigger items, and are muddling along on their own. They’re also missing out on overhearing random discussions that are happening in their team.
Why? Because companies like this think that you will accept the equation:
better working life = worth making less money
So obviously, fuck them, go and work elsewhere so this trend dies.
FWIW I was working remotely (field based sales & marketing, then PMing from home) for over 20 years with rare expectations of visiting the office throughout. Many companies have been doing this for years and these dinosaurs need to embrace modern working.
Because it costs you less.
Easily answered, where is Home? NOW before you answer that… I want to ask this next question when I say “Call centre” what country do you think? Unless you work in a call centre, the answer isn’t likely to be UK
​
​
Now, apply the same logic to an Office, where would this office be located if it could be done cheaper within another country? clearly some jobs can’t move overseas, doesn’t mean all would be safe.
​
​
Companies and employers don’t give a shit about you.
I’ve never understood why people care whether other people work from home.
If your only argument against it is that you’re not able to, then you really need to reevaluate.
Different jobs require you to work from different places, and ultimately if your only requirement is a laptop, you could literally work from anywhere.
I’m saying this as someone who has to commute because my job is near impossible from home.
Are we really going to do this now?
Pay-by-Location: paying by location of employee/worker rather than the education, training, skill set, and ability
What other little slippery road will they want to go down. Pay-by-gender (they do, but not that they tell you); pay-by-rent (the more you pay the more you get); pay-by-special-circumstance … they’ll make up a definition.
Is that how they pay management and executive class? Or are they still *special?*
Why do people take dumb claims and silly negotiating strategies as facts?
18 comments
https://archive.ph/HBj9s
This doesn’t make sense. Paying someone less because they work from home. It costs a company way more to house someone in an expensive office. Sure office workers should be paid less because of the additional cost?
Am I mad here?
Because I still have to pay to commute to work as my job cannot be done from home.
Everyone in the accounts office has effectively had a £4K pay rise for not coming to the building every day.
How is that fair?
Because you aren’t bowing to your boss flattering his ego.
The only thing I do find unfair about this situation currently is the amount of people working from their homes outside of London while still getting hugely inflated London salaries.
It leads to situations where two people can be doing the same role at the same company, with a now identical cost of living, but one earning 30% more than the other because they’re still on the London salary.
If you think something you have is a benefit to your employer then you expect to be paid more for it.
If you go to the shop and they have 2 things, and you prefer one, the chances are you will pay more for that one than the other.
This is exactly the same principle. If you think WfH is better, some kind of perk, then you’ll take the job for less money. Or maybe “you” won’t, but someone will.
All the hand-wringing about what “should” or “shouldn’t” be the case is entirely immaterial.
Think of it like you have been offered 2 jobs, one is with google and it’s close to home, the other is amazon and it’s a 2 hour commute. The google job pays £50k and the Amazon one £65k. You pick one. You post a humble brag post saying how difficult this decision is and take the advice of all the minimum wage retail people secretly (or not so secretly) seething at your life.
Similarly, perhaps most people are not going to have a choice at all. They have to go into work, and probably for less money. The bottom line here is : if WfH is seen by other people who can do your job as worth the pay a company is offering then someone will take it.
If they don’t, well, then your employer is going to have to pay more.
The other thing to consider (although it has some complicated issues perhaps, especially over taxation) is that if your job can be wfh, it can probably be worked from anywhere with reasonably good internet access – thus you might find yourself competing against English-speaking workers located anywhere – and they may well work for significantly less than you.
Can I get a Durham component please?
Technically people should be paid more to work from home cos you’re using your own leccy, heating etc. For me the convenience of not having to catch two buses made it worthwhile. The money and time saved on that also made up for it. But there’s no way anyone should be forced to take a pay cut, this is a dangerous precedent. You’re still doing your job!
Don’t be surprised if there isn’t much sympathy in the real world outside the r/uk echo chamber. WfH / non-WfH may well become the new social divide. In fact the chattering classes obsession with WfH could even drive factory workers, shop workers, warehouse workers, NHS workers, delivery workers etc. away from the Labour party.
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/the-guardian-view-on-working-from-home-a-new-social-divide](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/18/the-guardian-view-on-working-from-home-a-new-social-divide)
Don’t forget the vast majority of the population ~75% never WfH during lockdown
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/17/home-working-doubled-during-uk-covid-pandemic-last-year-mostly-in-london](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/17/home-working-doubled-during-uk-covid-pandemic-last-year-mostly-in-london)
Meanwhile rural house prices soared as WfH’ers priced out the locals (easy to buy a rural house when you have a London wage, not so easy if you work in a rural industry).
[https://www.showhouse.co.uk/news/rural-house-prices-soar-16-1-as-brits-embrace-wfh/](https://www.showhouse.co.uk/news/rural-house-prices-soar-16-1-as-brits-embrace-wfh/)
Doesn’t matter whether you like this or not, but an adept populist politician could make “WfH culture” as toxic as “woke culture” for large segments of society.
If you’re being paid London wages and living in say Norwich, that’s putting people who are living and working in Norwich at a heck of a disadvantage with house prices…
Why should you be paid less? Because you’re less able to do the job[1], and your remuneration no longer needs to take into account the commuting, lunch and other costs and the London weighting that it previously did.
[1] Yes, yes. I’m fully expecting the usual uninformed Reddit kneejerk reaction here of “I’m doing my job better when WFH”. I accept that there may be some cases where that’s true. But it’s certainly not true in my line of work, and my gut feeling is that my case is probably more representative of the general population. Yes, my staff are getting through as much, or sometimes even more work than they were when they were in the office. But it’s of lower quality, and a big part of that is almost certainly down to communication. Yes, you can have a video call with your colleagues when you want to discuss something. But there’s a higher barrier to that than there is to just walking over and asking them, and what we’re seeing is that people generally aren’t bothering except for the bigger items, and are muddling along on their own. They’re also missing out on overhearing random discussions that are happening in their team.
Why? Because companies like this think that you will accept the equation:
better working life = worth making less money
So obviously, fuck them, go and work elsewhere so this trend dies.
FWIW I was working remotely (field based sales & marketing, then PMing from home) for over 20 years with rare expectations of visiting the office throughout. Many companies have been doing this for years and these dinosaurs need to embrace modern working.
Because it costs you less.
Easily answered, where is Home? NOW before you answer that… I want to ask this next question when I say “Call centre” what country do you think? Unless you work in a call centre, the answer isn’t likely to be UK
​
​
Now, apply the same logic to an Office, where would this office be located if it could be done cheaper within another country? clearly some jobs can’t move overseas, doesn’t mean all would be safe.
​
​
Companies and employers don’t give a shit about you.
I’ve never understood why people care whether other people work from home.
If your only argument against it is that you’re not able to, then you really need to reevaluate.
Different jobs require you to work from different places, and ultimately if your only requirement is a laptop, you could literally work from anywhere.
I’m saying this as someone who has to commute because my job is near impossible from home.
Are we really going to do this now?
Pay-by-Location: paying by location of employee/worker rather than the education, training, skill set, and ability
What other little slippery road will they want to go down. Pay-by-gender (they do, but not that they tell you); pay-by-rent (the more you pay the more you get); pay-by-special-circumstance … they’ll make up a definition.
Is that how they pay management and executive class? Or are they still *special?*
Why do people take dumb claims and silly negotiating strategies as facts?
Do you want a market economy or not?