I’m ok with the current status quote. The problem with fully remote work is there’s always someone cheaper, whether by skill, experience, desperation, or cost of living. It will be another race to the bottom, like the first few decades of outsourcing, and high cost of living cities would be hardest hit
Because I’m partly remote and have to be located near an office, I still get the pay structure of where that office is. I still enjoy my Boston area high cost of living pay. If we were fully remote, would they really pay that? What happens to high cost of living cities, much less any city? While I like to think I have excellent skills that are worth the extra pay, there’s no way I can claim to be worth, say two similar guys in Austin, or four in Alabama. There’s no way I can live where i do if I were paid like a lower cost of living area …. And that’s before you even consider the rest of the world.
This is what I don’t hear discussed as often as I’d expected. When you make a solid case for 100% remote, bargaining power is lost - or at least the COLA is harder to defend.
It depends. Full remote means that companies could recruit nationwide, but that cuts both ways. There’s a few hiccups in having employees in multiple states that opens a company up to employment rules in many states, so some companies may want to avoid certain states until they are big enough to handle the complexity. It also means every company has to compete for employees with all the other big companies, not just whoever is within about 50 miles of them.
Maybe. Going international is another big step in bureaucracy for a company. Time zones also become a problem, you can’t really have a team made of people farther than about 4 timezones, you need separate teams at that point, which adds complexity. Language barriers also start to become an issue as you expand, even English speaking countries have vast differences, and English as a second language adds more difficulty.
I’m ok with the current status quote. The problem with fully remote work is there’s always someone cheaper, whether by skill, experience, desperation, or cost of living. It will be another race to the bottom, like the first few decades of outsourcing, and high cost of living cities would be hardest hit
Because I’m partly remote and have to be located near an office, I still get the pay structure of where that office is. I still enjoy my Boston area high cost of living pay. If we were fully remote, would they really pay that? What happens to high cost of living cities, much less any city? While I like to think I have excellent skills that are worth the extra pay, there’s no way I can claim to be worth, say two similar guys in Austin, or four in Alabama. There’s no way I can live where i do if I were paid like a lower cost of living area …. And that’s before you even consider the rest of the world.
This is what I don’t hear discussed as often as I’d expected. When you make a solid case for 100% remote, bargaining power is lost - or at least the COLA is harder to defend.
It depends. Full remote means that companies could recruit nationwide, but that cuts both ways. There’s a few hiccups in having employees in multiple states that opens a company up to employment rules in many states, so some companies may want to avoid certain states until they are big enough to handle the complexity. It also means every company has to compete for employees with all the other big companies, not just whoever is within about 50 miles of them.
Depending on the industry and ROI, I’d submit it’s worldwide.
Maybe. Going international is another big step in bureaucracy for a company. Time zones also become a problem, you can’t really have a team made of people farther than about 4 timezones, you need separate teams at that point, which adds complexity. Language barriers also start to become an issue as you expand, even English speaking countries have vast differences, and English as a second language adds more difficulty.