cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/1125686
Archived version: https://archive.ph/vL1mC
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230806071111/https://www.businessinsider.com/employees-work-from-home-benefits-as-good-as-raise-2023-8
8% my ass. I view WFH as a 300% raise.
Dude chill, that’s not how you negotiate
Your suppose to say it’s a %8 paycut and work your way to 0% change in pay, but still he to work from home
Commuting is also a nightmare. Thats 1-2 hours a day of slog to get to an arbitrary location to do a job that I could do at home. Combine this with school drop offs and pick ups and the ability to do life admin during the week instead of cramming it all on a Saturday with everyone else like pre COVID and WFH is a winner.
Also for people that can’t WFH. I’m stuck in a traffic jam every day because of office workers that arbitrarily have to go to office.
I love those benefits. I would be extremely upset if I had to go back to the office. I’m more comfortable at home and I’m able to help my wife care for my son who is special needs. I save on gas and wear and tear on my car. The fact that I can listen to my music while just wearing shorts and a t-shirt was a game changer. IMO people in general suck and it’s nice not to have to interact with them face to face on a daily basis. Some of my coworkers say they miss being in the office. I think they’re nuts.
7 hours a week and I didn’t even have that bad of a drive.
$50 in gas. $50 in food minimum. That’s happiness lost + costs increased.
I had 2 offers and one was not only a 15k bump vs the other, but the lower one was in the office 2 days a week. That was a pretty easy decision
Yep. My employer has made several decisions I strongly dislike and disagree with over the last year or so. And would have been looking for the door over it if they did not allow full WFH for those that like that setup better.
Now that I have gotten to experience it I don’t think I will ever willingly go back to a job that requires mandatory weekly in-office time.
My job requires me to go in bc I physically fix machines, so wouldn’t be able to complete my tasks from home. I’ve convinced myself I like it because it gives me a definitive separation between work and home. But I’ve never had a WFH job and would probably end up liking that a lot more tbh
it gives me a definitive separation between work and home.
This is big for me since I don’t have an office space at my house. I didn’t mind working from home during COVID but I also don’t mind having to go into the office. That said, my commute is only like 7 min to the office. I would like to be able to have a hybrid schedule though. Being able to work from home 3 days a week would be ideal for me. My working from home setup is a desk in the corner of my living room so the space where I work is the same room I relax and it was tough to have that separation.
Keep in mind this does not just apply to ‘top talent’.
Anyone who is confident they can find something elsewhere and have a good enough resume to land a hybrid/WFH job will do so, if pushed.
I prefer to think of myself as top talent though
My parent company issued an RTO for everyone stating the typical corporate talking points (we did great during COVID but now we need to all come back within a month because we all work better together, blah, blah, blah). A half hour later an HR rep had to clarify it was meant to apply only for the parent company. I imagine the parent company is doing poorly and is trying to shake off some workers to cut down on its payroll. The only reason I can think of why they can’t force my smaller company is because we’re actually making them a lot of money so far.
I can’t go back to working in an office full time anymore. It would be a really difficult adjustment especially losing the time to commuting and needing to deal with child care. Plus we found that we no longer needed a second car anymore since we were both at home so we sold one. Our life is built around not having to commute anymore.
The push has nothing to do with anything but getting money back into real estate. The majority of wealthy people’s money is tied up in either oil or real estate. Billion dollar office buildings going unused is unexplainable to the oligarchy. And I don’t use the word Oligarchy lightly. Combined with less oil being used moving people around, and you have the most powerful people in the western world yelling at business executives to get their workers back in the office or they’ll be unable to barrow money from the 0.0001% small companies don’t have a lot of debt from the Oligarchy so they don’t have to listen to them. But if you know anything, wealthy people don’t like it when the poors don’t filter their money upwards so this fight is long from over.
It’s not like the land wouldn’t be viable for high end housing if the corps could push for rezoning. It doesn’t have to stay only office space.
Conversion would cost billions for most of those buildings. And many of those areas can’t support a population increase on the level of hundreds of thousands of people. It’s do able but these people are not willing to do anything that improves humanity.
If Zoom is trying to get people back into offices, it may not be a real estate issue.
After all, are you going to argue that companies that are more than happy to outsource and offshore work overseas and sell off industrial assets are suddenly going to care about keeping their 4-year leases?
Zoom is beholden to the same investors trying to force everyone back to the office. They are likely required to use office space owned by one of their investors… That or poor leadership that hasn’t adapted to the new environment
Unless I’m invested in commercial real estate, why would I, as an investor, want to pay for commercial real estate?
What makes commercial real estate so precious compared to other capital investments?
After all, are you going to argue that companies that are more than happy to outsource and offshore work overseas and sell off industrial assets are suddenly going to care about keeping their 4-year leases?
Yes
It’s pressure from real estate and also managers who do nothing but hover and stare. So multiple sides.
The only people I feel bad for are restaurant/coffee shop workers who definitely aren’t getting nearly as much money
Don’t forget micromanaging bosses who can’t stand not being able to watch their employees at all times.
I’m right there with you. It’s just incompatible with how I want to live my life and the cost savings and time savings are unbelievable.
What’s galling is that big companies claim that the main reason for making people come into the office is to promote in-person collaboration. But, they constantly demonstrate that they don’t, in fact, value in-person collaboration. They organize people into cross-geography teams all the time to save money on hiring. So, you’re often sitting in a cubicle on a conference call with people on the other side of the planet that you will never see in the hallway. Or worse, you’re sitting in a conference room with a handful of coworkers, struggling to communicate over a crappy speaker phone with a handful of coworkers on the other side of the planet. They also frequently lay off entire product teams in one fell swoop. Decades of institutional knowledge that you might tap into during a water cooler conversation just disappears overnight. It’s hard to go along with all the extra real costs and pay the happiness tax that commutes and cubicle farms extract when it’s so obvious that the stated reason for it all is a lie.
I could trade my WFH for a room with a view and a door. :) fuck openspace and flexdesks!
Honestly yeah, having my own door really helps me survive my new job even though it can’t be WFH.
Yes, people didn’t get my comment. We don’t have all the choice and luxury to work for a great company or good project. In old Europe, a 1 WFH was an ultimate privilege before COVID. Nowadays, It should be choice, I don’t mind coming 2 days a week but it to be a “mandatory minimal” 2 days is a bit ridiculous. Still, If I have my own or max 4 seats offices, I’ll be okay with it.
My office had a window and a door. Wouldn’t trade WFH to have them back.
Honestly I wouldn’t. I can’t think of anything that would make me work in an office again. I can’t do it.
Crazy that it’s so low. I’d assume people who commute to work waste like an hour minimum going to and from work, so 1/9th of their work day is just unpaid “work” as far as I’m concerned.
That’s ignoring all the benefits in comfort at home. I’m surprised it’s just 8%.
8%? Who came up with that? It’s at least 20%
Shhhhhhhh
Holy smokes, working from home is not a “raise.” You should be compensated for the value you bring, not where you’re sitting when you bring value.
I spend $400 a month on gas because of my long commute. Work from home is definitely a raise in my situation. Gas bill goes down to $100 a month. Works out directly to a 5% raise just in gas alone. Car insurance can be switched to leisure only saving money further. Gain an extra two hours a day which were unpaid before, so my workday is now only 8 hours instead of 10, that is another equivalent to 25% on an hourly rate indirectly.
Then there is all the other benefits such as just being happier and more productive.
From the business’ perspective though, you are using less of their resources to do your job
It could be considered a raise in terms of the amount of time you dedicate to work and the amount you get paid for it.
8 hour shift plus 1 hour commute both ways means you effectively dedicate 10 hours to your job. Replace the commute with a 30 second walk from your bed to your desk and you are now making more money for your time.
Mind you, I still agree that remote work should never be actively viewed as a raise or a perk. It should be the default for jobs that are compatible, which is a ton of them.
Especially galling since if I were to move to a cheaper region my company would want to pay me less. It’s “we only pay you for the value you bring” when cost of living goes up, but “we want some of those lifestyle savings” if I can get my costs down.
How convenient.
Well, financially it can be a raise
But emotionally, it has no equivalent and is like losing a toxic work element
I get paid about $200 (miles, after gas) to go to work so even any office work is extra money for me
Before the pandemic I was spending almost 2 hours a day on my commute to office, while being on site for 9 hours with an unpaid one hour lunch break. That’s 20% of my working hours.
I can use this time for entertainment and side projects
There’s not enough money in the world to pay for the time I save.
Besides, I save a lot on gas and food, and gain much more comfort (my house, my coffee, my chair, my screens, my toilets)
To be perfectly clear, if my company wants me back to office they will have to raise me more than 30%.
It is in the sense that commute time is not paid so compared to commuting jobs your effective hourly wage goes up. Also, commuting time is actually a negative wage.
I think it’s basically saying companies need to pay more if they want people in-office. Which makes sense to me. If you want someone to spend time and money to commute they need to compensate for that. You can’t ask someone who has been WFH to start coming in without some incentive or else you’re basically cutting their pay.
That said, many people won’t switch from WFH to in-office for any amount of money.
Okay, I see what you’re saying and I concur. Thanks for the clarifying comment! 🫡
Many people also seem to forget that not everyone has a dedicated room or otherwise extra space to work in. Sure, if you live alone it doesn’t matter but with other people living in the same apartment/house and perhaps them also working remotely, you suddenly need extra space just for good working conditions. Working space has a cost, be it in an office building or at employees’ homes. Also good ergonomics means one needs a good desk and a great office chair which are not cheap to buy. Sure, I wouldn’t necessarily demand more pay just for WFH, but I would never ever ever take a lower compensation in exchange either.
That said, I love working remotely from home and wouldn’t go back to office. It’s just that even if you save time and money in commutes, there are other costs in place that wouldn’t otherwise necessarily exist.
I view it as a benefit, and I’m willing to make concessions on salary for additional or better benefits. Arguably you could have both, but I think unionization is required for that and I’m in a low unionization industry.
Holy smokes, working from home is not a “raise.”
Sure it’s not a raise, but that’s not really the question. The question is the hidden cost that companies are imposing on themselves by demanding that employees come into an office. If employers are going to demand that out of their employees, they should do that with the expectation that employees will ask to be compensated or will leave.
In terms of time returned, gas, wear & tear, etc., I would consider being told to go back to the office as a pay cut.
If I’m being asked to sit somewhere else, then I would definitely want to be compensated for that.
I would rather make 50k WFH than 100k in an office.
Lol, my family can’t afford to live on $50k a year. So that’s a hard no for me.
Hahaha, yeah definitely a no for the family man. But as a single man 50k is fine, and the flexibility is worth more than a 100% raise.
For double the salary, I’d need to think long and hard about it tbh.
For me it would heavily depend on where the office is located relative to my apartment, and how long my commute would turn out to be. More than 15-20 minutes by bike is a no-go (I live in Europe).
Also assuming the requirement to be in the office isn’t a huge red flag for bad management in the first place.
Well obviously the commute should be within a reasonable distance, I wouldn’t spend 5 hours a day in a car or train for it. But let’s say the total time spend back and forth is about 1,5 - 2 hours total. I feel that’s worth the time spend for a hypothetical double salary.
Obligatory presence in the office is indeed a red flag if it doesn’t actually provide a benefit to the role. To clarify, I’m 100% WFH in Denmark so I’m not advocating to push people into an office building but there’s definitely a point where nearly everyone would go into the office full-time, if salary and benefits are high enough.
50K isn’t worth 10+ hours extra hours per week going solely toward work.
You do you, there’s no way I’d take a $50k pay cut under any circumstance
People don’t like offices and are more productive when they’re happy. Who knew?
Companies forcing people back to the office are a red flag for bad management, so I’m sure that’s another reason they’re seeing people leave.
My company realized that they can remove office space and use that money for more employees. What a fucking crazy concept.
I did. I always knew.
Bullshit. You only knew since I told you on Thursday.
Also informed by boomer consultants/board members advising millennial CEOs. No valid justification in most industries
8% seems extremely low. You could double my pay and I don’t think I’d stop working from home
It might be the average. Some pepole like working from office beacuse they feel lonely at home or they want to separate their work space from their home space.
Or don’t have the space at home, especially if it’s two or more people at a time
I’m lucky because I have room in the house for desks for me and my wife that are in different rooms, and not in our bedroom
That’s a luxury many people don’t have
You could triple my pay and I’d still probably say no.
That’s what I’m saying. Unless they talk about hybrid then yeah it’s equivalent to 8%, but if we’re talking full remote try more like 800% raise to get me back into an office. lol
I’m waiting to hear back from a job and chomping at the bit to leave because they offer a hybrid work schedule (3 home/2 office). It’s a 6% pay bump (from $80k to $85k) but being able to work from home 3 days a week is such a big plus (and not having to manage anyone being the other) makes it worth it for me. Not to mention that I can cash out all the vacation time that I’ve accrued. I’m sitting on 287 hours of vacation time right now so that would be roughly $10.9k paid out when I leave. I asked them if I could cash some out earlier this year but was told “no but if you leave the company, you’ll still get paid out so don’t worry about losing it”. Well guess I’ll be leaving the company then. I rolled over 218 hours so it’s not like it wasn’t time I didn’t have accrued. I also have 300 hours of sick time and 41 hours of weather time too. Those won’t get paid out though.
I worked from home for over a year and we had our best year in commercial lending as a credit union while everyone was home. Now everyone needs to be in the office every day. Yeah, no thanks.
“Yeah, boss. Weird thing… There’s a thunderstorm in my house, gonna take me about 41 hours to figure this out.”
It’s an old relic from pre-covid where if it was snowing and you needed to come in an hour or two late (like if your kids had a delay at school), you could. Now we all have laptops and can work remotely if needed (minus the branch staff). Also, we didn’t get shit for snow here in PA this past winter either.
300 hours of sick leave? I think I feel a fever coming on.
Yeah. We get 2.77 hours per pay period in accrual. The most you can get to is 60 days (480 hours) since they don’t offer short term disability. But once you hit 440 hours you can cash out 45 hours of sick time for 15 hours of pay or once you hit 480 you can cash out 60 hours for 20 hours of pay (3:1 conversion to cash).
Yeah, just keep in mind that in some countries, paying out vacation hours results in a large portion of that sum being paid to the tax-man. In the Netherlands that’s about 40% (from the top of my head).
Yeah, I’m in the US and I understand that a bunch of that might be paid to the tax man but at the very least, I’m getting that cash out. Currently, the only way for me to benefit from it is to get my same salary every week but just have times where I’m not at work which just means I have more work when I come back. Things have been tight since my wife lost her job (though she does have an interview next week so fingers crossed) so just getting even half of that $10.9k in cash back to replenish our rainy day fund would be a big relief.
