
Would You Take an 8% Pay Cut to Work from Home? - antouank
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-07/would-you-take-an-8-pay-cut-to-work-from-home
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010a
I would take an 8% raise. If I'm working from home, that is one less capital
expense the company has to invest in me, in the form of office space and
office perks. I would not volunteer to work from home if it had any chance of
decreasing my productivity. As such, that is more money in the company's
pocket that they should reinvest back into the employees so they have the
option of replicating office perks back at home (equipment, coffee, snacks,
things like that).

~~~
js4
Really? You dont consider working from home a perk?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Is it a perk to work in a company's office? Where you work should not modify
your compensation.

~~~
acranox
My company probably spends millions to rent it's office. It also has a kitchen
with a lot of free food and coffee available. So, they'd probably save a lot
of money to have a smaller office with fewer people in it, and I'd spend more
money on coffee if I worked from home. There are certainly pros and cons for
both, and costs associated with those things.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I admit, I'm biased. My day job is fully remote (the entire company), and the
company treats us extremely well. In return for saving them rent on an office
space, we have no commute, the ability to work from anywhere with an internet
connection, and so on (vacation time is easier to use when you're already
living somewhere exotic versus having to travel from some major metro in the
US). Saved office expenses are dollars that can go into growing the business
or employee perks. I don't mind paying for the coffee; I'm still ahead
thousands of dollars a year from not needing a car and commuting each day. To
each their own of course!

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kowdermeister
Sure, I would take an 8% cut of an average Silicon Valley developer salary as
a remote worker :)

Hint: I'm in the EU.

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delphinius81
8% less than a Bay Area market-rate salary to be able to work from wherever I
want? Sounds great. There are co-working spaces all over the place now. Get a
floating desk at one of them and you can still get that office atmosphere when
you need it.

~~~
mdip
This is the one area where I think a pay-cut _might be warranted_. If the cost
of living is sufficiently different from the employer's location and my own,
I'd expect a pay cut.

However, the impression I get from the article is that people are willing to
take the pay cut of the prevailing wage they'd expect to be paid for the same
job in the area they currently live. I live in a suburb of Detroit. I'm
employed full time for a US/UK/Australian company working for a team in the UK
and am paid at around the market rate for the area I live in. I accepted this
job with a pay increase from my previous employer who also paid me at around
the market rate for where I live despite my working from home for several
years. At no point did my previous employer ask me to take a pay cut when I
started working from home, nor did they reduce the compensation
increases/bonuses once I started working from home.

My work from home arrangements at my previous employer were "semi-official".
The company had a defined "work from home policy" and outside of myself and
one other member of my team, it was expressly forbidden. I began working from
home by using the "rockstar method" \-- I became a critical member of not just
my team, but the organization. I was given flexibility to conduct my work in
whatever manner I required as long as my obligations were met (which they
always were). I left that team, though, mainly because part of the agreement
was that I keep quiet about working at home. I was located in an office that
no other members of my team were in, so this meant not making it obvious
during conference calls because management didn't want to receive grief from
other high-performing team-members who were disallowed from working at home
due to upper management disliking the practice (they routinely performed work-
site walk-throughs to see how many empty desks there were). This "butts in
chairs upper management" style spoke a lot to how the company was managed --
in general -- and was ultimately the reason I left. I'm still cautious of this
if for no other reason than habit, but mostly because it is unprofessional to
have children yelling or dogs barking in the background of a teleconference
where people are already expecting you're only half-paying attention, anyway.

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ryanSrich
What a strange short article.

As a remote worker I'd suggest paying people their market rate and then some.
Finding good remote workers is very difficult.

~~~
antouank
By accepting remote work, they open the candidate pool to the whole world. You
compete with people having potentially much lower living costs. Why would they
pay "market rate" if they are in a city with high rates?

~~~
loeg
There are challenges and costs employing remote workers in significantly
different timezones. So you mostly compete with other workers in nearby
timezones.

~~~
briandear
I live in France and work East Coast hours. My time zone is my problem, not
the employer's. The 'boss' needs me for a 6pm Eastern Time meeting? I'll be
there. If I am employee, I work when I am needed; my location shouldn't be
their concern.

~~~
loeg
Most people are not excited to work super weird hours. More power to you, I
guess, but I wouldn't be pleased to be asked to attend a meeting at midnight.

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Koshkin
I am sure many developers (and not only) enjoy coming to the office, having
free coffee, socializing with their colleagues, doing pair programming, etc.
On the other hand, for some, working from home gives them an opportunity to be
_much_ more productive. This is like working in a private office, with the
door closed. That is, unless, of course, you have a lot of distraction, such
as having to do chores or kids running around and making all kinds of noise.
Many escape to the office for that exact reason.

~~~
Tempest1981
How about working from home 2 days a week, where everyone agrees with those
two days are?

So you still have in-person collaboration on the other 3 days, say, Monday
Wednesday Thursday.

~~~
briandear
Then I'm stuck living within commuting distance of the employer -- that means
a position I could be perfect for would be ignored. That limits the talent
pool to those that are willing to work in a particular location. That also
means companies have to locate to insanely expensive locations just to be
around talent -- which is less money that goes into growing the business.

Face to face is overrated.

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Fifer82
A lot of people travel 2 hours per day in a commute. If they take the train,
it can be around 3900 a year in season ticket rail passes. No one pays you for
it. What a bloody waste of time.

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floopidydoopidy
I would take an 8% paycut to be free of the nonsensical 9-5 schedule.

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nathan_f77
I've been working remotely for the last few years, and I don't miss the office
at all. However, I wouldn't really mind driving to work or taking a train. You
get some time to listen to podcasts, or think, or just do nothing and clear
your head. I have to actively make time for that now that I work remotely.
Sometimes I get too busy and forget to do nothing for a while.

There's also something nice about traveling to and from work, where there's a
separation between work and home. I've just moved into an apartment where I
have one room as an office, so that should be nice.

Another thing is that when you're freelancing as a software developer,
sometimes you can turn that into a pay raise. It works especially well if your
plan is to have long stretches of time without paid work, so you can work on
your own side projects. There's also some clients who are happy for you to
work 20 hour weeks, which is very easy to get used to. I find context
switching to be really hard though, so I prefer to work two 10 hour days. And
sometimes I enjoy going full-time on a project for a few months, and then
taking a long break for a few months.

But yes, I would still be prepared to take a pay cut in order to work from
home. Well, if "home" includes anywhere in the world.

~~~
mdip
I hear ya on the podcasts. When I had a 2-hour round-trip commute for several
years, I listened to a few hundred audio books. Up to that point I had read
probably two fiction books over the course of my entire life (outside of
required reading for school)[0].

After a few years I could hold my own in conversations about literature and
found myself really enjoying some of the classics. I find it almost impossible
to listen to audio books when I'm not driving or doing some muscle-memory
exercise like cutting the lawn/driving/riding a bike, so without that
consistent drive time, I haven't gotten to enjoy a good book in several years.
It's not even worth downloading them any longer because I know it'll take two
years to finish one book and I'll forget where I left off between listens.

[0] I'm a speed reader (skimming/scanning style, not the "gimmicky" speed
reading that is advertised these days) and find it difficult to read fiction
without using my training. Speed reading fiction is like turning to the back
of the book to see how it ends before starting the book -- it ruins fiction --
so the only fiction reading I enjoy is narrated to me (by Scott Brick, if I'm
lucky) on Audible.

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blakesterz
I can say without a doubt YES, because I did exactly that 3 years ago. It
ended up being about 10%, and bit drop in quality of insurance. After three
years at home I can't imagine going back to working in an office again. I'd
take another pay cut to stay working at home until the day I retire, or die
(which may come first if I keep taking pay cuts to work from home).

I save so much time and money working from home, but by far the best thing is
being able to manage the kids and other assorted family stuff would just be
impossible if I wasn't here.

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EliRivers
I drop about ten percent of my pay, after tax, to get to and from work. So
this would be a pay rise. Yes please.

~~~
plzbo
That seems a lot, how are you getting to work?

~~~
EliRivers
Train, about 50 minutes platform to platform. It's cheaper than living closer.

They're expensive in the UK. It's not uncommon to see people spending four
thousand pounds and up for their annual train ticket.

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madebysquares
I took a 8% pay cut to work from home when I accepted a new position. The
company said they couldn't match my currently salary but living in NY and
being able to move to a lower priced housing and not having to pay for the
commute more then made up for the loss in income. Not to mention the peace of
mind and flexibility of working and not having to deal with the NYC commute, I
think it's been well worth it personally.

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interdrift
I'd hate to work from home , I just don't find it as a benefit. Home is home.
The office is where the work happens. I like to keep these things separated..

~~~
blackguardx
Office space is cheaper per sq ft that residential in most US cities. If I was
a long term remote worker, I would rent a small office somewhere. It is also
easier to deduct off your taxes that way.

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shearnie
I've been working remotely for the past 6 years. More and more I am having to
compete with offshore, and with the boss's expectations that working "in the
comfort of your own home" means you deserve a pay cut.

I make it a policy of mine to visit the office once or twice a week for design
and planning, so the social aspect keeps me sane. I find it a good balance.

I've recently started looking for a job for the pay increase due to cost of
living pressures and because of the culture prevailing of bosses needing to
see butts in seats it will most likely be on-premises.

We've been priced out of the market for housing, so we have to live further
out. It would involve three hours commuting a day. The pay increase is almost
negated by the erosion of your hourly rate when you factor in time and expense
of the commute. Not to mention the time being in a car and train rather with
my kids.

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heisenbit
Drawing conclusions from call center jobs (the article) to developer jobs is
fraught with problems primarily as call center jobs are about delivered
service time (availability for and handling of calls) and developer jobs are
about delivered value (written and/or deleted lines of code).

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bigtex
I am taking an indirect pay cut staying with my current employer which allows
for remote work rather than getting a much higher paying job that requires a
daily commute. Working from home 4 days a week and then going into the office
around 10 am after traffic settles is definitely a perk. A daily commute would
probably require me to buy a newer vehicle which would definitely eat into any
gains in salary anyways. My employer has struggled lately with layoffs so I am
constantly evaluating my job prospects. So instead of commuting I am building
up my consulting business.

~~~
mdip
I've seen this play out a few times and I hesitate to offer advice only
because I don't wish it to be taken negatively, so please accept this as
respectfully as I can offer it.

I worked at a company that performed layoffs about every 6 months of around
10% of the staff of the entire company for around 17 years. You're doing the
right thing by constantly evaluating your job prospects. The risk you've
taken, now, though is that you've made yourself less visible and easier to lay
off. Your manager will feel less badly about letting you go because you're not
around to be reminded of. By taking a 4-day work-week, you're also getting
less done which will further make the case for "not needing you". The staff
who is not working at home -- assuming they are not allowed to do so -- will
also start to resent the fact that you've been treated specially and may start
to sabotage you subtly/unconsciously (or if they're particularly nasty people
-- intentionally). This will further make the case for why you should be the
next to go.

There is a large plus-side though, particularly if you're like many HN readers
and are employed in software development -- you are in a good position to find
a remote job elsewhere. Hiring _good_ remote employees is difficult and makes
employers uncomfortable because it's hard to know how someone will fare with a
work-at-home position. One of the key factors looked for in _any_ position is
experience and you can now state on your resume/in an interview that you have
experience working, successfully, remotely. That experience is further
bolstered by the fact that you're employed by a struggling company who
routinely lets people go and _you 're still employed there despite being a
remote employee_. I'd _strongly_ advise updating your resume if you are not
interested in consulting full time or putting enough energy into your
consulting business to be able to transition to it full time.

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fdim
Working from home may sound good only to those who haven't done it for a
longer period of time. Having flexible hours is good to have, but only when
you really need it (e.g. family visit, some delivery, some time off). Cut
itself makes no sense, at least here in Denmark (Lithuanian here) if you work
at the office you don't have to worry about food and coffee - at home you
would.

~~~
NDizzle
I've worked from home for 6 years now.

Maybe my situation is a little different - I have 3 kids and my wife is a stay
at home mom.

It's been great and I highly recommend it if at some point you realize you are
a family man (or woman).

~~~
mdip
It's kind of amazing what it does for your marriage. I've seen both sides of
it, myself. In both cases, my wife was also stay-at-home.

My first marriage was actually _damaged_ by working at home. My wife was an
introvert and I think having me around all the time hurt things (we were not
particularly compatible to begin with which was exacerbated when I went from
working 50-60 hours a week away to working most days at home).

My current marriage is greatly helped by it. There's nobody I'd rather share
my time with than my wife and she feels the same. A lot of people will say
what I said in the last paragraph applies to them -- they'd hate their spouse
if they had to spend every waking minute with them and couldn't get away from
time to time, but her and I thrive in the situation. I think it helps that her
dad and mom were both small business owners who ran things out of their home
and worked together on everything. It helps me because my wife is non-
technical and by being around while I'm working/talking on conference calls,
she understands more about what I do and the things I struggle with at work so
she can offer more support/understanding to me than if I had to explain it all
to her (it also avoids me _having_ to spend hours explaining things). My four
children _love_ that I'm at home at all times. Even though they're respectful
of the fact that I have to work and try not to bother me while I'm busy, they
know I'm there if something important comes up. This is especially important
since two of my children are step-'s and we're blending a family. The
complexity of emotions that kids go through is helped by the stability of the
fact that I'm seen as "always present" in the moment and at the time.

~~~
NDizzle
Yep, I understand your situation. Somehow I lucked into the second situation
that you outlined. I think I'm exceedingly lucky that I missed the first
situation - it seems to be the common case these days.

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Daviey
I've been remote working for the past 10 years or so.. with a large part of it
for a mostly remote company.

However, When first got into remote working, I accepted a lower amount for the
benefits outlined.. but then learned nobody else did... So I short-changed
myself.

I wouldn't now.. either I take the rate I need with WFH provision, or I don't
take the gig.

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jimmywanger
I just took a fairly large pay cut (more than 8%) to work remotely.

Is there a distinction between working remotely and working from home?

~~~
elliotec
I think so, traveling and adventuring through the world while working seems
more worth a pay cut than just not needing to drive to an office.

~~~
grecy
> _traveling and adventuring through the world while working_

I have been trying to do this for years, and it's much harder than it sounds
on the surface. I'm in West Africa now, for reference.

When you work for a company (or even just take a contract of some form) the
company wants you to be available on their schedule. So you have to live the
hours of the country you're "working for".

This gets really hard when you have travel days (or weeks), when you want to
go someplace remote, have limited or no connectivity, want to do something
with locals in the plae you're in, want a social life, etc. etc.

Maybe you can do it if "traveling and adventuring through the world" means
staying put in a large city in a more-or-less developed country, but
otherwise, it's very hard.

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callesgg
I would not want to work home even if i got a 8% raise.

Working at home is boring, and unmotivational.

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mdip
Absolutely not. I've advised everyone looking for remote work to _never_
undercut their salary or treat the remote job as a "perk"[0].

There are downsides to working at home -- disconnection from the team (if the
team is not entirely remote), additional pressure to be deliberate about
social behavior, the elimination of the lines between "work" and "home" and
having to keep yourself in check to make sure you don't end up just "working
all of the time" and the perception that working from home _isn 't working at
all_ which is often the case when an employer thinks that they can reduce a
person's salary if they offer them the opportunity to work from home.

The problem with accepting a lower salary is that you're opening yourself up
to a working environment where the bosses _believe_ they're doing you a favor
and will expect more in return than just that salary. There's a risk that they
will respect the work you do _less_ or assume you're _on a perpetual vacation_
because you're working from a home office rather than a building they've paid
for. Your work and contribution should speak for itself and your management
should understand that it takes a special skill (and valuable) skill set to
work from home successfully. By treating it as a perk, these facts are
ignored.

After 7 years of working in an office, 4 of working split between home and
office and 7 working exclusively from home, I can say from my own, anecdotal,
experience that working from home makes me _far more effective_ at the job I'm
tasked with. To start, switching to working at home eliminated a 2-hour round-
trip commute. That time didn't all get shifted to work, but at least half of
it did. Because I work from home, I have the most effective tools for doing my
job with me at all times. When I was in the office, I had two workstations
that I did most of my work on and a laptop that I rarely used except when at
home. Working in development, I tended to have moments of inspiration hit at
non-work times (9:00 PM) and when that'd happen, I'd look at the laptop and
run through in my mind all of the things I'd have to set up to be able to take
advantage of that inspiration and would often think "yeah, I'll just wait
until the morning". And by morning, that inspiration had expired. Because I do
my entire job at home, I can take advantage of this inspiration without any
friction, now. I'm currently employed by a team that is entirely located in
the UK. One of the reasons I was hired was because I'm located in a time-zone
that matches many of our customers. This benefits my employer which makes a
pay-cut inappropriate.

In the office, you've got an unofficial social pressure to keep the same
schedule as your coworkers: 8-5 with a noonish lunch, usually. There are
several "personal things" that can't be done over the internet still,
today[1]. These places often have a day or two a week to accommodate day-job
folks, but you'll be waiting in line with _all of the others_ about five times
longer than you would if you picked a more ideal time[2].

All of this equates to _more time available to work_ and I probably work an
average of 50 hours/week without even trying. The difference is that at home
it _feels_ like a 40-hour work week and sometimes it feels like far less than
that. To my _family_ it feels like a _much_ shorter work-week because I'm home
for them. I can sit in the living room and work while my kids play. I can be
there when the little things come up. My kids will tell you "daddy's always
there" because ... well ... I am! They can even sit in on a conference call
and get to know what it's like to have a career.

This is not to say that there aren't downsides for the employer. There's less
collaboration[3] and collaboration intensive work may suffer as a result,
especially if the work-from-home employees don't have the required skill set.
It's also too easy to focus on those downsides. It's better to look at it as a
trade-off. Less facilities costs, more work time, greater "focused time", and
(probably) happier employees. Employee happiness can equate to better work
product and there are few things that will have a bigger impact on employee
happiness than work-time/location flexibility provided it's managed properly.
Management _has to be better_ , too. No longer can you rely on "butts-in-
chairs" management where a person's contribution is determined solely on how
frequently you peer in and see that person working. Effectiveness has to be
measured by project completion and more concrete variables.

[0] There's one case where this doesn't fit - cost of living. If you're taking
a job in New York and you live in South Dakota, I wouldn't expect to be making
the same amount of money as someone who is required to find a place to live in
NYC and accept the accompanying expenses. This is one of the biggest perks to
_accepting_ remote employees -- the ability to hire in a cheaper part of the
country from where "the office" resides and comes with much of the same
benefits (and fewer of the downsides) of off-shoring to a cheaper-labour
country. I also work in software development which I believe is one of the
(many) jobs that can be done remotely with little sacrifice on the side of the
employer and many benefits for both employer and employee. It probably doesn't
fit similarly for many other jobs.

[1] Some driver's license related things, dropping off equipment at
Comcast/Verizon's hell-hole, almost anything to do with a mortgage, that
missed package that needed to be signed for requiring you to go to the Post
Office, UPS or FedEx, doctor's office or lab work needing to be done and on
and on.

[2] I've learned 1:45-2:30 is the sweet spot - the bank teller has no lines,
the mortgage broker has nobody in their chairs, the salon will let you walk in
without an appointment and see you immediately and even the DMV (Secretary of
State in MI) will have about 5 people in front of you. Service is also better
(particularly at the DMV) because the staff isn't stressed -- often having
just returned from lunch.

[3] It's hard to argue that you'd get the same level of collaboration having
entirely remote staff than you do when there's a shared, common, office. But
given the right tools, collaboration doesn't have to be a problem. There's
also the issue of over-collaboration. There are times when _I need to keep my
head down and be able to work on complex code without interruption_. When you
have a shared office -- especially some of these "Agile-type" offices where
there's no separation between employees -- the office culture can become one
of interruptions.

