That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good strategy.
I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never find a new job thats competitive where they are.
> I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never find a new job thats competitive where they are.
This is a cop-out because ultimately whether you are higher paid than the local average is subjective, since a) in most areas, nobody really knows what the local average is, they just have a feeling for it, b) local averages are just that, averages, it's further difficult to judge what salary a specific profile of person (given years of experience, educational background, etc.) can expect in a given local market, c) it is entirely possible to underpay people who wrongfully believe that they are being overpaid, due to information asymmetry and not interviewing with other local companies on a regular basis.
If you're not keeping in touch with your employees, and their happiness, satisfaction, and motivation levels, you cannot possibly know whether your employees perceive themselves as being overpaid or not. And if you're not willing to pay significantly above the local average, you're not going to attract the best talent in a given locality, and since a large part of the motivation for all-remote is to hire the best people you can get around the world, refusing to pay what they could be worth just shoots yourself in the foot as you risk losing them to all-remote companies willing to pay salaries at what is genuinely the market rate.
Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain of recruiting someone else.
> Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain of recruiting someone else.
I just took a 20% pay-cut to go work somewhere I thought I might like. There is more to a position than the compensation package.
Sure, in those rare cases where you can find a company that really does interesting work (this is doubly difficult if you are limited to companies that allow remote work). For boring company A vs boring company B you are going to follow the money, I think (unless you actually work for The Boring Company).
There are a non-trivial number of factors that go into picking a job such that I sincerely doubt I would ever find myself going "Well, that one is offering 10K more per year." Off-hand:
- Size of company, size of department, size of team
- Future prospects, both in terms of company's market and my own growth
- Type of work, e.g. maintenance vs. active development, "rescue" mission vs. greenfield vs. boring brownfield.
- Composition of team, leadership, etc.
- Industry, e.g. do I find it reprehensible vs. tolerable vs. interesting
Perhaps I'm the odd man out here, but I've never been in a position where salary was the material factor in picking one job over another.
Disclaimer, I am a GitLab employee. But IMO this isn't really comparing apples-to-apples, since we're specifically talking about remote companies. Sure, someone may have 2 job offers from 2 different remote companies, in which case the company offering SF rates has the advantage. But I'd argue that would be a fairly rare case overall given how globally competitive remote work is.
What's probably more likely is that someone is comparing Local Company A vs Remote Company B (this was my case), with the compensation rates being fairly equal. Then, the decision is "am I willing to be paid less than a coworker in SF for the opportunity to work remotely?" I was fine with that trade-off personally, and I'm sure a lot of people who are attracted to remote work would be as well.
> when they realise they're being paid less than they're worth
Some observation though:
1. If you're still being paid more than local offerings, it's still worth pursuing.
2. More remote-only companies mean more global-scale competition. In the long run, this would mean that people would be paid equally among the various location (so yes, they'll leave).
What is less than worth though? $1 in my city goes a lot lot lot further than $1 in silicon valley. Sure, I could move to SV and get paid 400% more but I would end up with a worse quality of life and be poorer. I want to stay where I am and from what I have seen gitlab pays thats quite good for my city.
But usually salary negotiations happen once an offer is given, so candidate has already been picked. The company really need to explicitly act in bad faith to be choosing the cheaper candidate. Here I'm probably more mentioning a bias more than bad faith (although bad faith could also happen).
I get the point of Gitlab about having zombie employees, but at the same time other remote companies offer SF-based salary. So _as a remote worker_ you could decide to get a SF-based salary instead of locally adjusted one.
I get both sides of the argument and really don't know if a side is more right.
Surely they can fire people at will? I recall something similar though it might not be from GitLab. A long list of justification why is it good for remote employees and the local economy not to be paid on pair. It was smug and insulting.
> I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never find a new job thats competitive where they are.
This is a lie. They pay people that live in lower cost-of-living areas less because they have greater leverage over them and can get away with it. End of story.
I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never find a new job thats competitive where they are.