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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
My coworkers and I figure it at about 20% raise. No need for a second vehicle for the household, less money on food and clothes, plus the extra time.
From experience I have seen how employers/government were forced back to the office. My Indian colleagues had to return to their offices because the office buildings were empty and it cost money. Government officials either owned or had friends own office buildings and it made monetary sense for them to force workers back to the offices. It was a play between corrupt officials and businesses, nothing more. Well, that and a profound and deep distrust of their workforce. It was a sad sight to see that happening to them.
My guess is that this could also occur the same way in the west.
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.
But boomer bosses need to physically see their workers sitting in chairs, they need that feeling of power!
It’s because they need the real estate money, they built a lot of buildings on long term leases which are now expiring. Also, who is going to rent a space for a restaurant when no one is using restaurants for lunch in business districts?
Maybe we don’t need those expensive shitty food restaurants anymore.
jeez, using boomer at every sauces is so cringe. grow up, little fluid-anime keyboard warrior.
using boomer at every sauces is so cringe
Finally someone with sense. They’re good for gravy, stews, and broths as well
