Mark Zuckerberg planning to localize Facebook salaries as WFH increases

[GoldenGlove]

Yes I understand COL.

I want to be sure that I understand your assertion correctly tho. Are you asserting that if a consultant takes a job whilst living in Chicago to report to the Chicago office and agrees to a salary that he will see his salary decreased if he decides to move to Wichita even tho he still reports to the Chicago office and continues to do the same job working with the same team meeting them at the same customer sites?

There's some finessing, but if they get hired and are assigned to the Chicago Office, they come in with a salary competitive to Chicago professionals and the COL here. If they get on projects where they have to travel to a client site that's out of state throughout the week, they still get paid their same salary. The client comps them for travel, they fly in to the client site city Sunday evening and then fly back to Chicago Thursday evening or Friday...

If they move out of Chicago and don't let HR know, HR will assume that they are still in the area so they will have the expectation that they are available for projects in the area/Midwest. I know some people at my gig, where they got hired to work out of the Chicago Office, but they lived in Iowa when they took the gig. They get staffed on a project in Chicago, so now what? If you relocate all together and you report to a new home office, HR will assess salary and go from there. I'm sure some people are working the system tho because with a mobile and remote workforce it's harder to keep up with all the movement.

The difference in this situation with Facebook is that they all primarily reported to their HQ in their Bay Area office, so their business structure isn't like consulting where they have a vast number of people traveling to client sites. With a consulting workforce, most people are already moving all around and working remotely when necessary or 100% of the time. I'm sure that Facebook doesn't require all of their consultants that they have developing their software for is in the Bay Area... I'm actually 100% positive on this.

They are just adapting to what they've seen from companies who they staff people with IMO.

 

[desjardins]

Honestly, it’s not even Sandeep from Puné that will snipe the jobs. But Mark from Toronto or William from London.

Salaries in the US are much higher than in places like Canada or the UK. I’d say talent is on par, however.
.

Another thing is immigration. Canada immigration policy is better for foreigners than the US policy. A movement of jobs to places like Canada could increase the immigrant population in places like Toronto even more. If more foreign talent goes to Canada to live than the US then there is more demand for even more job placement in Canada , rinse repeat until the U.S is no longer seen as an attractive destination for the top talent.

 

[JLova]

Now that may be a game changer. UK as well, their compensation is lower there yet they do have the talent.

Yep. I mean thry poach talent from up here already but they won’t have to bring them down to the US anymore. Let them work from Canada. Canadians are well educated, good workers and underpaid compared to US tech companies. Could be a goldmine for these US companies.

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

There's some finessing, but if they get hired and are assigned to the Chicago Office, they come in with a salary competitive to Chicago professionals and the COL here. If they get on projects where they have to travel to a client site that's out of state throughout the week, they still get paid their same salary. The client comps them for travel, they fly in to the client site city Sunday evening and then fly back to Chicago Thursday evening or Friday...

If they move out of Chicago and don't let HR know, HR will assume that they are still in the area so they will have the expectation that they are available for projects in the area/Midwest. I know some people at my gig, where they got hired to work out of the Chicago Office, but they lived in Iowa when they took the gig. They get staffed on a project in Chicago, so now what? If you relocate all together and you report to a new home office, HR will assess salary and go from there. I'm sure some people are working the system tho because with a mobile and remote workforce it's harder to keep up with all the movement.

The difference in this situation with Facebook is that they all primarily reported to their HQ in their Bay Area office, so their business structure isn't like consulting where they have a vast number of people traveling to client sites. With a consulting workforce, most people are already moving all around and working remotely when necessary or 100% of the time. I'm sure that Facebook doesn't require all of their consultants that they have developing their software for is in the Bay Area... I'm actually 100% positive on this.

They are just adapting to what they've seen from companies who they staff people with IMO.

Let’s leave finessing aside. If they move to Wichita out of their own volition. They let HR know cuz they still want important docs to reach them at their new home. They’re still reporting to the Chicago office and working with the same team in the same role. Is it common practice for the firm to reduce that employee’s pay to adjust for Wichita’s COL?


I’m 99.9% sure the reverse isn’t true. If an employee gets hired to support the Wichita office. Him deciding to move to Chicago won’t get him a pay bump as long as he is still assigned to the Wichita office.

 

[phcitywarrior]

Another thing is immigration. Canada immigration policy is better for foreigners than the US policy. A movement of jobs to places like Canada could increase the immigrant population in places like Toronto even more. If more foreign talent goes to Canada to live than the US then there is more demand for even more job placement in Canada , rinse repeat until the U.S is no longer seen as an attractive destination for the top talent.

100%. I know this first hand as a Nigerian. A while back the US was a top destination for well educated Nigerian immigrants to come and work. With subsequent administrations squeezing the number of work visas and making it harder to become a resident here, people have started looking north of the US.

I got some friends from high school who a couple years after graduating college in Toronto, are already permanent residents and a few years from being full Canadian citizens. Even post graduation they were getting solid jobs with little stress. I got homies in the US looking to move out to Canada just because securing working visas for well educated, young immigrants is pretty straight forward.

 

[the bossman]

Correct. But if FB is looking to hire say 5,000 software engineers for a cheap (relative to the US) then Canada can fit that bill well. It can definitely be done at scale within certain functions and teams.

Another thing to think about is what this pandemic has done to the whole offshoring wave altogether.

Yea it was cheaper to hire Shashank and Mohinder for the short term profits. But supply chains that depended on cheap labor in China or other cheaper Asian countries got absolutely recked this year. Getting Medicines, PPE equipment, etc all suffered because everything depended on some supply chain overseas since nothing was manufactured here anymore. That's going to change now.

Any CEO worth his/her salt going forward is looking at all the unnecessary risk you introduce to your business long term when you depend on resources overseas. You're at the whim of the local politics, rules, regulations of that country.

I have 5000 employees in Canada but the US/Canada border has been shutdown for more than 2 going on 3 months now. Now I'm held hostage by a foreign government hoping they'll consider my business as "essential".

Don't be surprised if we start seeing a major shift to bring a lot of work back to the states after this even if it means sacrificing on the profits from cheaper labor. Pandemics will happen again and businesses will not want to be caught up like this again

 

[phcitywarrior]

I have 5000 employees in Canada but the US/Canada border has been shutdown for more than 2 going on 3 months now. Now I'm held hostage by a foreign government hoping they'll consider my business as "essential".

Don't be surprised if we start seeing a major shift to bring a lot of work back to the states after this even if it means sacrificing on the profits from cheaper labor. Pandemics will happen again and businesses will not want to be caught up like this again

But with remote "knowledge" work, will they be limited by those same border closures? Maybe for client travel, yes, but it's 100% virtual idk if those some hang ups apply. Unless I'm missing something.

I do expect supply chains to either become more localized or spread across various regions. So maybe instead of 100% in China, it might 20% in Indonesia, 20% in Mexico, 40% in China and 20% in the Philippines. I'd follow the money concerning supply chains though. At the end of the day, capital will look to go where it can get the best returns.

 

[GoldenGlove]

Let’s leave finessing aside. If they move to Wichita out of their own volition. They let HR know cuz they still want important docs to reach them at their new home. They’re still reporting to the Chicago office and working with the same team in the same role. Is it common practice for the firm to reduce that employee’s pay to adjust for Wichita’s COL?


I’m 99.9% sure the reverse isn’t true. If an employee gets hired to support the Wichita office. Him deciding to move to Chicago won’t get him a pay bump as long as he is still assigned to the Wichita office.

That's because they budgeted for their salary in that specific region. If I apply for a job in Wichita and get it, then I move to Chicago shortly afterwards, I think most companies would feel some type of way if I came back and said, "Yeah I moved and my cost of living is higher so comp me"

They'd be like nobody told you to move there, so fukk you.


I'm going to ask a guy who works at my firm who recently moved to LA from Chicago if his salary was adjusted. He changed home offices and everything. It's still early out there so I'm a wait a few hours and ping him about it.

 

[Field Marshall Bradley]

Exactly what I was saying. Why not start looking outside the US at that point? Folk cheering but this is just cost cutting.

They been doing that

 

[Mission249]

Yall never heard of a vpn


None of that shyt matters.

My company thinks I login from Las Vegas everyday.

And I know because I work in a capacity that gives us access to authentication and network traffic logging, so I check periodically and play around what vpn server I am using

It will be impossible for companies to verify if you do it right

They're just going to look at where you file your taxes.

 

[PrnzHakeem]

Why shouldn't the dollar fee be location adjusted

Board members aren't employees, they aren't even on a company's payroll.

 

[R.E.N. Spells Ren]

That's because they budgeted for their salary in that specific region. If I apply for a job in Wichita and get it, then I move to Chicago shortly afterwards, I think most companies would feel some type of way if I came back and said, "Yeah I moved and my cost of living is higher so comp me"

They'd be like nobody told you to move there, so fukk you.

Agreed. It’s the fair way of looking at things. I don’t see why people think the reverse is fair tho.

If I’m still doing the same job, supporting the same office, the company shouldn’t care where I live.

I'm going to ask a guy who works at my firm who recently moved to LA from Chicago if his salary was adjusted. He changed home offices and everything. It's still early out there so I'm a wait a few hours and ping him about it.

To be clear, this isn’t the scenario I’m talking about. If he’s now reporting to a different office, I’d expect them to adjust his pay accordingly. This is a common and defensible practice.

 

[the bossman]

But with remote "knowledge" work, will they be limited by those same border closures? Maybe for client travel, yes, but it's 100% virtual idk if those some hang ups apply. Unless I'm missing something.

There are still limits if you're serving majority American customers. There' legal hurdles in certain aspects. Finance, medical, etc. All these industries have different regulations and nuances that will make it difficult for foreign nationals to fully serve them on a regular basis. So that coupled with only 10% of the talent pool of what you have in the US, I just don't really see some mass exodus of even knowledge jobs. Logistically there's still enough hurdles that limit the potential gains

We've got offices in Canada but those folks are only serving Canadian customers 90% of the time. It wouldn't work trying to cover America full-time as well.

For smaller companies or small startups it's probably not a big deal but there are more hurdles for bigger companies serving large customers.

If anything, if WFH becomes the wave I see many HQs hiring out of cheaper parts of the country

At the end of the day, capital will look to go where it can get the best returns.

Yea but returns are not the end-all be-all. A smart business looks at many different variables. Risk management is a big thing for a reason.

I can get amazing returns if I run all manufacturing factories of my shoe business in China and sell them here but now I havent had a single shipment since February since the factories have been shutdown by local government

 

[Xyrax]

You mean they didn’t reduce your pay when you moved your remote office to a more affordable region? What a novel display of fairness.

I mean, this was like a decade ago. I think at this time working remotely was more about them saving money on office lease space and possibly even utilities. They were saving money by having us do the same exact work, but doing so at home in our own Air conditioning and paying for our own water etc. It's a win for them. So when we got the okay to move out of state and telecommute they didn't care. But greed is a bytch.

Just imagine doing the exact same work as another person in the same damn position but getting 20% less pay for it.... These fukks will always find a way to short workers man, its crazy.

 

[TELL ME YA CHEESIN FAM?]

NY where?

80 bands a year is not living paycheck to paycheck in New York City.. unless you're a dope smoking loser
Gtfoh

None of u coli NYC posters make close to.that...except for Wet Wet of course