The pandemic has caused some companies, particularly the tech giants, to be willing to be more flexible about the hours and location of employees. Ah, but it’s not as generous as it sounds. Some will “pass the bill” to those who opt for the remote option.
According to an internal Google salary calculator obtained by Reuters, some remote employees, particularly those who would take a long time to get to their offices, could face pay cuts.
For example, according to the leaked documents, an employee living in Stamford, Connecticut – an hour’s drive from Google’s New York office – would receive 15% less if he worked from home. Meanwhile, a colleague living in New York City itself would not suffer such cuts. In some cases, reductions of up to 25% could occur for those employees who would work from home away from offices in San Francisco, Reuters reported.
On the other hand, an employee revealed to Reuters that workers who would have to relocate to Google’s Seattle office from a nearby county faced a 10% pay cut if they chose to work from home full time.
“It’s as high a pay cut as the raise I got from my most recent promotion,” the employee said. “I didn’t do all that hard work to get a promotion and then get a pay cut.”
For its part, a Google spokesperson tried to downplay the leaked salary information.
“Our compensation packages have always been determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the local market based on where an employee works from,” he said.
Previously, The New York Times had reported that around 10,000 Google employees recently requested to work remotely or transfer to a different location, and the company approved 85 percent of the requests. It remains to be seen how many would be affected by the pay cut.
Facebook and Twitter also cut pay for remote employees moving to less expensive areas, while smaller companies like Reddit and Zillow have switched to location-independent payment models, citing advantages in terms of retention and diversity, Reuters noted. . But only Google seems to have that peculiar calculator.
