Work from home permanently or $30K raise?

[MacGyver]

In a survey of some very large companies, employees were asked whether they would rather work from home permanently or receive a $30,000 raise.

https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/news/2021/05/13/wfh-work-from-home-raise-salary-google-facebook.html

I'm curious about what the results would be here. Tennessee salaries are typically lower than you're going to see in California or New York - much less the FAANG-type companies interviewed here.

So, if you're in a job that was sent home this last year and were presented with an option, which would you choose - work from home forever or a $30k raise?

[Omega]

5 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

In a survey of some very large companies, employees were asked whether they would rather work from home permanently or receive a $30,000 raise.

https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/news/2021/05/13/wfh-work-from-home-raise-salary-google-facebook.html

I'm curious about what the results would be here. Tennessee salaries are typically lower than you're going to see in California or New York - much less the FAANG-type companies interviewed here.

So, if you're in a job that was sent home this last year and were presented with an option, which would you choose - work from home forever or a $30k raise?

It's easy for me, since I am so close to retiring anyway, I would choose to stay home, if I could.  The thing is, some of my job involves hands on stuff, which I would be willing to do when needed without the raise, but the classified systems would be the deal killer as there is no way to do that from home, Hillary ruined that for us 

[KahrMan]

Most of my Nashville employees want to keep working from home.  Offering them $30K to come back to the office would probably change some of their minds though.  Not sure why a company would want to do that though.  Our office has been closed for over a year now with no productivity declines.  We are going to stay a work from home company.   We are actually in the process of finding new, much smaller office space.  It will just be used for occasional meetings and company get togethers.  It will not be used day to day.  We do not have a lot of office space and this is going to save me $250,000 per year in rent.   When we started looking for new space in Brentwood we realized that there is a lot of unoccupied commercial space out there right now. 

[Alleycat72]

I would take the 30k. I'm hourly and subject to call. If I get a call from anyone in the company and they asked a work related question, I get 3 hours of OT. 

[MacGyver]

 

2 minutes ago, KahrMan said:

Most of my Nashville employees want to keep working from home.  Offering them $30K to come back to the office would probably change some of their minds though.  Not sure why a company would want to do that though.  Our office has been closed for over a year now with no productivity declines.  We are going to stay a work from home company.   We are actually in the process of finding new, much smaller office space.  It will just be used for occasional meetings and company get togethers.  It will not be used day to day.  We do not have a lot of office space and this is going to save me $250,000 per year in rent.   When we started looking for new space in Brentwood we realized that there is a lot of unoccupied commercial space out there right now. 

Our buildings over beside Target are probably 50% unoccupied.

That’s not - “oh we’re still working from home and will be back.” It’s shops that have decided to make the shift permanent and have totally given up their space. 

[OldIronFan]

I would take the 30k and be a happy camper. I worked in the office straight through the pandemic. I do not mind going into the office. After years of travel and doing my work from hotel rooms, airport lounges, and supplier conference rooms I have gotten pretty good at remote work but don't really care one way or the other. 

My wife is a different story. She has worked 75% to 100% remote from home for about 6 or so years now, long before the pandemic. She will not even consider a role that is not close to 100% remote work. If she never has to go into an office again she will be a happy woman. In her field there does not seem to be any impact to income level, in fact the remote workers seem to make slightly more. 

I would think this would work the opposite way. If a company is able to maintain full capability and productivity with remote workers they can greatly reduce their physical office space requirements and costs. That leaves more money the ownership, existing workforce, and the addition of more workers. Companies should be paying a bonus or raising salaries of remote workers meeting productivity goals not paying more to come back into the office. It is pretty well established that busy offices hurt not help productivity. 
 

[RED333]

GIVE ME THE MONEY!!!

My job can not be done from an office, restaurant equipment is in a kitchen some where.

[Erik88]

I wonder what most of those people were already making. $30,000 is a lot of money for me but I bet it isn't for a lot of Microsoft and Google workers. I've been working from home since last March and I'm really dreading going back but if they offered me $30,000 I'd gladly take it. 

[btq96r]

I'd take the $30k in a heartbeat.  I'm already back in the office 3-4 days a week by choice.  I'm okay with some measure of work from home to allow myself flexibility when I actually get to cracking on some projects like data cleaning and analytics, but for the most part I function better in the office than at home, and being central in the office allows me to see and talk to folks coming and going on their 1-2 days a week.  That gives me a much better handle on what's actually happening in the organization. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by btq96r

[FUJIMO]

I haven't missed a day of work through all of this but ill gladly take the 30 G's

[No_0ne]

I would take the money, sock the extra away on top of whatever else I was already putting in a 401, 403, 457 or whatever plan, and move my prospective retirement date up.  The bonus would effectively shorten my obligation to work fulltime, giving me more options as to whether  continue working in that job, another, or not at all ...

[btq96r]

29 minutes ago, No_0ne said:

I would take the money, sock the extra away on top of whatever else I was already putting in a 401, 403, 457 or whatever plan, and move my prospective retirement date up.  The bonus would effectively shorten my obligation to work fulltime, giving me more options as to whether  continue working in that job, another, or not at all ...

That additional $30k could max a 401(k) at $19.5k, an HSA at $3.6k ($7.2k for family), and have money leftover.  

Wonder how many who get the opportunity to take it would be thinking like that.

[No_0ne]

42 minutes ago, btq96r said:

That additional $30k could max a 401(k) at $19.5k, an HSA at $3.6k ($7.2k for family), and have money leftover.  

Wonder how many who get the opportunity to take it would be thinking like that.

Those limits are only for you young bucks.  Old farts like me get an additional upward limit on 401's, etc.  In fact, if I go back into schools, I can sock away something like $59k, using both a 401 and a 457 plan as well as an IRA.  Of course there are income limits for these, and that additional $30k might very well bring the income caps into play, but if you have the right kind of job you can defer a lot of money ...

Edited May 14, 2021 by No_0ne

[deerslayer]

I would take the 30K in a flash.  

[DWARREN123]

Retired now but when employed I could not have really worked from home since I was hands on multi-craft maintenance on production equipment.

Probably not have the choice anyway, just my luck.  

[Erik88]

1 hour ago, btq96r said:

Wonder how many who get the opportunity to take it would be thinking like that.

:raises hand:.

I was thinking that earlier. 

[10-Ring]

I work from home or in the field 80% of the time.  Pre covid it was more like 50% of the time.  I have an office in Nashville that this pandemic has shown to be unnecessary.  However, the powers that be like us to show up for posterity.  Quality of life is much better when I'm working from home.  I save roughly an hour and a half per day traveling to and from when I go to the office.  I also really like being able to get out of bed 10 minutes before I sign on.  I'd have to turn down the $30k simply due to having to go to the office daily would make my job unbearable.  

[Ronald_55]

I have been working from home for about a year. Wife a bit longer. My commute was not long (15 to 20 minutes), but I too like rolling down to my desk at 7:50. 95+% of my job can be done from anywhere I have internet. The rest is so minor that asking the mailroom to mail out a piece of equipment from storage is about the largest part I have to hand off. All I did before was carry the box to the mailroom myself. They still shipped it. My wife is pretty much 100%. I feel I can be more productive at home because my boss tends to wander around showing off funny YouTube videos or telling you what funny thing his nephew did last weekend. That productivity also flows over to home. I can start a load of laundry and fold it at lunch if needed. I can wash the breakfast dishes at lunch. Heck, I can pack up eBay sales for shipping while listening to a required webinar. Not losing a single minute of work productivity, but gaining a lot of the home type. Plus, if it is a stressed day, taking lunch at the kitchen table with the wife and kids is much better than cramming down a burger at my desk in the office. That makes my overall life better.

Now if they offered me $30K to come back in, I would show up 20 minutes later. That money would be a big difference in things like paying for the kids' college or finishing off the mortgage. In the end, I work to make money. I have worked a lot worse jobs for less. So an offer like that would get signed instantly. I would push my 401k contributions up a few percent at the same time as paying off debt. 

I have friends in construction that deal with developers a lot. They all are seeing office space leases being terminated. Companies are realizing that the cost to stand over their employees' shoulders is not worth whatever productivity improvement they assumed they were getting (which in reality was none or negative). They have already deployed the equipment to let people work virtual, and in many case that equipment would just go on the shelf if they came back to the office anyway, In a lot of areas and industries, this had already been moving forward before COVID, so now really people are just pushing up the timeline. 

 

[MacGyver]

The pandemic has probably pushed the remote work conversation ahead by 15-20 years.

We'll have some companies trying really hard to keep their thumbs on their employees by forcing them back - but for a lot of companies this year has been an experiment that turned out way better than they might have expected.

A bunch of companies are embracing work from home and I expect will see productivity gains as a result.

There is going to be a lot of maturing of processes, monitoring, security, culture etc. that needs to happen - but there's a lot of opportunity there.

[RC3]

Home. #### all the office ##### and dirt bags who make work ####ty. Jackassed think they can dictate things because they have been there longer but always suggest the worst ideas that fail 97% of the time because they cant handle other people's imput.

[Chucktshoes]

40 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

The pandemic has probably pushed the remote work conversation ahead by 15-20 years.

We'll have some companies trying really hard to keep their thumbs on their employees by forcing them back - but for a lot of companies this year has been an experiment that turned out way better than they might have expected.

A bunch of companies are embracing work from home and I expect will see productivity gains as a result.

There is going to be a lot of maturing of processes, monitoring, security, culture etc. that needs to happen - but there's a lot of opportunity there.

The one that always sticks out the most to be is REI. They spent two years building an exceptionally nice brand new office complex, then the pandemic hit before they could move in. 
 

Their experience with having their employees work from home was so positive that they never moved into the building and instead put it up for sale. 

[Raoul]

I've worked from home for the better part of the last 10 years. I love the flexibility and nothing is better than videoconferencing in a tie and shorts.

The downside is that it's difficult to escape work. It's always there.

[TGO David]

15 hours ago, MacGyver said:

So, if you're in a job that was sent home this last year and were presented with an option, which would you choose - work from home forever or a $30k raise?

I'd stay at home.

Nashville companies need to wisen up.  The last year (2020) changed everything about teleworking.  Companies no longer only compete against others in their town or city for talent; they are competing against other companies across the country.  If they want to hire the best people, they've got to put aside 20th Century notions that workers must spend hours a day commuting only to spend hours more a day crammed into corporate offices.

We've preached work-life balance for years as if letting people end their shifts on time was some magnanimous act.  2020 showed us that true work-life balance is easier to achieve when a worker is able to choose where they work from.

My own company has lost it's damn mind this year and is trying to shove people back into offices, despite having spent a year saying that working from home was the "New Normal".  Not only has it it begun to erode the willingness of people to trust anything a C-Level executive says from this point forward, but it's also causing the worker to wake-up to the power that they have now that choosing an employer doesn't mean just choosing between other Nashville-area companies.

 

 

[Erik88]

9 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

I feel I can be more productive at home because my boss tends to wander around showing off funny YouTube videos or telling you what funny thing his nephew did last weekend.

I think you touched on something here. I bet there is a lot of middle management around the country feeling concerned about their jobs because they can no longer manage their team in person. As soon as my manager got the vaccine she started pushing for us to get back into the office. Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet. No one on my team wants to go back into the office.

Edited May 14, 2021 by Erik88

[Chucktshoes]

I suspect that many middle managers (rightly) perceive that shifting to a WFH model will cause not only the buildings to be surplussed.