XanKreigor t1_jeeitm1 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 1:09 PM

Reply to comment by PandasPD in Meta stops offering remote work in new job postings as Mark Zuckerberg pushes the benefits of coming to the office by Ben_aid

But they are making the choice to have employees. No one is forcing them to do so either. We do, however, force companies to pay employees for time worked in all cases. The commute should be a part of that.

If employers don't want to pay employees for time worked, employees should refuse to work there.

PandasPD t1_jeeqy91 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 2:10 PM

We absolutely do not force companies to pay for time worked in all cases. Have you heard of a salaried employee? In the case of Meta, this is almost exclusively what we’re discussing here — and in the vast majority of WFH cases as well.

So in this utopia where all employers need to pay for you to get to their office, how far away is a reasonable commute? Do we now start to have federal restrictions around that? What if someone lives 5 mins away vs 60? What’s the limit? What if I want to commute 5 hours each way every day? They have to pay me for it?

Non-combative, serious note here, I get why everyone routinely points to the data surrounding productivity for WFH and agree with all of it, there’s a problem with it though — it’s massively skewed and we’re starting to see the flaws in it. The vast majority of the pop. from those studies have previous in office experience, particularly onboarding/training. We don’t have enough studies about fresh from school performance, we’re looking into them internally, and results are fairly off putting.

I work for a fully remote company that was previously closer to a hybrid model. We’ve been doing research into the onboarding, ramp up, and performance of new college grads with no previous in-office experience. Overall, they’re not performing as expected — to sum it up best, they float. Training costs have now gone up (more resources allocated for: pair programming, being ‘available’ to simulate the over the cubicle “hey quick question” kind of stuff, longer onboarding timeframes). It’s working, but guess what, it kinda sucks. Makes me not want to waste time on younger hires (which is the opposite of my hiring preferences in the past).

I can totally see why C suite are getting sick of this stuff. Again, I’m not going back in office myself ever, but that might mean switching companies at some point to stay WFH— and that’s my decision to be able to make.

XanKreigor t1_jeetwk0 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 2:30 PM

We do, though. There are quite a number of legal cases where individuals and governments at state and federal levels win on labor-related grounds. These are around not being compensated for work performed. Some of them include salaried employees.

We've already got a mileage stipend in place, even in the public sector. I'm unsure why you're under the impression that can't be extended. If it's an hourly employee, pay them from the start of the commute. If it's a salaried employee, consider their start time the same when it comes to calculating benefits. We don't need to make things unduly difficult. Someone abuses it in a "5 hour commute"? Fire them. We've got plenty of rules on the books for time fraud. This is the part where companies determine whether they want to hire someone. In addition, generally most companies don't hire people from an hour or more away.

It's not that there aren't flaws, it's that the flaws don't outweigh the benefits.

PandasPD t1_jefekw7 wrote on March 31, 2023 at 4:45 PM

The downstream impact of what you’re describing here is of a magnitude far greater than any additional compensation mileage would make up for from an employee standpoint — mileage is $.625/mile, that’s a few grand per year for most employees.

Let’s say all companies are required to pay a mileage stipend. Immediately:

Admin costs have risen — we now need to calculate distance from the office, account for employee moving homes, logic to account for PTO, etc. Think the company is just going to eat those?
Companies put in distance radius from the office as an auto-filter in job apps. Live 31 miles away instead of 29? Too bad, you just got auto-screened out and your resume never even hits the recruiter’s inbox.
Housing market have you feeling down now? Get ready, because now you have to live within x miles to be considered for jobs. Awesome! You got an extra $5k in mileage for the year! Now you get to pay an extra 150% for your home!
Run a small business in a rural location? Good for you! You now get to pay double the mileage that employers in bigger cities have to pay, because you can’t put a mileage radius cap on because your hiring pool of candidates is far smaller. And you get to do all of these new admin duties manually, because you can’t afford some fancy software to handle it. No worries! We’ll put in a caveat that small employers are exempt or pay less mileage, the little guys always win the lobbying wars after all!
Your company is comprised of all positions that allow for only in person work (factories, hospitals, schools, etc). Too bad, you now get to pay these people to drive to your place of work. What’s that you say, we put in a caveat that positions that require in person work are exempt from paying mileage — cool, that works. Oh, what’s that, my software devs are now required to take out the trash each day, so of course they’re required to be in person, don’t need to pay that mileage now I guess!
No worries, there will be plenty of companies that will take advantage of these new rules and use them as a competitive advantage. They’ll pay extra mileage and not mess with job duties so the employee will be able to choose the best ones — and we’re literally right back to where we are now.

It’s full circle, employees will choose the best places to work based upon their own needs. Hate in office work, and willing to sacrifice pay to get a WFH gig — cool. Cash is king to you and you’re willing to commute 3 hours each way to make it happen — also cool.

All we’re doing here is adding a ton of unneeded governmental controls that will eventually just benefit larger orgs that can absorb these costs, inevitably providing them additional power to lobby away the very rules that were put in place to begin with.

The answer to this is as simple as it’s always been — you vote with your actions. Don’t like an employer’s rules — don’t work there. Don’t like a business’s morals, practices, etc. — don’t give them your business. Enough people feel a certain way and you’ll see change, if not, sounds like your vote lost. Figure out how to move forward in life, not everyone has the same worldview and values and it’s up to you to figure out how to adapt.

XanKreigor t1_jefv3qo wrote on March 31, 2023 at 6:33 PM

I guess you agree with my point about forcing employers to pay for work done.

A few grand per year for an employee sounds a bit like a raise. I support it.

Admin costs rise, other costs fall such as hours scheduled but not worked (e.g. calling out sick) fall. Yes, the company is just going to eat these costs. "What if it gets passed on?" That's the point. Wrap up the total cost of a product in the price. Stop externalizing costs that shouldn't be. The cost of paying workers a living wage is a pittance when lumped into the price of a service or product.

Make better algorithms? I'm not sure what you expect. If the company isn't finding suitable hires within their radius they will adapt, like increasing the radius or reducing the requirements.

There are already exemptions for small businesses for onerous costs such as healthcare, as well as models for scaling mileage in rural places with small pizza places. Again, it's making things harder than they need to be. Unsure why you're acting flippantly towards exemptions in your response.

Sounds like we went around the monopoly board and collected $200 rather than full circle, but hey, everyone has a different opinion. Thanks for sharing yours.