Location, the be-all or end-all?

The Pandemic has forced businesses across the globe to embrace remote-working, triggering a transformation more “tech first” businesses have been taking advantage of for a long time, harnessing a truly global workforce. Twitter led the race by announcing their staff can work from home for the foreseeable, with the rest of Big Tech following suit. Amazon went for a slightly different angle, by opening offices in major cities across the United States. The caveat of the remote scenario has been a reduction in salaries for staff driven by announcing the commencement of a compensation and benefits strategy, focused more towards localisation.

The question of late is how do businesses take advantage of the new world of work, without alienating their workforces?

Larger, public firms or more commercially driven businesses may see this as an opportunity to improve their margins and consequently their bottom lines, keeping investors and their Board satisfied. But even these larger businesses have only reduced salaries by a fraction: 5%–10%, with the higher percentage targeting top earners. So far, benefits offered are driven more towards flexible working and bonuses based on personal rather than company performance, mitigating the risk some Exec’s feel comes from the freedom flexible working gives employees. Reportedly, Stripe has offered to pay employees a $20,000 bonus just to leave the Bay Area, in return for a 10% salary reduction.

Smaller privately held businesses, or those whose employees have clear exit options to better commercial opportunities, need to keep their workforce even more front-of-mind, recognising how important remaining competitive in the talent ecosystem is to their future or continued success.

What are you really paying for when you hire? Loyalty? Access to the best talent? Both? I have spoken to a number of people recently and simply asked, “what would you be willing to sacrifice?”. The majority answer was very little. Most people stated businesses pay for their skill set, not their location, as a location in the majority of circumstances comes down to personal choice by the employer, as well as the employee.

Providing choice is the clinching point here. Force an employee's hands and they are more inclined to act emotionally, but provide choice with clear reasoning and it becomes a more pragmatic and logical decision-making process, without causing as much upset. For example, Option 1 is a greater salary but diminished benefits, Option 2 is a reduced salary but access to greater flexible benefits, and so forth.

The above is generalised, but it would be great to know what you would do wearing both hats. What would you do as a business owner/leader in this situation? What would you be willing to sacrifice to have the choice to work where you want as an employee?

As always, thoughts and opinions are my own.