There are so many ways in which remote work is under attack — all of them, frankly, barely defensible. However, it’s the self-inflicted wounds that may ultimately do the worst damage for those of us who value the freedom, increased productivity and efficiency of working remotely. And value is at the heart of this latest salvo.
Harvard Business School professors Zoë Cullen and Christopher Stanton surveyed more than 2,000 workers over a period of three years following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. They covered a number of remote work topics, among which included asking if the workers would be willing to give up part of their salaries to keep their flexibility rather than return to the office five days a week or find a new job.
Their findings, published in October in the Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, offer a mixed bag. While more than half of workers surveyed wouldn’t take a salary reduction, 40% said they would accept a pay cut of 5% or more. Disturbingly, 9% of respondents said they would trade 20% or more of their salaries to avoid the office, with women being more likely than men to sacrifice such a hefty chunk of their compensation.
To be fair, this should signal to business leaders that employees who work remotely are serious about staying away from an office. That’s a pretty strong message. But I worry that what executives will hear is, “We can pay our remote workers less.”
As a remote worker, I get the motivation to bend over backward if it means I get to stay working remotely. However, taking a pay cut to stay remote devalues the work we do, and it’s hard to recapture value once it’s lost.
It also flies in the face of the economic realities of remote work. Remote work, simply put, is cheaper by far than in-office work. According to an analysis by Global Workplace Analytics, U.S. companies could save up to $11,000 per employee annually by adopting remote work. Those savings come from reducing or eliminating costs such as office rentals, utilities, coffee and snacks, and one-time expenses like office furniture.
If anything, companies should be giving employees financial incentives to work remotely instead of pressuring them to return to the office. Of course, that’s not happening. Just like the money companies save on workers who elect not to participate in their employer’s health insurance plan, few of those cost savings are passed along to the employee in the form of increased compensation.
All of this is to say, if you’re a remote worker, please don’t entertain the suggestion of taking a pay cut to keep your remote job. As impossible as the job market might seem right now, you’re better off looking for new employment than devaluing yourself. Heck, getting a new job with a different employer is practically the only way people are able to get real pay increases these days.
But if you think a pay cut is going to preserve your remote position, you’re only fooling yourself. You won’t get that money back anytime soon, and chances are your employer will still RTO (return to office) you in short order regardless. You’ve been warned.
