Opting to WFH permanently? You may soon suffer a pay cut

Google employees who work from home could now receive lesser pay than their colleagues who work from the office, reports Reuters. The company is reportedly experimenting a new pay structure amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In the new structure, employees who were based in the same office before the COVID lockdowns were imposed, could now see a variation in salary if they opt to work from home permanently.

Google is not the only company rolling out such a move. This experiment is taking place across Silicon Valley.

Tech giants Facebook and Twitter also announced pay cuts recently for remote employees who move to less expensive areas. Smaller companies like Zillow and Reddit have adopted a pay model that is location agnostic. They state that this helps them not only while hiring, but aids in creating diversity.

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Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, offers its employees a calculator which allows them to see how the change will affect their pay.

“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,” Reuters quoted a Google spokesperson as saying.

He added that the pay will be different from city to city and state to state.

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A researcher in pay determination said: “What’s clear is that Google doesn’t have to do this. Google has paid these workers at 100% of their prior wage, by definition. So it’s not like they can’t afford to pay their workers who choose to work remotely the same that they are used to receiving.”

A spokesperson for the tech giant said that the company will not change an employee’s salary based on them going from office work to being fully remote. As an example, the spokesperson said that the employees working in the New York City office will be paid the same amount as those who will be working remoted from another location, within New York.

However, the company did not address the issue for long-range commuters.