Salary minus geography
For some employees, choosing to remain fully remote is about feeling comfortable and productive in set-ups they've cultivated for two years. But for others, it's a necessity - because they've moved too far away from the office to commute.
In many instances, remote workers have left major cities for regions with a lower cost of living, such as rural areas, where they've been able to afford a home that would have been previously out of reach. Returning to the office would ultimately mean choosing between where they want to live and where they want to work.
Some companies have therefore decided to take location out of the salary equation. For example, online real-estate marketplace Zillow pays the same wage to employees who move away from its Seattle headquarters to anywhere in the US. "It's a philosophy of giving people the same opportunity to earn top-end salaries regardless of where they live,” says Dan Spaulding, chief people officer at Zillow. "It means they don't have to pick between a great paying job and a location that matters to them.”
Other businesses are considering employees who may want to move abroad. Rather than anchor salary to locales across the US, software company Hubspot, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, fixes it to one city per country. In practice, it means remote employees can move anywhere domestically on equal wages, or possibly emigrate for a one-time pay cut. "Moving to another part of the country is a decision an employee should make based on what's best for their work and home life,” says Katie Burke, chief people officer at Hubspot. "It shouldn't be at the expense of their compensation.”