Working from home is an option for many to be able to work more flexibly. Many are even willing to forgo part of their salary for it.
Giving up salary but working from home? For many employees, this is very attractive, and many are willing to give up money to escape the toxic workplace in the office. However, not everyone thinks this is a good idea.
Lower salary for working from home, higher salary for office work
How much salary is at stake? Theresa L. Fesinstine, founder of the consulting firm peoplepower.ai, explained to the online magazine Fortune that some applicants are willing to forgo up to 15% of their salary if they could work from home:
There is this unspoken exchange rate between flexibility and salary, and for some applicants, it’s worth a significant compromise.
This is especially true for individuals who have a family or want to save on additional costs, such as travel expenses. For many, flexibility is more important than a high salary.
On the other hand, the opposite is also true: some employees demand higher salaries if they are required to work from the office. For instance, Michael Steinitz, Senior Executive Director of Professional Talent Solutions at Robert Half, explained that many employees would demand, on average, 23% more salary.
Even in a cooling market, candidates still have high expectations regarding salary and flexibility. Employers must quickly react with competitive, well-rounded offers and be willing to negotiate – especially when they are looking for top talent with special skills.
In some cases, Steinitz said, potential candidates would also be offered the option to work from home in order to be able to offer a lower salary to meet candidates’ salary expectations. Because often there is a significant gap between candidates’ salary expectations and those of companies.
The whole situation, however, will ultimately lead to companies that cannot or do not want to offer working from home having to create their own incentives to be attractive to employees. Such as with higher wages or paid time off.
Poorly paid working from home cannot be a solution
The willingness to give up salary for working from home is not well received everywhere. Because it does not solve the fundamental problems. Just because employees want to escape a toxic work environment in the office, one cannot simply pay them less because of it.
One should rather consider what can be done to improve the situation in the office to make the office more attractive in the long term.
Stress with the supervisor: An employee is prohibited from working from home and has to go back to the office. But he does not simply accept this. He “gets revenge” on his boss by using a legal trick: Employee forced into the office by the boss – He gives in, has his moment of triumph shortly afterwards
