Amidst a ‘big push’ to get workers back to Whitehall an unnamed minister has suggested that ‘civil servants working from home should be paid less than those in office’, claiming that it is hard to tell if they are working or watching TV. Remarkably, this seems to be a sentiment Google shares: US Googlers wishing to continue working from home may have their pay cut to reflect the cost of living in their area.

This would hit long-distance commuters who travel in from areas with a lower cost of living the hardest. As opposed to offering more pay to staff who will need to commute, Google is choosing the tougher option of cutting the pay of those who remain at home.

Why penalise staff for working from home?

For some Silicon Valley firms, experimenting with pay structures is a way to tempt workers back to the office. Paying office workers higher wages may have been more effective than cutting the pay of remote workers, but it would have come at a much higher cost. Though that choice would have improved retention it is understandable that companies did not want to make that choice in the current economic climate.

The likes of Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter have also been trying to navigate how to manage the balance between home working and office work with mixed levels of success.

Google is also considering vaccine mandates in its offices, so this pay cut to work from home may push more vaccine-hesitant members of the team to get vaccinated. Though this is a good thing in terms of vaccination statistics, it may cause backlash from those who wish to keep vaccination a personal choice.

The aforementioned unnamed minister argued that ‘people who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work.’ When framed like this, the issue appears to be the incongruence of pay between those working from home and those visiting the office, putting the interest of staff equality first. However, it seems to mainly be an issue of wanting staff to return to the office where their productivity can be more closely monitored:

A Whitehall source for The i said: ‘It’s hard to know who is deserving of a promotion when people are working remotely.’ This is arguably untrue as the quality of work should be able to speak for itself – basing promotions on the quality of an employee’s work, ability to meet deadlines, and written communication skills is good practice.

Arguments against the pay cuts 

One Google employee stated that the 10% pay cut he was facing to continue working from home was equal to the pay rise he received at his last promotion – meaning he would now be on his old salary for his new workload and level of responsibility. In light of this, he has opted to continue commuting the 2 hours to the office to keep his higher pay. This means going to the office is having a much larger environmental impact than if he had been allowed to work from home as well as impacting his life and wellbeing. Is the office really worth all that?

Reddit and Zillow are just a couple of the smaller firms who have openly stated they will continue paying the same regardless of where remote working employees are based. They opt for these ‘location-agnostic pay models’ due to the significant advantages they present when it comes to hiring, retention and diversity.

Arguments against WFH pay cuts don’t just come from within companies, lawyers have also warned companies of the potential risks these pay cuts could carry depending on how they are executed:

‘This could potentially risk legal proceedings from three areas of employment law: unfair dismissal; discrimination and health and safety-related claims in relation to refusals to return to the office due to Covid-19.’

They have also warned that these pay cuts could lead to discrimination cases, especially because women are more likely to have caring responsibilities and thus seek the option to continue working from home. Though the decision is legal, how it is implemented may open Google up to lawsuits.

If this decision to change the pay system is rolled out across the company, it will be interesting to see whether Google staff lose money or if Google loses staff.

Is the office dead?

When the pandemic began, working from home seemed like a wildly alien concept. Now it’s the office that seems strange. Working from home has made many jobs more accessible, saved parents money on childcare and allowed people to relocate away from city centres, making many reluctant to go back to office life.

In light of the comments from Whitehall, The Public and Commercial Services union issued a statement wherein they said they ‘are pressing [the Cabinet Office] to prevent any large-scale return of staff to offices until it is demonstrably safe and even then to not return to the pre-pandemic world.’

Conversely, the unnamed minister mentioned earlier in the article thinks ‘people who want to get on in life will go into the office because that’s how people are going to succeed.’ This is a surprising perspective after the past year has proven staff are more than capable of maintaining their workload from home. The idea that networking in the office is a key part of ‘getting ahead’ in business feels like an antiquated one but it will, unfortunately, remain true whilst those who believe it are still the ones distributing promotions.

Cutting the pay of people who don’t wish to return to the office feels like a last-ditch attempt to save the sinking ship that is the classic office environment. The office as a whole may not yet be a thing of the past, but it is unlikely to ever look the same as it did before the pandemic.