An article link dropped in my in-bin reads “Should Remote Workers Earn More?“.  First reaction: h*** no!  (Note: I haven’t yet read the article yet – will give my reaction/thinking, and then see if the article offers any insights I hadn’t considered.)

Argument 1: Remote workers don’t have the same commuting expenses as do local workers.  Thus their compensation package doesn’t need to cover that cost of going to work.  (Counter argument: but you need to set up a home office, which does cost more.  Some of that may be covered by tax breaks for home offices, I imagine, though I’m no tax expert.)  Still come down on: no, don’t pay remote workers more.

Argument 2: Remote workers don’t have the same office distractions as do local workers, and thus are more productive.  Hmmm….  if that’s true, then that better performance would be rewarded by greater pay, regardless of the locale.  But no ipso facto relationship: if it is an effect, then better pay should be granted, but until said effect is indicated, no better pay.

Argument 3: The local office doesn’t have to pay for the cost of the office space of the worker, and thus that worker is cheaper, in terms of overhead expenses.  Ergo, the company can pay more for the remote worker.  One, that logic only works if a significant portion of your labor force works from home: no one can shift their expense structure that much for one worker being in or out of the office.  Two, so what?  If it costs me less as a company to utilize you, that doesn’t mean that you get the money.  It may mean you get more opportunities to work, because my profit rate for you is higher, but that doesn’t mean I have to share it with you.

Argument 4:  Hey, working from home is less burdensome for the employee…  It’s a perk (no commute, no dress code, flexibility in hours), that ought to be considered as part of the total compensation package.  By that logic, the remote worker should actually get paid _less_.  If one perk goes up, and that employee is comparable to other employees, the pay package ought to go down.

All arguments, before reading the article, still lead me to the “employees might be willing to take a pay cut to work from home” rather than “employees should get a pay raise to work from home”.  (Note: I could only intermittently work from home, as I have 3 kids at home: productivity with a 2 year old running around just isn’t high on any sustained basis.)

Aha: the article uses the term “remote worker” to mean the guy who works a regular day job, and then is expected to bring work home at night.  The argument against paying these folks more is that “Show me one employee who doesn’t waste time at work,” the Colorado-based author said. “I see so much abuse of working hours by employees—personal phone calls, socializing, checking eBay listings, booking personal travel, etc.—that I don’t believe it’s unreasonable for an employer to want a bit of work on personal hours.“.  Hmmmm….  isn’t that more of a cultural/management issue, that unwanted behaviors are occurring on the clock?  That doesn’t mean you get to change the clock, particularly without specific evidence on an individual basis: ok, you took away 2 hours of “my” time, I’m going to take away 2 of yours.  (Sounds like a parenting punishment I’ve used before, actually.) Particularly since in reality it’s more like, OK, you may have taken away some amount of hours of”my” time, so I now have carte blanche to require additional hours of yours.

Note that I’m one of those sick twisted individuals who has a need to keep abreast of the field, checks her email constantly, and would probably be very addicted to a Crackberry, were I to have one.  So I’m a remote worker, just by nature.  But I do it for me, for my own twisted personality deficiencies.  I feel very strongly that I don’t “owe” that to my employer, and were an employer to ever indicate that I owed it to them in any large measure, I’d indicate that there is no compensation package large enough to cover such an agreement.  Folks quibble over vacation time in compensation packages, but allow employment overage to eat into just plain ol’ life time.

So to bring it full circle, using their definition of “remote worker”, yes, remote workers should EITHER be paid more, or work less at work.  Either way to solve the equation works for me.  But if remote workers are required to work more, over and above, just at home rather than at work, then they should definitely be paid more.  They should assess the likely hours burden over the year, and use that times their approximate hourly rate to determine what they should be compensated.

These kinds of opinions make me unpopular with services companies.  One day, when I have my own company, this post may come back to bite me when I’m older/wiser/burdened by realities of business, rather than just the philosophies of business.  I hope I hold true to my statements.

Very nice post on Brazen Careerist entitled ‘Seven Reasons why graduate school is outdated‘.  I’d like to add to her comments with a few items as to why I believe grad school isn’t as useful as I once thought.  These thoughts are shaped by both my own experiences in an MBA program (either on hold or abandoned, based on the time demands of it versus family life) and discussions with folks in Masters programs in Computer Science:

* Those who rise to the top seem to do so based on leadership and communication skills, neither of which seem to be to be readily teachable in a classroom setting.  These both seem to be shaped through use, and by watching others who succeed in those skills, rather than reading about Laslow’s hierarchy of needs.

* Reading and experimentation sticks much more when done on your own time, own interests, and in line with where it’d be useful in your day-to-day life.

* Masters programs are just too darned long!  Multiple hours in a single evening in a classroom session, learning something that may or may not stick well (see bullets 1 and 2, above), plus homework, to get the credentials.

* Masters programs have lots of classes that cover things that are “basics” that you may not get to use practically for years, if ever.  I think of accounting classes: the principles are useful, but pragmatically, I’m going to pay an expert in the field to do any serious accounting, rather than spend more hours than necessary on it and likely muck it up based on a change in GAAP or in the tax policy.  I think of compiler design: I’m never going to write a compiler, but somehow this kind of class shows up regularly in masters programs for computer science.

* The classes that are useful, you’re already doing!  If it’s really useful, you’ve likely already had a taste of it, but are forced to spend hours in class hearing lectures on things you’re already at least basically familiar with.  Sure, you’re likely to learn something in the class, particularly by the end of it, to broaden or deepen your understanding, but in the meantime you’re to spend quite a few hours in a chair.  (I think here of OO classes, or database design for comp sci programs, or classes on ethics/social responsibility, or leadership, or marketing for business.)

I’ve come to believe that these credentials do show a certain commitment to improvement and education on the part of the person who possesses them, but they may not show a respect for their own time.  (And if they don’t have a respect for their own time/life, I worry about their respect for anyone else’s time/life!)  I respect the personalmba site, questions asked/answered via LinkedIn, and generally asking questions/watching folks to see who’s succeeding, and just as importantly, what things you believe you shouldn’t copy.

I’ve been dreaming of starting my own company.  It’s happened before, and nary a business plan or a change in business card has yet come about, so it’s unfortunately unlikely to pass.  Any company I work for, I start to think how I’ll do things differently in my company.  MY company will be driven by values.  MY company will harness the best thoughts and energies of its employees (me included) to greater success than if we worked as individuals.  MY company will engage with the community, in ways beyond just giving checks.  MY company will be a ‘Small Giant’.

Right now MY company would need to replace MY salary, which is our family’s primary source of income.  That’s a pretty heady requirement for a startup, to reliably replace a certain salary and benefits package.  You have to have a fair amount of confidence in both the business opportunity, and your ability to execute on it, and be more certain that you’re right than that the statistics on small businesses will fall against you.  Hence my reluctance to actually engage.  But that doesn’t stop me from thinking.  Thinking about who’d be the right people to bring on board.  Thinking about, what would attract that combination of people.  Thinking about what magic we could accomplish.

For all of the faults any of the companies I’ve ever been at have had, they have had the distinct advantage of actually having pulled the trigger and acted on that startup dream.  I keep reminding myself of that.