I agree. This type of action is signalling the company doesn't actually pay you for your knowledge or output. It pisses me off. Flip the argument around; if FB hired you to work remotely from Montana, then you decided to move to San Francisco, would they INCREASE your pay based on COL?
If the answer is "no, of course not", then why is it okay for them (or any company) to pay you less, if you move to a lower COL area? It absolutely isn't fair, and companies want to eat their cake and have it too.
> if FB hired you to work remotely from Montana, then you decided to move to San Francisco, would they INCREASE your pay based on COL?
If you actually transfer to an SF team then yes, most large, multi office companies would adjust your pay to the SF bracket. If course that requires that an SF team has headcount and wants you. You can't just move because you feel like it.
At my employer if you were hired in SF and moved to Montana, you'd take a pay cut. If you were hired in Montana and moved to SF, you'd get a pay raise. Either one requires approval.
I'd be surprised if this isn't the norm in companies with a distributed workforce.
> This type of action is signalling the company doesn't actually pay you for your knowledge or output.
And you win the Nobel prize for stating the obvious.
Tech salaries today in hotspots like Silicon Valley are probably on the order of twice what they were in the early noughties. Why? Because everyone’s so much more productive these days? Or because that’s what the market dictates?
At the company I work for, HR defines pay bands based on the HQ location and there's a % modifier based on where you live. So yes, if you move to a higher COL area, you get paid more. If you move to a lower COL area, you get paid less. Honestly, I thought this was a normal and uncontroversial practice until this.
Frankly, the calculus of your pay probably depends a lot less on your knowledge or output than you seem to think. Geography and luck play as large of a role.
If the answer is "no, of course not", then why is it okay for them (or any company) to pay you less, if you move to a lower COL area? It absolutely isn't fair, and companies want to eat their cake and have it too.