- Remote workers are turning to workplace discussion platforms like Fishbowl to discuss return-to-office mandates.
- Some say they are willing to take pay cuts of up to a 20% to continue working from home.
Workers really don't want to return to the office — and some are willing to take significant pay cuts if that means they can stay at home.
Remote workers are turning to anonymous workplace discussion platforms to gauge whether they should take jobs with lower pay to keep their work-from-home privileges. Responses to the posts find that workers prioritize flexibility over higher wages.
One underwriter $4 to ask how much of a pay cut people would take to work from home or at an office 15 minutes away. They had just learned that they would potentially have to return to the office, which is 50 minutes from their home.
Fishbowl allows its users to post anonymously, but requires them to verify their status as an employee of a particular company through their work email address.
Many respondents said they'd be willing to take pay cuts if that meant a permanent work-from-home arrangement, or time and money saved on lengthy commutes.
Two Fishbowl users said they would take up to a 15% paycut. One user, who works at Liberty Mutual, said they'd take a pay cut of up to 20%, while another, who works at Nationwide, said they'd forgo $10,000 of their annual salary to work from home permanently.
Some said that even a salary increase wouldn't get them back to the office.
$4, one user asked employees whether they would return to the office four days a week if they were offered "a 50% salary bump." While the majority of respondents said they would, a few workers insinuated they wouldn't.
One Fishbowl user said that losing work-from-home privileges was "not worth it."
"There are more things in life than money," another user commented. "I don't make a ton of money. but I do make enough to want to stay remote and have a better quality of life than go in to the office, drop my productivity, increase my commute, decrease my health, reduce time spent with loved ones, create mental fatigue and so on."
The willingness for workers to forgo thousands of dollars in pay to work from home is nothing new.
$4 found that the majority of workers would take a 10 to 20% pay cut if they could work fully remote. In fact, 55% of fully remote US workers said they're willing to take a pay cut to keep working from home, $4
Workers' attitudes around remote work come as companies like $4 in an effort to $4.