Should a Telecommuter Get a Lower Salary?

As you consider letting members of your team telecommute or hiring new employees to work only on a virtual basis, it may seem that you could be able to offer them a lower salary. After all, they won’t need to pay for transportation into the office, a business wardrobe and all those little expenses that go with working in an office, right?

Well, that’s not necessarily the case — and if you try to offer a lower salary to a telecommuting employee, you may find that you have a hard time convincing them to take it. Telecommuters may not be paying for gas to drive into work, but they are paying to maintain an office in their homes, a cost you’re likely to have gotten out of handling in your own office.

A Question of Benefits

For most telecommuters, the costs of being employed remain the same even if they are no longer coming into the office. That means a lower salary is out of the question — but that doesn’t mean that your business won’t be saving money.

With many telecommuters, you’ll find that the draw on benefits is reduced. Where once an employee might not have felt well enough to drive into work, you’ll likely find that — rather than taking a sick day — your telecommuting employees will work from their couch on days that they’re feeling poorly. You’ll likely find that your telecommuting employees take less personal time, especially if they have a little flexibility in the hours they need to work.

The cost of any in-office benefits, from stocking a coffee station to a public transportation benefit, pretty much disappear if your employees aren’t coming into the office, as well. You may not be reducing how much you pay in terms of salaries, but with telecommuting, you’re likely able to cut back on certain benefits without any problems.

The Need to Telecommute

If you don’t offer a telecommuting program already, you may find some employees who have a driving need to work from home offering to take a pay cut, even where other employees would refuse. For such employees, the mindset is different — telecommuting is a perk or a benefit, making it worth giving up a little of their take home salary.

However, such situations are becoming more rare as more employees realize that they can likely negotiate for the opportunity to telecommute based on the overall savings to an employer without offering to take a pay cut. When an employer has the chance to move to a small office, use less resources to simply have employees at work and so on, there’s usually more than enough of an incentive that a pay cut simply isn’t necessary. Run the numbers for your office — you may be surprised by what simply offering the option to telecommute can get you.

Image by Flickr user slworking2 (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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