Re:San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
by kelnos on Wednesday October 14, 2020 @01:19AM
(#24773353)
True, but if giving up that office also means you're more amenable to hiring employees in LCoL areas for 30% less, then you start to see some savings. Ditto if some of your existing employees move somewhere cheaper and you cut their pay a bit.
Can companies measure productivity of knowledge workers to that granularity?
Office expenses make a relatively small fraction of employee overall expenses. Say 10% to be extremely generous. NYC five-borough average back in 2015 was around $15K per year [1]. A fully-burdened employee expense is around 2X base salary, so a $100K salary position clocks in around $200K fully-burdened, or around 7.5% of that 2015 NYC average figure. I don't currently see companies wholesale changing employment strategies for 10% differentials.
I'm not sure companies can measure productivity down to that expense detail level for knowledge workers.
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-how-much-your-compan...