Remote, Rethought

For job seekers (and this applies to agencies that are excellent at managing costs too), your ability to lower the cost of hiring you can be a superpower. Money is not the only compensation, and even if it is your ultimate measure, the intelligent pro goes into the marketplace to earn the things that can be converted to more money. Things like skills, credits, experience, distinctions, etc. If your cost-of-living is lower, that is additional degrees of freedom in your pricing. Don’t be afraid to charge less to seize an opportunity to grow and reposition yourself. The great career is both sowing and reaping, investing and counting your dividends. In general, think about how much value you are delivering per dollar and improve that ratio.

Nuance: We are a work-from-anywhere agency. The best people anywhere are better than the best people somewhere. We pay what the position is worth to us. Most positions are worth the same wherever the person is. People also should not lose the potential financial advantages of living in less expensive markets simply because they happen to live there. That said, paying for employee travel can be expensive, and in some positions that must be accounted for. And we innovate by finding talent we otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford paying rates that are excellent for their market. When innovation leads to learning what work is worth, we lock it in by paying more.

Personallly I think where a person lives should be as irrelevant to their pay as gender, race or religion. If they produce the outcome you’ve hired them for, where they do it shouldn’t matter. Here’s a thought experiment. If I’m on a road trip from NYC to LA over a period of weeks and I am doing agency work as I stay in 10 different cities across the US, should I be paid what the going rate is in each city just because my hotel and food varies in cost? Why don’t we focus on what makes the person and team more creative and productive so that the agency is sought after and has a waiting list? Then, cutting costs is not really a concern. Just my perspective.

I got here just after seeing your comment on a similar post by Mark DiMassimo. I have to say it this not only #doable and #smart but very few agencies - mostly small and independent ones - who are not afraid to add #nimbleness and have a minor sense of #organization are willing to do so. I've been working in this model since 2016 (surprisingly as a contractor for MENA WPP - as long the ECD of the office couldn't find satisfactory options for his crew) and briefly after 2008 worldwide downward. Personally, I don't want to go back to the previous model; but it is surely #challenging to do it even nowadays. I.e.: Most recruiters and HR management in the U.S. point out that due to legal regulations for doing so, you as a contractor, freelance, or even as an employee MUST be based somewhere in the U.S. Right now, I'm working remotely as a contractor for an HKG agency - with an 11 hour time difference - from my home country Brazil and did have done some freelance for MENA region. This is the way to go, mainly and especially on our trade that #creatives have been facing a #freelance based #shift due to #downsizing #headcout and for foreign skilled #labor #VISAS - and the list goes on...

Interesting idea, but I have a different view. During the pandemic I got laid off from a big holding company and took a fully remote job with an independent agency with offices in San Francisco, New York, London and many other global locations. Now the majority of us are remote, but the workload is actually much more due to the volume of Zoom time and the speed the business is growing. A global business demands the same excellence from you and you deserve close to your fair market value whether you are at your coffee table or in a cubicle.