I recently published what is now my most read edition ever for the FNDN Series, exploring how global pay can work for companies employing people broadly.
And it's been responded to broadly by my audience, and it stoked me on to gauge answers from this community.
BUT I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Location agnostic pay (same salary, regardless of where you live) gets held up as the gold standard of pay equity. Buffer does it. It's a good story. People applaud it.
But I've started to wonder if pushing it as the model — the thing all companies should aspire to — is actually doing more harm than good.
Here's my honest position: paying someone less because of where they live isn't inherently wrong. Doing it without a floor, without a principle, without being able to explain it to your people — that's what's wrong.
A few things I've been chewing on that I'd love your take on:
1. Is location agnostic pay a genuine equity position — or a privilege of well-funded companies? If your model depends on geography to afford talent, are you the villain? Or is a $60k salary in a market where $20k is the norm actually a net positive — even if it's not "equal"?
2. The developing economy test. I once worked somewhere that paid someone nearly double what they asked for in an emerging market. Not for charity — because we believed paying a thriving wage (not just a surviving wage) was good business. And it was. Do you have a floor? Or are you paying local market rates because you can?
3. The printer test, but for global pay. If your team in Manila found out what your team in Melbourne earns, could you explain it? Not defend it — explain it. Is "that's just the benchmark" a good enough answer when you're profitable and well-capitalised?
I don't think there's one right answer here. I think there's a right framework — and most companies don't have one. They have a spreadsheet.
Curious where people land on this. Especially:
Have you ever pushed back on local market rates internally? (and what happened?)
Is anyone here doing something genuinely interesting on global pay — rather than just following the benchmark?
Let me know!