I’m completely satisfied to share that we’ve established a long-term objective that salaries at Buffer won’t be primarily based on location. We made our first step in the direction of this final 12 months, after we moved from 4 cost-of-living primarily based location bands for salaries to 2 bands. We did this by eliminating the decrease two location bands.
The change we made resulted in wage will increase for 55 of 85 workforce members, with the rise being on common $10,265. When the time is true, we might be eliminating the idea of cost-of-living primarily based location bands totally, which can result in a less complicated strategy to offering beneficiant, truthful and clear salaries at Buffer.
On this submit I’m sharing my considering behind this alteration and our strategy to pay general.
Location and Salaries
It’s been attention-grabbing to see the dialog about location and salaries unfold each inside Buffer and past. We’ve heard from many teammates through the years in regards to the execs and cons of the placement issue, and naturally we’ve watched with curiosity as this turned a daily subject of dialog inside the bigger distant work neighborhood.
I’ve had many wholesome debates with different distant leaders, and there are arguments for eliminating a location element which I haven’t agreed with. I don’t imagine pay variations throughout places is unethical, and it has made a number of sense for us previously. Nonetheless, the previous few years have seen a number of change for distant groups. A change like this is not to be made calmly, and at our scale comes with concerns.
Our Compensation Philosophy
Compensation is at all times slowly evolving as firms and markets mature and alter. We’ve been by means of a number of main iterations of our wage system, and myriad small tweaks all through the final 8 or so years since we launched the preliminary model. A part of the enjoyable of getting a wage system is realizing that it’s by no means going to be “completed.” Figuring out that the iterations would proceed, Caryn, our VP of Finance, and I labored collectively to determine our compensation philosophy and doc our rules on compensation to assist us decide what ought to at all times be true even because the wage system modifications over time.
We arrived at 4 rules that information our choices round compensation. We attempt for Buffer’s strategy to wage, fairness, and advantages to be:
- Clear
- Easy
- Truthful
- Beneficiant
These are the tenets which have guided us by means of compensation choices through the years. After we articulated them as our compensation rules, we had been in a position to take a look at the placement issue of our system with new readability.
There are a number of key concerns that had been a part of our discussions and my resolution to place Buffer on a path in the direction of eradicating our location issue from salaries that I am going to go into extra element about subsequent.
Transparency, Simplicity, and Belief
Our wage system is among the elementary causes that we are able to share our salaries transparently. Having a spreadsheet of workforce salaries is a large step towards transparency, however true transparency is reached when the system is easy, easy, straightforward to grasp, and importantly, straightforward to make use of.
In one among our earlier variations of the wage system, we calculated the cost-of-living multiplier for each new location after we made a proposal. That was cumbersome, and it meant {that a} candidate couldn’t actually know their wage vary till we calculated that.
This was improved drastically after we moved to the idea of “cost-of-living bands.” After that, totally different cities and cities might extra simply be labeled into every band. This massively elevated the transparency of the system, and I feel it helped create much more belief on this system. Anybody might comparatively simply perceive which band their location match into, and with that data perceive the precise wage they’d obtain at Buffer. This sort of fast understanding of the wage system, and skill to run calculations your self, is the place transparency actually good points an additional degree of impression and drives belief inside and past the workforce.
Nonetheless, with our 4 cost-of-living bands, there have been nonetheless choices to be made round the place places fall, and this has been the subject of a lot wholesome and productive debate through the years. The conversations round places falling between the Common and Excessive bands is what led us to introduce the Intermediate band. And with 4 selections of location, it has meant there may be some disparity in salaries throughout the workforce. With the advantages that come from the highly effective mixture of transparency and ease, alongside the elevated belief that’s fostered with extra parity throughout the workforce, I’m selecting to drive Buffer’s wage system within the route of ultimately having no cost-of-living issue.
I’m selecting to drive Buffer’s wage system within the route of ultimately having no cost-of-living issue. – Joel Gascoigne, Co-founder and CEO of Buffer
Freedom and Flexibility
We’ve lengthy taken approaches to work which have been grounded within the superb of an elevated degree of freedom and adaptability as a workforce member. Once I began Buffer, I wished larger freedom and a greater high quality of life than I felt can be doable by working at an organization. That got here in numerous types, together with location freedom, flexibility of working hours, and monetary freedom. And as we’ve constructed the corporate, I’ve been proud that we’ve constructed a tradition the place each single workforce member can expertise an uncommon and refreshing degree of freedom and adaptability.
For the reason that earliest days, one among our most fondly held values has been to Enhance Persistently, and particularly this line: “We select to be the place we’re the happiest and best”. This can be a worth that has supported and inspired teammates to journey and take a look at residing in several cities, searching for that “happiest and best” place. It has enabled folks to seek out work they love and nice co-workers, from a hometown close to household the place it might be arduous to discover a native firm that may supply that very same expertise and problem. It has additionally enabled folks to journey in an effort to assist their accomplice in an vital profession change involving a transfer, one thing which permits an typically disturbing change to occur way more easily, since you may maintain working at Buffer from anyplace on this planet.
Having a tradition that has supported transferring freely throughout the globe has been a strong degree of freedom and adaptability. That freedom has been matched with a wage system which adjusts compensation to accommodate these modifications in a good and applicable method. Nonetheless, realizing that your wage will fluctuate and might lower on account of a option to be some other place, does restrict that freedom and the power to decide to maneuver.
Shifting in the direction of a wage system with parity throughout all places, will allow a fair larger degree of freedom and adaptability. It feels clear to me that selecting to maneuver is a private or a household resolution, and it’s superb if Buffer salaries are structured in a method that honor and assist that actuality. I’m excited that working in the direction of eradicating our cost-of-living variations will assist considerably scale back the friction concerned in making a probably positively life-changing resolution to stay in a unique metropolis or nation.
Outcomes, Independence, and Reward
At Buffer, we’re not on the standard hyper-growth VC path. This comes with some constraints: we don’t have tens of tens of millions in funding and limitless capital to deploy in an try and discover a speedy path to $100m and going public (fortunately, that’s not our objective).
This path additionally implies that our experiences as teammates in a wide range of methods are instantly tied as to if we’re efficiently serving current and new clients. For instance, the extent of advantages, potential to journey (in regular instances), and competitiveness of compensation, are very a lot pushed by our income progress and profitability.
However, that is independence too. The factor we frequently have to remind ourselves of, is that whereas we might really feel extra constrained at instances, we’ve full freedom of what we do with the success we obtain. Making a alternative like that is one instance of that.
It’s my intention as founder / CEO that as we succeed collectively as an organization, all of us profit from that success and see changes that enhance our high quality of life and create wealth. We’re able of profitability which permits us to take a big step in the direction of eradicating the cost-of-living issue from our wage framework, which I imagine serves these targets. And eradicating it totally might be decided by us efficiently executing on our technique and serving clients properly.
Lowering Value-of-Dwelling Bands
The way in which our wage system works is that we benchmark a teammate’s function primarily based on market knowledge on the fiftieth percentile for the software program trade in San Francisco after which multiply that by the cost-of-living band. So, a Product Marketer benchmark on the fiftieth percentile of the San Francisco market knowledge is $108,838. Relying on the teammate’s location this might be multiplied by a cost-of-living band (Low, Common, Intermediate or Excessive). For instance, in the event that they lived Boulder, Colorado, a metropolis with Common cost-of-living, the benchmark can be multiplied by 0.85 for a wage of $92,512.
To greatest replicate our compensation philosophy, firm values, and the trail we would like for Buffer, we’ve eradicated the Low and Common cost-of-living bands.
What we’ve completed is introduced all Low (.75 multiplier) and Common (.85 multiplier) salaries as much as Intermediate (.9 multiplier), which we now name our International band.
That is what resulted in 55 teammates seeing on common a rise to their wage of $10,265.
Our two bands at the moment are International (.9 multiplier) and Excessive (1.0 multiplier).
This modification is predicated on my imaginative and prescient for Buffer and the way being part of this workforce impacts every of us as individually, in addition to the route I imagine the world goes. I’m excited in regards to the change in the beginning as a result of it helps our objective of getting a clear, easy, truthful, and beneficiant strategy to compensation.
That is additionally a transfer that raised salaries immediately for greater than half of the workforce. This level particularly offers me a number of pleasure as a result of I need compensation to be one of many unbelievable elements of working at Buffer. Cash isn’t every part, and all of us want type and sensible colleagues, a psychologically protected atmosphere, and to work on difficult and attention-grabbing issues, in an effort to be fulfilled at work. Past that, nevertheless, cash actually impacts life selections, and that’s in the end what I need for each Bufferoo; the liberty to decide on their very own way of life and make selections for themselves and their households’ long-term well being and happiness. It’s vital to me that individuals who select to spend their years at Buffer may have the liberty to make their very own selections to have a fantastic life. And, for our teammates who stay in a lot decrease cost-of-living areas, a Buffer wage might find yourself being actually life altering. I’m actually proud of that final result.
The choice was additionally impacted by the route that I imagine the world goes (and, the route we need to assist it go). Distant is in full swing, and it’s more and more breaking down geographical borders. I imagine it is a great point. Wanting forward 10 and even 5 years, it appears to me that we’re going to see a giant rebalancing, or correction, that’s going to occur. I imagine it’s vital to be forward of a lot of these shifts, and be proactively selecting the trail that’s applicable and energizing for us.
What subsequent?
Our plan is to ultimately get to at least one single location band, basically eliminating the cost-of-living issue from the wage system altogether. This might be doable as soon as we are able to afford to make this alteration and maintain our dedication to profitability. So, this might be pushed by the long-term outcomes we create from our arduous work, creativity out there, and dedication to clients.
What questions does this spark for you? Send me a tweet along with your ideas.