Canadian HR Reporter

www.hrreporter.com 13 organizations when it comes to finding talent, regardless of where people are located, says Casey-Myatt. "It certainly has changed the way that companies are looking to hire, the openness to have people working remotely," she says. "With some organizations that maybe haven't had to look at it in the past, they are going to have to look at it. So… if you only have one office in Calgary, per se, you've only looked at the cost of living and compensation trends within Calgary. But if you're now open to talent outside of Calgary, and you're accessing it and maybe smaller cities or even larger cities, you're now going to have to look at that and take that into consideration." Engagement challenges But organizations may want to consider this kind of move for new employees versus current employees, says Casey-Myatt. "It's certainly easier to look at compensation adjustments as you're hiring a new individual versus changing individuals that you currently have on your table," she says. "It's very difficult to have a conversation with someone to say, 'We're changing your compensation.' The most important thing is that there's and Kitchener. But because a lot of these areas have become more like bedroom communities with people commuting, you don't really see that much of a difference in pay levels, and you probably wouldn't see regional differentials across some of these geographies that you might have years ago, because of the commuting pattern." Major push for remote work Facebook's announcement was part of a larger transition planned around remote work. Over the next five to 10 years, the company could see about half of its people working remotely. Zuckerberg cited several reasons behind the new strategy, including access "to a lot of new pools of talent out there," especially in the U.S. and Canada, and the boost in diversity. "When you limit hiring to people who either live in a small number of big cities or have or are willing to move there, that cuts out a lot of people who live in different communities, have different backgrounds, may have different perspectives," he said. "That could potentially be very valuable." Over the last couple of months, there's certainly a lot more openness among open communication. And if companies are going to take this step forward, I think [it's about] making sure that individuals are well aware of what the process is going to look like, that they're very transparent about it. And that they give them the opportunity and the time to adjust." It's also about giving employees a choice, meaning they can continue to travel to the office every day, she says, "or they choose to remain working remotely, and then that comes at a different salary." It would be a real employee engagement challenge to give people a pay cut, as suggested by Facebook, says Evans. "In some cases, they'd have to look into the implications for constructive dismissal if that wasn't something that was laid out in their employment contract… and it said, 'Going forward, if we move you, we may adjust your salary relative to the location that you're working in.' But it'd be a little bit of trouble going back to do that retroactively." There's pressure for organizations to do more communication around compensation because employees want to know how they're paid and that they're paid fairly, says Kapel. "A lot of areas are like bedroom communities with people commuting, so you don't see that much of a difference in pay levels." Claudine Kapel, Kapel and Associates "I think that that is going to continue and possibly intensify as we move forward, because employees want to know that they're getting fair compensation and a competitive overall total rewards package, especially as the labour market tightens, due to retirements and shifts in skills and skill demands and things like that. We'll see employees seeking more confirmation about: What does the employer offer? And is it market competitive?" CHRR Facebook's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

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