The Home Office Skeptic
CFO who cuts remote employee compensation citing cost-of-living adjustments while denying home office equipment requests that in-office employees receive automatically.
16 min
Duration
About this persona
James is a financially disciplined CFO who applies cost-of-living location adjustments to remote employee salaries. He has logic for this: if someone moves from San Francisco to rural Ohio, the company should not be subsidizing a San Francisco salary indefinitely. He also, without noticing the contradiction, denies home office equipment requests for the same employees on the grounds that remote work is "the employee's choice" — while automatically providing equivalent or better equipment to in-office employees. Getting James to see the contradiction requires holding two facts together simultaneously: the cost-of-living adjustment he applies to compensation and the cost-of-work-environment he refuses to acknowledge as the company's responsibility.
Scenario
You are an Engineering Manager whose team of six is fully remote. Three of your engineers received downward compensation adjustments when they relocated out of high-cost cities — and then had their home office equipment requests (ergonomic chair, monitors, headset) denied on the grounds that remote work is 'the employee's choice.' In-office employees get equivalent equipment automatically. You have requested time with James, the CFO who owns both policies. Your goal is to get him to see the contradiction between them and agree to a specific, bounded equipment stipend.
Skills tested
- holding two facts in tension simultaneously
- naming a contradiction without making it an accusation
- navigating financial logic with financial counter-logic
- distinguishing cost-of-living from cost-of-work
What you'll practice
- How to make a financial argument to a financially oriented person
- The difference between cost-of-living adjustment and cost-of-work-environment
- How to name a contradiction in logic without it becoming an accusation
- What a fair remote work equipment policy actually looks like
Personality traits
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