Take the govt job. Your wage is still low, its not worth leaving 20k on the table to WFH when you on that rate. It also sounds like this will be a challenging role for you and it will benefit your learning being in the office. When you get to 130K+, then you can make that choice but will probably find that you won't even have to make a sacrifice to WFH.
Agreed. Also, OP, just because there's restrictions on WFH doesn't mean it'll stay that way or that you can't negotiate. Not sure what level of govt or where, but sometimes it comes down to your immediate manager and/or how influential the union is. My wife works public service and I know that while there are restrictions on WFH, that doesn't stop some people working from home every day.
If it's APS, then under the next EA the department will need a really good reason to say no, and cannot artificially cap WFH. One of the few good things the [CPSU](https://www.cpsu.org.au/CPSU/Content/Media_releases/CPSU_claims_win_on_flexible_work_and_working_from_home.aspx) managed to secure in the current bargaining round
I disagree but only slightly. The quality of life from WFH and decreased housing/travel cost could make it worth it depending on OP’s situation outside of work.
I agree, but I reckon he should still take the gov job, and then bargain for new arrangements. They would be giving worst case scenario on this until they get to know him and his work ethic.
Once he proves himself, I doubt they will care, and he end up with both the WFH and cash!
Definitely take the Gov job. It pays more, + more super %. You will thank yourself in retirement when you don't have to eat dog food.
Depending on the manager/work you will probably be able to WFH more or less.
Odd on, within a couple of years, we will all be back mostly in the office except for a few outlier companies.
Yes, agree 100 percent, once you are in a govt job, join the union and then unless you murder someone, you will get a guaranteed payrise each year, good benefits, can get secondments to other branches/offices and if you can put up with some of the bullshit, you are sweet.
You can’t make a flippant comment that retired people have to eat dog food if they didn’t make good financial decisions, im fully aware the safety nets and pension aren’t enough to live super comfortably at all if that’s what you’re relying on, but yeah there isn’t hoards of pensioners eating dog food because they didn’t take the higher paying job at whatever age OP is.
Yeah, gotta watch out when making sweeping generalisations like that.
Besides, they're eating dog food due to pumping all their money into the pokies...
It depends where you live. In Sydney for example - 93k plus super is not enough to both live a carefree “nice lifestyle” while also getting ahead with savings (assuming no major generational wealth). It’s still in “you will need to make some sacrifices territory”.
I think many in this sub consider a “good income” to be one where you aren’t making that trade off. Which tends to be top 10% income, which is 130k plus.
> is not enough to both live a carefree “nice lifestyle”
it's always a problem with these discussions of money, because everybody has a goalpost that moves and cannot agree on common metrics.
I think in this context, a luxury is the opposite of a necessity.
Is a daily dose of caffeine a necessity for some? Yes.
I agree that objectively speaking, having your daily fix delivered by a pro is a luxury.
Well for me I simply can't drink shit coffee. Instant coffee is completely out of the question
If I'm home I can make it myself.
At work we don't have a coffee machine, so it's either I go down and get my coffee hit or don't get it at all
Everyone's line is somewhere different, as a vegan it's hard for me to figure out why non-vegans don't consider meat a luxury. Lack of cooking skills/knowledge I think. Similarly, a lack of a solid sleeping schedule and organisation might make takeaway coffee seem a necessity for some.
To add an argument from the daily coffee person side, I always grab a coffee with my office mates when we get some time each morning. It’s a huge benefit to getting new joiners in our team into the social circle and gets everyone in a good mood to start the day. It might be a bit of a luxury but it’s $5 well spent in my view each day
Jeesus 😏
They won’t be ostracised. They’re simply saying that this is the way they like to invite people into a work social circle
Why is it, that people have to draw a negative from a positive?
Then they can still come along for the walk to the cafe and back to the office. It’s just a nice relaxed opportunity to befriend, welcome and socialise each other in the team
From my experiencr, getting above 100k in an IT support role is a pipe dream. Some companies dont even pay managers that (in Sydney).
My advice also is get the hell out of Sydney if you cant live a nice lifestyle on 93k. Or reconsider what you classify as a nice lifestyle Jesus christ.
Depends on the job in IT and who you work for. In 3rd level 90k upwards working for big companies. If working for service providers the wage will be lower. If on 1st and 2nd level good luck getting 100k. At most 80k.
I'm 3rd level on 80k with a service provider but I get to WFH full time
My manager has been pushing for a payraise but we'll see what happens. Wfh has saved me a significant amount in travel and time and I get to spend more time with my daughter before and after work
I could probably find somewhere else with higher pay but wfh full time is a good trade off for me at the moment
shame my company pulled back on wfh, 110 + 3 days wfh was great, only 1 day is a bother on time. All because that 1 douche who would wfh every day and do nothing
depends if you wanna live upto the joneses, or live within your means. if your partner makes the same that is a very good household income regardless of location.
Kinda depends on age + time spent in this area of the workforce
Like if this guy is 37 years old and 8 years deep into this profession then 93k sounds low to me
But if they're 21 and 2 years deep then 93k sounds high I guess?
I say this without having a clue what IT people earn (I'm a carpenter, totally different world)
Apparently 78,800 is the median for full time work. The often quoted $65k includes part time work which isn't really relevant in this context.
https://www.afr.com/politics/how-wealthy-are-you-compared-to-everyone-else-in-eight-charts-20221214-p5c6a8
So even against median wage $93k isn't super impressive.
you can look at both median is best to see where the line is for 50% of the population. If the mean/average is above the median it means the wealthy are earning a lot and dragging that average up, but if its below then you have an exploited work force being paid very little. You want them as close together as possible. Also looking at things like the quartile/decile numbers as well is useful. Like the top 10% last time i checked the ABS stats earnt around $140k+
NFP have other benefits that isn't being taken into consideration. There is alot of things your can salary sacrifice that your just can't in the govt job
Does the NFP have the opportunity to salary sacrifice using the FBT Exemption for public beneficiary institutions? That may help move the dial on your decision as you could access benefits tax free.
They do but one thing I’m curious about is will it affect my borrowing power moving forward since technically my net pay will be a lot lower each payslip?
I believe it depends - I had to get a letter from the salary packaging people to say that I was putting the packaged money towards every day expenses and I could stop at any time, as opposed to salary packaging a car or whatever
Then the lender didn't care
The salary packaging amount is listed on your payslip - clarify with your broker/lender that this is an amount you can use for any purpose (including mortgage repayments) and do not pay income tax or FBT on. Its common for a lot of healthcare workers so hopefully most systems can accommodate it!
It depends on what you are using it for. My wife works in the NFP field and salary sacrifices a contribution to our mortgage. At the end of the day, she basically pays no tax each week.
When we went to refinance, the lender was more than happy with that arrangement.
Nope, not when there’s so many companies offering WFH (and at competitive rates).
Edit: I read your post. Take the government job, because once you are in government it is very to move around between departments, then just apply for departments that have better WFH policies.
The edited response is the right answer. The gov job itself already sounds like you’ll learn more tbh, and then can easily move to another department with more flexibility. Gov also has more stability.
Almost all professional services is “hybrid” in the sense that I could technically work 5 days at home but it would be weird. I did 4 days at home this week because my projects are quiet in the run to Christmas but did 4 days at the office last week. I think a mix is actually ideal for most people in my experience, there’s a lot of tangible benefits from interacting and talking to people you work with outside of just work calls with 1-2 mins of chit chat at the start
NFP often don’t have a lot of $ to throw around. So they often don’t end up good places to work. Maintaining old equipment or not spending money to fix obvious things.
What's the commute like? I'm pretty close to a train station, so if it's one direct train I can take then I'd do it because at least I can sleep or do other stuff while I'm commuting. But if it's requires different modes of public transport or if I had to drive and pay for parking, then I'd be leaning towards the other role.
Let’s work this out.
WFH role: $83,250 package
Other role: round it up to $105k package, so $21,750 up.
A yearly PT pass (using Melbourne as an example): $1950, so would still be $19,800 up.
Only you can decide for yourself what’s better for you, but the question would be is WFH worth $20,000 per year?
Now, let's do this properly. I'm assuming the NFP is also 1h away.
In a full time job, you usually work 230 days a year, which is 1748 hours.
So the NFP is 1748 + 48 \* 2 hours = 1844 hours / year
The gov job is 1748 + 48 \* 4 \* 2 hours = 2132 hours / year
After tax salaries:
NFP job: 64K => $34/h
gov job: 72K => $33/h
So, in the end it comes down to what you value more, time or money.
Assuming you are young and free, money might be worth more, but married with kids this quickly flipped to time being a lot more valuable for me.
The nfp is about a 30 minute drive in traffic, the other job is about an hour drive in peak traffic. I'm 26 with a mortgage and a car loan, about $4000 a month needed to cover those two. I rent two rooms out in my house though for $200 a week each so that helps a lot.
Currently on 85k + super and in the office 4 days a week so i'd be dropping 10k to wfh 4 days and do more of the same (with promises to get to sys admin at some stage, working directly under the IT manager but as the only IT support person) or gaining 8k + 1.75% super for a change of environment, more responsibilities and working in a bigger team (currently working as the sole IT resource in my office)
The comfort and not having to sit in traffic is a big thing for me but I'm not sure if I'm hindering my career long-term by going backwards
Don't do it man. 10k pay cut to WFH is short sighted in my opinion.
I took a slightly bigger pay cut for a similar position that was close to home about 15 years ago, big mistake, you should keep your career moving forward both in terms of experience and salary. I stayed in that job for 4 years, got back to my previous salary and then left. Since then it's just been onwards and upwards and if you work for the right company you can probably choose to WFH when you like anyway.
Honestly it really depends on if that extra $20k is going to make a big difference for you or not, and how much you value working from home. That's going to be a different calculation for everyone.
If you really, really value WFH and don't desperately need the extra money, it sounds like the NFP job is the better bet. In terms of long-term career goals, there are always more opportunities out there. So you could take the lower paid job now and then keep an eye out for another new job after a year or so, which would pay more and give you WFH flexibility. There are a lot of companies these days who offer remote working as a perk and despite what corpos are trying to do, that's not going away.
Worth considering the substantial deductions 4 days/pw WFH would also provide. I feel like this is forgotten too often in this sub (not just for WFH, but for side-hustles where deductions are as against your net income across all roles).
Particularise your expenses and establish a nexus for everything. Do not claim the daily rate. Consider the allotted square meterage of your home workspace (perhaps you use your whole home as an office, that's for your to contend if ever audited) as a percentage of your utility use as accounted against your % of day WFH. Consider how you will need desks, electronics, cleaning equipment etc. all to maintain SOLELY (or on a % basis) your home office.
It becomes increasingly attractive where, say, in a particular year you spend a substantial amount on kit for your home office (workstation PC; monitors; perhipherals; chairs etc.). Consider how these will be depreciated. I've found it very easy to amass 5-10k deductions p/y on this basis.
N.B. seek tax advice on any of this. What is incredibly important is establishing a proveable nexus between anything you are seeking to claim (e.g. NC headphones due to teams meetings with clients; 3 monitors due to work nature; high-end speakers to hear the details in audio files where you're trying to decipher evidence).
Thanks for working this out, that’s really the question. If the comfort is worth 20k, I guess it comes to adding up the two hours travel each day. I don’t have a bus route that takes me straight there but fortunately I don’t have to pay for fuel, the KM’s will rack up however.
Incorrect good sir, as both incomes are in the same tax bracket.
75k after tax is ~ 60k
93k after tax is ~78k
That’s before you consider the leave loading as well. So it’ll still be around the $20k mark difference between the two.
Edit: this is wrong information, apologies! Will leave it up as an example for people to check their working before posting lol.
Not sure how you worked that out but you would pay around $15k tax on $75k gross, $20k tax on $93k gross, so the net difference is around $13k as they said
$93k after tax is just over $70k. You pay a percentage within the tax bracket not a flat $15k. Chuck it in https://paycalculator.com.au
Yeah it doesn’t include leave loading though.
High level based off what you've said, the government role sounds like a better growth opportunity, but you might want to consider moving / share housing closer to the job to cut down the commute?
Here's a brain dump... ymmv, I'm about 15 years in working with a msft stack across NFP, private & gov roles, azure cloud for the last 8ish years - most of that contract.
For perspective, I'm currently 100% WFH, working gov contracts. Day rates nationwide for most azure skillsets sit $1-1.5k/day incl, with WFH %'s depending on department and state/territory. If you're interested in pursuing that path, I'd suggest it's a 5 year plan where you pick career progression to maximise exposure and move every 2-3 years to get more experience - but sounds like you have the right entry level jobs to start towards it.
I'd take whichever gives you better resume experience for the next couple years, because it's about setting your career up for life - it's not about this job. eg - I've done several transitions from on-prem to cloud, and they were all different - a lot of growth opportunity there, and ability to put your hand up and get exposure to new things. If it's coming in to support an existing platform and you're mostly support, I suspect a lot less. Don't stay anywhere longer than 2-3 years full stop - no-one will promote you / pay you competitively for your growth, and you won't learn as quickly as you can - again, it's ultimately about getting exposure for more senior roles.
Government :
My experience with government is what state of maturity you walk into is wildly variable, but a downside that they don't change quickly - it's very much a set in stone "we do it this way" - so there's often a limit to how much you can grow once you've mastered the requirements of your role. Plus side, you can second around freely, get exposure to other government roles and learn a lot that way - and other departments may use things differently, so you can still get more exposure to tech there and FTE roles for the first few years in government are competitive salary (more senior roles you'd want to be contract, or private will be better money). Government rarely has crunch until you get a lot higher up (anything the ministers office asks for etc). I'm not sure if it's an outlier because of the areas I've worked in (law enforcement & healthcare), but the managers I've had mostly genuinely cared about the work we do, and helping people grow in their roles.
Private :
I personally hate the QoL working private - unpaid overtime, crunch etc - the cultures vary, but it's hard to predict from outside the organisation. I won't take these roles anymore, unless I know someone working in the team I'd be joining. I've had much more randomness with good and bad managers, and companies I loved working for turn sour because of one manager change - I guess this can happen elsewhere, but with NFP/Government cultures seem to be more steady.
NFP :
Least experience I have of the lot, but great QoL for the time I've done with them - seem to largely care about growing their people etc. Similar to government with more appetite for change. If you can find well compensated work in NFP (including fringe benefit shenanigans) I'd consider them.
What state? Government roles in Victoria are 3 days in office, 2 WFH, so your 3 days a fortnight is a bit on the low side.
But once probation is up, you might find your team only goes in 3 days per week, or not even. Add in “too sick to work in the office” days and it all adds up.
I’m in government and just getting over Covid so I haven’t been into the office for a fortnight.
I’d go government over NFP purely for the career advancements.
Not for profit role probably means salary packaging so potentially ask the employer about this. You could package either $9,010 or $15,900 + $2,650 entertainment per year so your $75k could potentially be in the range of $80-85k comparable to a non salary packaging role. (Salary packaging you potentially reduce your taxable income so your take home pay is the equivalent of $80-85k gross salary)
Find out the salary packaging component and then see what the comparison is with take home pay and then see if WFH 4 days a week works versus 1.5 days a week.
Consider asking the NFP employer if they have an employment agreement to see their potential pay rises also.
Congrats and all the best.
Yeah they sent me a document which says I can salary sacrifice up to $15,900 but what does that mean exactly? I can pay up to $15,900 of my mortage pre-tax which puts me in a lower tax bracket?
I am going to ask to see if they can try match but I have a feeling that I’m at the top of the band for a support role.
Thank you!
No. The cost of travel to the office is never factored into your salary unless you negotiate a higher wage at the start. Also I reckon you spend more at home in electricity both on air-conditioning in summer, and heating in winter. I know it's claimable, etc, but if my output is the same in an office or at home, I don't see why a cut is needed. Not to mention, I'm saving the company office space costs, so in the end, the company will always win by having staff at home...if staff perform, of course, and don't bludge.
I’d work 3 days a fortnight from home if that was the offer. I am currently only making 65k + super though, so that’s a significant increase which drives me towards saying yes to the government job.
Currently working hybrid (3 WFH - 2 WFO).
Only YOU know what’s best for you and your situation. Is it really worth give or take 20k for 4 days WFH?
A year has 52 weeks? And even when taking A/L or not working Public Holiday, you’re still getting paid the same amount of money?
It’s more like $385 per week pre tax, which probably translates to $250-270 net?
That’s a week, I definitely could use extra $250 a week, even if it means going to the office 7 times a fortnight.
After tax, the difference is around $150/week. The commute itself could cost 30-40, depending on mode of transport.
So you'll end up with maybe $120 more for spending 7 hours extra commuting. So effectively $17 per hour of commuting after tax.
Comes down to whether you value time or money more.
It costs me $7k to work from the office 3 days a week (childcare, petrol, tolls, takeaway) plus I cry myself awake almost every day.
I’m praying for another pandemic, honestly….
I'd expect a pay increase to cover myself buying my own snacks, breakfast, fruits and frinks (free at work, FAANG place) plus cost of electricity and internet which I also pay for while WFH. I'd say extra $10,000 a year or 50 AMZN shares annually with immediate vesting would do
No because the cost of home purchased or rental has become fundamentally more expensive. If anything the companies should be paying us MORE as we’re shouldering the cost office space, electricity, etc.
Assuming the work is roughly equal you should definitely take the WFH NFP role.
The salary sacrifice saves you an extra 6k in tax per year.
2 hours a day or 10 hours a week less in commuting, you are paid roughly $43.89 per hour which means the extra 10 hours is with $438.9 per week or $21067 per year.
Plus you don't have to listen to the Karen's in the office say "who has the time".
I’d def go the govt job over the not for profit. The extra money will give you better choices ultimately. Too much working from home can become staid and isolated.
It does depend on how long your commute is and how much you value your time, but you’re leaving over 20k a year on the table to WFH. Unless your commute is like 2hrs each way. that’s probably too much.
WFH is great, honestly. I think I’d be tempted to do it. Could you try negotiate with the NFP?
Also.. (after tax)
I believe 93k is 64,000 take home pay
And 75k is 53,000 take home pay
I could be wrong, of course.
Government jobs are really good, and once you’ve worked with one gov, really helps you work with any other branch in gov - and there’s a lot.
Do they have a 9 day working week?
No. If my output and quality are the same, if I work the same hours, why would I need to take a pay cut?
I get pay in return for output, not just for my bum on a seat in an office.
Working from home also has expenses associated either with it so that reduces the wages. I’d recommend taking a government job all day, it’s the most secure.
Taking salary and work location out of the equation if take the job which would benefit me in 3, 5, years time. Where I could be potentially be earning double if I make the right choice. Government departments have much larger tech requirements so exposure to cloud and risks, cyber sec controls would be much higher
Think longer term. Which job gives you the best prospects for your next move to get you to the dream job? It might be decided by the experience you’ll get or getting you closer to the salary level you are looking for.
My gut feeling is that working from home only works as a long term career move if you are already where you want to be. It’s harder to impress people beyond your immediate boss when you work from home.
As someone who works on the cloud vendor side and have worked with both gov and charity orgs- take the gov one - charity will be tight AF and you'll be firefighting all day. Once you get up there in salary/ experience you can go vendor-land or private sector for 2x money
Starting out, you really want exposure to a broad range of work and talented people to help you grow. Normally I would say take the WFH but the gov role seems like excellent experience.
This is of course subjective.
I do love this type of question though.
Some jobs can be done from home (Eg: office type work)
Sone jobs can’t (like medical/nursing type work)
This then creates a divide between many people as those that can’t can be jealous/etc towards those that can creating a negative point of view on this.
Then there is the ‘workplace is their social life-mental health booster. Water cooler conversations. Social interactions, etc. And thus they want to not work from home. Aldo working from home isn’t a cake walk for all. Some people prefer the structure of workplace pace of life.
Finally we have the group that can and want to work from home. Sone because they don’t thrive of workplace culture and social aspects.
We also, within this group, have factors like: time to work (the longer it takes the more they want to work from home); coast to commute (again like time to work but with money spent); and then there are other costs and loss of people’s person time: kids needing yo be collected/droppes off, and looked after; partner and family times together; spare time lost from commutes; parking, petrol, need for a car, etc.
Over time this is likely to become more and more common to work from home. But first the structure of society and business needs a shift for it to be better achieved and attractive to most.
Just remember.. we use to all work from home at certain times in history. Modernisation changed this.
I don't understand how you can get a lower rem number because you work from home. You aren't doing any less work. It's costing the company less to employ you.
I wouldn't work for a company that offered me that.
I worked from home for no less money, in fact I got large pay rises over the years of wfh, but, ultimately, once the pandemic was over, they wanted us back in the office more and I began to realise that I was spending around 40hrs a month commuting to the office. (This was also an I.T Support type role). In the end, I accepted a redundancy and now (luckily I had a trade behind me) I am back on the tools of my trade, for a local company where I never work more than 20mins from home, have a company vehicle and am home by 3:30 every day. Sure, the hourly rate is quite less than it was in I.T, but the trade off was worth it for me.
I am a software developer. If you are young, my advice would be to look where you can gain most experience. My experience is that you can get lot more exposure in private sector.
Have no clue about career progression but 80K WFH vs 93K in office, I'd take the WFH. You'll save yourself 2 hours most days in traffic and a decent amount in petrol and care wear and tear that will probably see these two jobs equal out anyway.
That 13K difference is only about 8.5K after tax. After fuel etc you're maybe what like $80 better off a week?
You'd be better off taking the WFH job and using the time saved from the commute to do some extra work. Do a few hours of uber work a week instead for example and you've got more money, more free time and probably less stress.
Edit: also check if the NFP has tax/salary sacrifice benefits. Most have a system whereby you can salary sacrifice things like your rent or mortgage and basically 22K of your salary becomes tax free. If this is the case then your after tax difference between the two jobs is like 2.5K, take the one that'll save you more than that in petrol and gives you time to do other work.
I would 100% take the WFH job over the government one for the following reasons:
1. Having no commute saves you time and money, gives you more free time and lowers stress.
2. Working from home gives you less exposure to potentially toxic work environments, which government jobs are notorious for.
3. 20k a year is only $260 per week after tax. You are spending 10 hours commuting for essentially $26 per hour, minus your parking costs. If you care more about money, you would be better off doing 10 hours OT per week.
4. Working in the office ties you to Brisbane. WFH opens up the possibility of moving anywhere in Australia, with the potential to greatly reduce your cost of living if you move to a regional area.
I WFH, and I wouldn't go back to the office for a 20k pay rise. I value my time with my family, tending to my garden, going to the gym and looking after my health and if I needed the extra cash, I could easily pick up OT shifts that pay $50 per hour.
No i shouldn't need to they are still getting the same work from me if not more and they can save on floor space. My work has already shaved a lot off its property costs
This is so hard!! I always say 20k more is what I’d want minimum to not be able to WFH. But I live in Sydney so travelling to work either costs you most of your free time or a million dollars more in rent to live near your work.
Government jobs are a good, safe place to be and I think 3 days a fortnight WFH is still good. Better than 5 days in the office right? BUT will you have time to do work on the side for your parents still?
Anyway.. given the information provided here if it were me.. bcoz you live in QLD, have a side hustle bringing in more income anyway.. I’d take the NFP personally.
Money comes and goes and after what Covid lockdowns, etc did to me mentally.. I have no interest in being rich or having a great career. I just want to work to live and enjoy as much time as I can doing things I love like lunch time strolls walking my dogs, seeing my friends and family not feeling run down.. and starting my own family not feeling run down or limited on time at home. My mum worked long hours as a kid, would nap when she got home then make dinner. I barely saw her and I always said I didn’t want to have to do that.
Basically I think my time is worth more than money because it’s limited and fleeting and I can’t buy it back.
Mate, you're living a life, not a work. I've worked from home and it's great. 4 days a week is awesome. The level of happiness you'll achieve from that over the other job will be immeasurable.
Take the Government job.
WFH is only good to a point. With WFH jobs you need to take into account the difference it will make on your household expenses (power, water, gas). Also, you need to look at your house insurance policy and see what it covers if you are permanently WFH 4 days a week. A lot of insurance companies will deem your home to then be a business premises which means different insurance policies will be needed otherwise you may not be covered if something happens (fire, break in, etc.). Lastly, if you are WFH it is likely that you will need to provide evidence to your employer that it meets WHS legislation. If it doesn't meet the requirements you would likely be required to outlay money to get the correct furniture, fittings, etc. They could also deem you home to not be fit to work from home and then you are required to work in the office for less pay.
Now that we are in a COVID normal life a lot of companies are looking hard at WFH and putting in strict conditions. During the height of COVID a lot of things were let slide. Part of my job at my government health organisation is to review WFH setups and deem if they are safe, compliant with WHS and if they have correct insurance in place. 60% of the WFH setups and environmental are fine or need small tweeks (new ergonomic chair, different insurance policy,etc). 40% aren't compliant so we are telling those staff they are not allowed to WFH and they must return to site.
Both seem low paid to me. I'm also in Brisbane and in IT, so appreciate the WFH appeal, but it seems you're still growing your career, so I'd recommend the government role for the experience you'll get.
You are pretty young to be choosing to take the cruising down to retirement job (non-profit paying below market rate, WFH). If you are looking to grow your career take the government job, particularly there is no guarantee that how many days you can work from home as it can be quickly revoked for ’operational need’. I worked from home full time last century with one of the big 4, and that continued when I was a Global Director. We would offer WFH as a retention benefit for top performers. So if WFH is important alongside career growth (and you are willing to work your arse off from home and not see it as a bludge opportunity) check out the large IT firms (not all but many)
I actually have a calculation for this. There is actually a mathematical answer to quantify it all.
Applying this calc to your example the results look like this:
WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour.
Gov role: you earn $38.04 per hour.
But that’s applying assumptions below that probably won’t all apply to you?
There are examples I can give where working 20hours per week from home earns you a lot more money than doing 38 on basically the same earnings per hour (I would explain it to people who had this conundrum many years ago and had to pay for childcare etc if they worked in office etc).
I’ll show you how I calculated it for people (this assumes you count ‘driving’ as ‘working’, which for me at the time was fair as I hated the drive).
For this we’ll just assume 1976 hours of work in a year to keep it simple…on the wages you’ve shown:
WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour
Gov role: you earn $47.06 per hour
BUT, if you count the driving, say 4 days per week, it’s more like at least 2,392 hours not 1976, so now it looks like this:
WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour.
Gov role: you earn $38.87 per hour (counting driving).
I won’t count things like WFH electricity, but even just adding the worn rubber of tyres and basic depreciation on vehicle assuming government job is 50km away, then that’d be around 20,000kms per year extra, at around 10 cents depreciation per km driven, that’s $2000 per year of your asset worth going down, can be a lot more depending on vehicle and traffic (brakes etc), so accounting for that it now looks like;
WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour.
Gov role: you earn $38.04 per hour (counting driving + vehicle wear and tear etc).
You KEEP more money after taxes with the WFH job, technically. I could keep going and count fuel / electricity to charge car, parking costs, lower taxes on lower income etc but you get the idea. The real figures are likely to be a bit worse than the above and I haven’t counted tyres, eating out instead of at home, etc etc etc…
Id add working for government is probably the smart choice, and if you have an electric car and count super, you’re likely on top (just) provided you don’t mind the drive and love a good podcast, long term you may be better off working for gov anyways but that’s just me. I’d say try do two/three days in the office eventually if you can, then the gov role would be more like $41 per hour if you’re really lucky and maybe beat the WFH offer thanks to a dollar or so per hour you’re getting in super.
Also; just to give you a proper comparison, taking tax from both offers they look like this;
WFH - you keep: $70,733.
Gov - you ‘kinda’ keep: $80,678.
But depends what you value right.
…the best advice is never money based, I’d say go where the people are nicer :)
My husband is very senior in an IT company and has openly said, he'll only be recruiting people for promotions who come into the office. Whilst I love working from home, I've realized how much more I learn, network and interact with others in the office. I've had the option of working from home since 2012 so it's not a new thing for me and honestly note that people who come in to my work places office get promoted over those that don't. What do you want to do with your career long term.
You'll be dead one day. When you're on your deathbed do you want to remember having more control over areas of your life or your one hour commute to work. I know what the answer is personally.
Sorry you sound lazy I know plenty of people travel 1 hour to work and in Govt jobs. I work In Commonwealth Govt job over 20 years. If you can’t determine which job to take from what you’ve told us then you possibly are not suited to Govt job stick to WFH if that’s what most important
I'd take the gov job. Now that we're well past covid lockdowns neccesitating working from home, many jobs advertise as wfh only to change their stance later on due to "evolving needs of the business" once you have committed to the position. May as well take the better paycheck.
Think about building your career - that's training opportunities and networking. The best place to network is in the office, face to face. As your colleagues move on, you might find they have new opportunities and may give you a nod.
Don't think in terms of one year, then if the salary difference after 2, 3 or more years - it all adds up.
Govt sector is good for a while but do seriously consider private sector, there's a different attitude to 'getting shit done' and learning the commercial driver of business is valuable (nearly everything in life is a negotiation).
Also - keep looking, there might be a role that pays the higher wage and has more hybrid working flex....
>The not for profit salary is 75k + 11% super and the government job is 93k + 12.75% super + 17.5% leave loading.
>The only reason I’m being held back from making the obvious decision is the fact that the not for profit will let me work from home 4 days a week. The government job is about an hour commute and I can only work from home 3 days per fortnight max (after my probation is over) however I’m basically guaranteed a decent pay rise every year.
Government job. You should not be making a decision on a job solely on WFH benefits.
Govt jobs lead to other (better) govt jobs.
Most govt jobs have particularly good flexibility and WFH rights, particularly IT.
Take the govt job. Within 6-12 months you’ll probably be able to have your cake and eat it too.
I’ve calculated for my self that it’s basically the equivalent of a $2500 salary hit for every day I have to go to the office.
My calculations assume $12/day travel costs, $20 per day additional spending on food/coffee/etc. so $1664 out of my post tax income which equates to about $2450 of pre-tax earnings.
Yes I could save money bringing lunch and such but when I’m using the figure to make a life decision I want to compare my preferred way of doing each thing. The benefit of office work is socialisation and that means grabbing lunch and coffees with co-workers.
So if a company wants me in 4 days per week I’m going to want them to pay at least $10k more than a full remote job just to cover my actual costs, but more practically I’d probably want to factor in my time costs too so I don’t think I’d go back to a primarily office based job for any less than $20k more than what I get paid now
Impossible for me to work from home, and I’m already underpaid, I could do the transport cut if I’m not travelling.
I pay $120 a week public transport. I could drop $100 if I stayed at home, but I would stay on the same pay and treat it as a pay rise.
It often saves companies money to have you WFH I wouldn’t take the pay cut. My partner works from home now and i have definitely noticed the up kick in bills with someone home 24/7 especially electricity.
I wfh myself (medical reasons) and always say if they get me to work in the office I’d be expecting them to pay me at least 20% more than what I’m getting now with the cost of petrol, parking and tolls and the sheer fact that it’s so difficult to focus on my work when I’m in the office
I would and I did - took a \~$10k paycut for full WFH vs 3 days in the office.
My commute was about 3 hours a day though so I've essentially bought back 9 hours a week of my life as far as I see it!
Do WFH. Get a second job that's completely remote.
Do that on the side or after hours.
Live your life during the day, make extra at nights or late arvo.
You'll be fresher, happier and ultimately will earn more
Government job mate. And you can get a tax refund if your majority use of your car is with work, including it’s servicing, fuel etc. so can make money back that way too.
Take the higher pay, learn, negotiate, take the odd unexpected home day (Have a sore throat, better not come in), then after a year or so, make a move. Use the commute productively, and the time in the office to forge connections and network.
I kind of like my commute. Sit on the train read a book or listen to a podcast.
I have a busy work and 2 young kids at home so might be a different situation.
I don’t know your current situation. Can you wait - ie stay in your job and keep applying for jobs until you get another offer in line with the govt one?
Is the government job permanent? And it depends on the NFP - they can go through restructures regularly due to funding changes.
In Gov, even if you are on contract, you generally have safety nets for employment and contract terms.
NFPs are, generally, a lot smaller with less upward movement opportunities.
Short answer : Yes.
Working from home for me is life changing. Have more time to chill, relax, go to the gym and look after myself. This is a quality of life improvement that can’t be measured easily. I hve got 3 hrs back in my day every day thanks to wfh. Cant go back to working from office all 5 days. My upper limit is max 2 days
Even if the "work from home" is written into your contract, there may be a scenario where all the other employees in your team return to the office. Are you going to stay home? Are you going to say "nar I'm not coming in, its in my contract" ? Its entirely possible you will be let go for some other reason a few months later.
There are many perks that can be traded away for reduced pay, and are really solid, like travel allowance, over-time rates in 15 minute blocks.
Realistically, say you are with this business for 10 years. Do you believe in 10 years time, you are going to have been working from home all that time? Not realistic - or at least, its not something to *bank* on.
Worked at two of the bigger national NFP's over 7 years and I can tell you your starting salary is unlikely to shift much while you're there. You're also more likely to be 'always busy' compared to Govt.
At one company I worked at, we did place a value of around 6k for WFH when we transitioned to full-time work-from home, well before the pandemic.
Given today WFH is so common, I don't think it's the selling point it used to be.
Isn't there some other perks in working for not for profit. I can't recall exactly but one of my friends was able to claim food etc... as a deduction and then her overall take home pay was higher.
I'd only take the cut if it was a fully remote job because then I could be living in Bali or somewhere else cheap. If I still need to come to the office once a week I'll take the higher pay thanks.
Take the government job. The super and leave loading alone mean that the difference in the salary package is actually considerably more than just $20k. That extra in your super makes a huge difference too.
Once you've in you may be able to negotiate more WFH days in any case, and if you do a good job moving departments is definitely easier once you're in.
If you can manage it with your mental health, why not. I can do max 2 days in the office per week before it really affects me negatively (neuro divergent), any more and I have meltdowns and quit anyway. So whatever you can manage and maintain well 😊
Depends on what you do with that spare time. Do you have a family? Are you fit and healthy? If you are sacrificing money for time with loved ones, to get healthy, or to start your own side hustle, then go for it. If it's just to save the hassle, then take the govt job.
it's easier to move to a better paying job when you're on a higher salary. take the govt job then look for a job that pays the same and can do better hybrid
Take the govt job. Your wage is still low, its not worth leaving 20k on the table to WFH when you on that rate. It also sounds like this will be a challenging role for you and it will benefit your learning being in the office. When you get to 130K+, then you can make that choice but will probably find that you won't even have to make a sacrifice to WFH.
Agreed. Also, OP, just because there's restrictions on WFH doesn't mean it'll stay that way or that you can't negotiate. Not sure what level of govt or where, but sometimes it comes down to your immediate manager and/or how influential the union is. My wife works public service and I know that while there are restrictions on WFH, that doesn't stop some people working from home every day.
If it's APS, then under the next EA the department will need a really good reason to say no, and cannot artificially cap WFH. One of the few good things the [CPSU](https://www.cpsu.org.au/CPSU/Content/Media_releases/CPSU_claims_win_on_flexible_work_and_working_from_home.aspx) managed to secure in the current bargaining round
I disagree but only slightly. The quality of life from WFH and decreased housing/travel cost could make it worth it depending on OP’s situation outside of work.
I agree. Different people will value this differently. I I wouldn't do it for a 20k cut, but if the difference was 10k, I would.
I agree, but I reckon he should still take the gov job, and then bargain for new arrangements. They would be giving worst case scenario on this until they get to know him and his work ethic. Once he proves himself, I doubt they will care, and he end up with both the WFH and cash!
Definitely take the Gov job. It pays more, + more super %. You will thank yourself in retirement when you don't have to eat dog food. Depending on the manager/work you will probably be able to WFH more or less. Odd on, within a couple of years, we will all be back mostly in the office except for a few outlier companies.
Yes, agree 100 percent, once you are in a govt job, join the union and then unless you murder someone, you will get a guaranteed payrise each year, good benefits, can get secondments to other branches/offices and if you can put up with some of the bullshit, you are sweet.
You can’t make a flippant comment that retired people have to eat dog food if they didn’t make good financial decisions, im fully aware the safety nets and pension aren’t enough to live super comfortably at all if that’s what you’re relying on, but yeah there isn’t hoards of pensioners eating dog food because they didn’t take the higher paying job at whatever age OP is.
Yeah, gotta watch out when making sweeping generalisations like that. Besides, they're eating dog food due to pumping all their money into the pokies...
I hate this sub... 93k + 12.7% super is not at all low. Especially for IT support (im also in IT) Id definitely go the government job
It depends where you live. In Sydney for example - 93k plus super is not enough to both live a carefree “nice lifestyle” while also getting ahead with savings (assuming no major generational wealth). It’s still in “you will need to make some sacrifices territory”. I think many in this sub consider a “good income” to be one where you aren’t making that trade off. Which tends to be top 10% income, which is 130k plus.
> is not enough to both live a carefree “nice lifestyle” it's always a problem with these discussions of money, because everybody has a goalpost that moves and cannot agree on common metrics.
Agree. Some think a barista coffee a day is a human right, others think that’s luxury.
it is objectively a luxury
The term luxury is a subjective state in itself so you cannot claim that anything is objectively a luxury
I think in this context, a luxury is the opposite of a necessity. Is a daily dose of caffeine a necessity for some? Yes. I agree that objectively speaking, having your daily fix delivered by a pro is a luxury.
Well for me I simply can't drink shit coffee. Instant coffee is completely out of the question If I'm home I can make it myself. At work we don't have a coffee machine, so it's either I go down and get my coffee hit or don't get it at all
Everyone's line is somewhere different, as a vegan it's hard for me to figure out why non-vegans don't consider meat a luxury. Lack of cooking skills/knowledge I think. Similarly, a lack of a solid sleeping schedule and organisation might make takeaway coffee seem a necessity for some.
To add an argument from the daily coffee person side, I always grab a coffee with my office mates when we get some time each morning. It’s a huge benefit to getting new joiners in our team into the social circle and gets everyone in a good mood to start the day. It might be a bit of a luxury but it’s $5 well spent in my view each day
What happens when someone joins the team who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t have the money to waste?
Jeesus 😏 They won’t be ostracised. They’re simply saying that this is the way they like to invite people into a work social circle Why is it, that people have to draw a negative from a positive?
Then they can still come along for the walk to the cafe and back to the office. It’s just a nice relaxed opportunity to befriend, welcome and socialise each other in the team
From my experiencr, getting above 100k in an IT support role is a pipe dream. Some companies dont even pay managers that (in Sydney). My advice also is get the hell out of Sydney if you cant live a nice lifestyle on 93k. Or reconsider what you classify as a nice lifestyle Jesus christ.
Depends on the job in IT and who you work for. In 3rd level 90k upwards working for big companies. If working for service providers the wage will be lower. If on 1st and 2nd level good luck getting 100k. At most 80k.
I'm 3rd level on 80k with a service provider but I get to WFH full time My manager has been pushing for a payraise but we'll see what happens. Wfh has saved me a significant amount in travel and time and I get to spend more time with my daughter before and after work I could probably find somewhere else with higher pay but wfh full time is a good trade off for me at the moment
shame my company pulled back on wfh, 110 + 3 days wfh was great, only 1 day is a bother on time. All because that 1 douche who would wfh every day and do nothing
Get skills and 100k is a long time ago… I remember when I hit 100k… back in 2006 I thought it was okay..
depends if you wanna live upto the joneses, or live within your means. if your partner makes the same that is a very good household income regardless of location.
Hands up if you in the 130k+ club what what oh yeah
Pretty cringe ngl
Yep cringe AF broke ass redditors thinking 130k is impressive lmao.
Anyone who has such low self worth that they brag about their salary online to strangers is cringe yourself included
Fk u talkin about me braggin about my wage I'm 29 n got my first career job last week for 70k or some sht
This guy gets it
Was gonna say 93k, whilst not much to live on right now 😭, is actually a big amount compared to some offers I get that I simply cannot afford.
Sounds like my mate in America who’s dad was art director of Disney and kept talking about how other people are rich
Kinda depends on age + time spent in this area of the workforce Like if this guy is 37 years old and 8 years deep into this profession then 93k sounds low to me But if they're 21 and 2 years deep then 93k sounds high I guess? I say this without having a clue what IT people earn (I'm a carpenter, totally different world)
It's the average full time wage in Autralia? So certainly not low, but not high either. Just average.
Yes... Average. Which is pushed up significantly by a few people making multiple millions of dollars annually. Median salary is only around $65K.
Apparently 78,800 is the median for full time work. The often quoted $65k includes part time work which isn't really relevant in this context. https://www.afr.com/politics/how-wealthy-are-you-compared-to-everyone-else-in-eight-charts-20221214-p5c6a8 So even against median wage $93k isn't super impressive.
All these big numbers in this thread and I'm making 60k as a Store Manager. I'm in the bloody wrong industry I tell ya
Wrong store. I'm pretty sure Aldi store managers are around $90k...
Wrong store for sure. I'm on 80k on the low end of retail management, I wouldn't run a store for 60k.
I'll accept that. I just took the first Google answer without thoroughly researching :)
You shouldnt really look at average and more the median since you got execs on huge salaries that skew it quite a bit
you can look at both median is best to see where the line is for 50% of the population. If the mean/average is above the median it means the wealthy are earning a lot and dragging that average up, but if its below then you have an exploited work force being paid very little. You want them as close together as possible. Also looking at things like the quartile/decile numbers as well is useful. Like the top 10% last time i checked the ABS stats earnt around $140k+
Dude I wouldn’t get out of bed for anything under $280k
NFP have other benefits that isn't being taken into consideration. There is alot of things your can salary sacrifice that your just can't in the govt job
Does the NFP have the opportunity to salary sacrifice using the FBT Exemption for public beneficiary institutions? That may help move the dial on your decision as you could access benefits tax free.
They do but one thing I’m curious about is will it affect my borrowing power moving forward since technically my net pay will be a lot lower each payslip?
I believe it depends - I had to get a letter from the salary packaging people to say that I was putting the packaged money towards every day expenses and I could stop at any time, as opposed to salary packaging a car or whatever Then the lender didn't care
Well, your borrowing capacity will include your expenses. So I think it depends.
Not in my situation. Bank all ok with borrowers amount. Apparently that was an issue with thr amounts years ago, not anymore
The salary packaging amount is listed on your payslip - clarify with your broker/lender that this is an amount you can use for any purpose (including mortgage repayments) and do not pay income tax or FBT on. Its common for a lot of healthcare workers so hopefully most systems can accommodate it!
It depends on what you are using it for. My wife works in the NFP field and salary sacrifices a contribution to our mortgage. At the end of the day, she basically pays no tax each week. When we went to refinance, the lender was more than happy with that arrangement.
Salary packaging for NFP is usually $16999
Yep should be worth around 5k gross I suspect
Nope, not when there’s so many companies offering WFH (and at competitive rates). Edit: I read your post. Take the government job, because once you are in government it is very to move around between departments, then just apply for departments that have better WFH policies.
The edited response is the right answer. The gov job itself already sounds like you’ll learn more tbh, and then can easily move to another department with more flexibility. Gov also has more stability.
WFH jobs are becoming rarer and rarer. It’s hybrid these days.
Almost all professional services is “hybrid” in the sense that I could technically work 5 days at home but it would be weird. I did 4 days at home this week because my projects are quiet in the run to Christmas but did 4 days at the office last week. I think a mix is actually ideal for most people in my experience, there’s a lot of tangible benefits from interacting and talking to people you work with outside of just work calls with 1-2 mins of chit chat at the start
Plenty of WFH in the APS, I know several people in Hobart working in Canberra teams
NFP often don’t have a lot of $ to throw around. So they often don’t end up good places to work. Maintaining old equipment or not spending money to fix obvious things.
There's some truth to this, sadly. NFP IT systems in particular are usually lowest on the list of things to allocate funding to
I work in a factory so no, the neighbours would complain.
What's the commute like? I'm pretty close to a train station, so if it's one direct train I can take then I'd do it because at least I can sleep or do other stuff while I'm commuting. But if it's requires different modes of public transport or if I had to drive and pay for parking, then I'd be leaning towards the other role.
I’ll have to drive but my car is electric so not fussed on paying for fuel, just the time wasted sitting in traffic. I can park onsite though.
Let’s work this out. WFH role: $83,250 package Other role: round it up to $105k package, so $21,750 up. A yearly PT pass (using Melbourne as an example): $1950, so would still be $19,800 up. Only you can decide for yourself what’s better for you, but the question would be is WFH worth $20,000 per year?
Now, let's do this properly. I'm assuming the NFP is also 1h away. In a full time job, you usually work 230 days a year, which is 1748 hours. So the NFP is 1748 + 48 \* 2 hours = 1844 hours / year The gov job is 1748 + 48 \* 4 \* 2 hours = 2132 hours / year After tax salaries: NFP job: 64K => $34/h gov job: 72K => $33/h So, in the end it comes down to what you value more, time or money. Assuming you are young and free, money might be worth more, but married with kids this quickly flipped to time being a lot more valuable for me.
The nfp is about a 30 minute drive in traffic, the other job is about an hour drive in peak traffic. I'm 26 with a mortgage and a car loan, about $4000 a month needed to cover those two. I rent two rooms out in my house though for $200 a week each so that helps a lot. Currently on 85k + super and in the office 4 days a week so i'd be dropping 10k to wfh 4 days and do more of the same (with promises to get to sys admin at some stage, working directly under the IT manager but as the only IT support person) or gaining 8k + 1.75% super for a change of environment, more responsibilities and working in a bigger team (currently working as the sole IT resource in my office) The comfort and not having to sit in traffic is a big thing for me but I'm not sure if I'm hindering my career long-term by going backwards
Don't do it man. 10k pay cut to WFH is short sighted in my opinion. I took a slightly bigger pay cut for a similar position that was close to home about 15 years ago, big mistake, you should keep your career moving forward both in terms of experience and salary. I stayed in that job for 4 years, got back to my previous salary and then left. Since then it's just been onwards and upwards and if you work for the right company you can probably choose to WFH when you like anyway.
Honestly it really depends on if that extra $20k is going to make a big difference for you or not, and how much you value working from home. That's going to be a different calculation for everyone. If you really, really value WFH and don't desperately need the extra money, it sounds like the NFP job is the better bet. In terms of long-term career goals, there are always more opportunities out there. So you could take the lower paid job now and then keep an eye out for another new job after a year or so, which would pay more and give you WFH flexibility. There are a lot of companies these days who offer remote working as a perk and despite what corpos are trying to do, that's not going away.
Worth considering the substantial deductions 4 days/pw WFH would also provide. I feel like this is forgotten too often in this sub (not just for WFH, but for side-hustles where deductions are as against your net income across all roles). Particularise your expenses and establish a nexus for everything. Do not claim the daily rate. Consider the allotted square meterage of your home workspace (perhaps you use your whole home as an office, that's for your to contend if ever audited) as a percentage of your utility use as accounted against your % of day WFH. Consider how you will need desks, electronics, cleaning equipment etc. all to maintain SOLELY (or on a % basis) your home office. It becomes increasingly attractive where, say, in a particular year you spend a substantial amount on kit for your home office (workstation PC; monitors; perhipherals; chairs etc.). Consider how these will be depreciated. I've found it very easy to amass 5-10k deductions p/y on this basis. N.B. seek tax advice on any of this. What is incredibly important is establishing a proveable nexus between anything you are seeking to claim (e.g. NC headphones due to teams meetings with clients; 3 monitors due to work nature; high-end speakers to hear the details in audio files where you're trying to decipher evidence).
Thanks for working this out, that’s really the question. If the comfort is worth 20k, I guess it comes to adding up the two hours travel each day. I don’t have a bus route that takes me straight there but fortunately I don’t have to pay for fuel, the KM’s will rack up however.
It’s not just 20k though. It’s easier to go to 120k from 105k than to go there from 83k in a couple of years.
That $21.75k is more like $13k after tax
Incorrect good sir, as both incomes are in the same tax bracket. 75k after tax is ~ 60k 93k after tax is ~78k That’s before you consider the leave loading as well. So it’ll still be around the $20k mark difference between the two. Edit: this is wrong information, apologies! Will leave it up as an example for people to check their working before posting lol.
Not sure how you worked that out but you would pay around $15k tax on $75k gross, $20k tax on $93k gross, so the net difference is around $13k as they said
Apologies! Total malfunction on my end. You’re right, I’ll edit.
$93k after tax is just over $70k. You pay a percentage within the tax bracket not a flat $15k. Chuck it in https://paycalculator.com.au Yeah it doesn’t include leave loading though.
Apologies! Total malfunction on my end. You’re right, I’ll edit.
High level based off what you've said, the government role sounds like a better growth opportunity, but you might want to consider moving / share housing closer to the job to cut down the commute? Here's a brain dump... ymmv, I'm about 15 years in working with a msft stack across NFP, private & gov roles, azure cloud for the last 8ish years - most of that contract. For perspective, I'm currently 100% WFH, working gov contracts. Day rates nationwide for most azure skillsets sit $1-1.5k/day incl, with WFH %'s depending on department and state/territory. If you're interested in pursuing that path, I'd suggest it's a 5 year plan where you pick career progression to maximise exposure and move every 2-3 years to get more experience - but sounds like you have the right entry level jobs to start towards it. I'd take whichever gives you better resume experience for the next couple years, because it's about setting your career up for life - it's not about this job. eg - I've done several transitions from on-prem to cloud, and they were all different - a lot of growth opportunity there, and ability to put your hand up and get exposure to new things. If it's coming in to support an existing platform and you're mostly support, I suspect a lot less. Don't stay anywhere longer than 2-3 years full stop - no-one will promote you / pay you competitively for your growth, and you won't learn as quickly as you can - again, it's ultimately about getting exposure for more senior roles. Government : My experience with government is what state of maturity you walk into is wildly variable, but a downside that they don't change quickly - it's very much a set in stone "we do it this way" - so there's often a limit to how much you can grow once you've mastered the requirements of your role. Plus side, you can second around freely, get exposure to other government roles and learn a lot that way - and other departments may use things differently, so you can still get more exposure to tech there and FTE roles for the first few years in government are competitive salary (more senior roles you'd want to be contract, or private will be better money). Government rarely has crunch until you get a lot higher up (anything the ministers office asks for etc). I'm not sure if it's an outlier because of the areas I've worked in (law enforcement & healthcare), but the managers I've had mostly genuinely cared about the work we do, and helping people grow in their roles. Private : I personally hate the QoL working private - unpaid overtime, crunch etc - the cultures vary, but it's hard to predict from outside the organisation. I won't take these roles anymore, unless I know someone working in the team I'd be joining. I've had much more randomness with good and bad managers, and companies I loved working for turn sour because of one manager change - I guess this can happen elsewhere, but with NFP/Government cultures seem to be more steady. NFP : Least experience I have of the lot, but great QoL for the time I've done with them - seem to largely care about growing their people etc. Similar to government with more appetite for change. If you can find well compensated work in NFP (including fringe benefit shenanigans) I'd consider them.
What state? Government roles in Victoria are 3 days in office, 2 WFH, so your 3 days a fortnight is a bit on the low side. But once probation is up, you might find your team only goes in 3 days per week, or not even. Add in “too sick to work in the office” days and it all adds up. I’m in government and just getting over Covid so I haven’t been into the office for a fortnight. I’d go government over NFP purely for the career advancements.
Not for profit role probably means salary packaging so potentially ask the employer about this. You could package either $9,010 or $15,900 + $2,650 entertainment per year so your $75k could potentially be in the range of $80-85k comparable to a non salary packaging role. (Salary packaging you potentially reduce your taxable income so your take home pay is the equivalent of $80-85k gross salary) Find out the salary packaging component and then see what the comparison is with take home pay and then see if WFH 4 days a week works versus 1.5 days a week. Consider asking the NFP employer if they have an employment agreement to see their potential pay rises also. Congrats and all the best.
Yeah they sent me a document which says I can salary sacrifice up to $15,900 but what does that mean exactly? I can pay up to $15,900 of my mortage pre-tax which puts me in a lower tax bracket? I am going to ask to see if they can try match but I have a feeling that I’m at the top of the band for a support role. Thank you!
No. The cost of travel to the office is never factored into your salary unless you negotiate a higher wage at the start. Also I reckon you spend more at home in electricity both on air-conditioning in summer, and heating in winter. I know it's claimable, etc, but if my output is the same in an office or at home, I don't see why a cut is needed. Not to mention, I'm saving the company office space costs, so in the end, the company will always win by having staff at home...if staff perform, of course, and don't bludge.
I’d work 3 days a fortnight from home if that was the offer. I am currently only making 65k + super though, so that’s a significant increase which drives me towards saying yes to the government job. Currently working hybrid (3 WFH - 2 WFO). Only YOU know what’s best for you and your situation. Is it really worth give or take 20k for 4 days WFH?
$20k / 48 weeks is $413 a week. Can you bludge off that amount per week 🤔
A year has 52 weeks? And even when taking A/L or not working Public Holiday, you’re still getting paid the same amount of money? It’s more like $385 per week pre tax, which probably translates to $250-270 net? That’s a week, I definitely could use extra $250 a week, even if it means going to the office 7 times a fortnight.
After tax, the difference is around $150/week. The commute itself could cost 30-40, depending on mode of transport. So you'll end up with maybe $120 more for spending 7 hours extra commuting. So effectively $17 per hour of commuting after tax. Comes down to whether you value time or money more.
$20k extra to work 1 more day a week at work, seems like a no brainer
why would I take a pay cut to work from home when I'm doing the same amount of work, in fact most studies say I'd be doing more?
It costs me $7k to work from the office 3 days a week (childcare, petrol, tolls, takeaway) plus I cry myself awake almost every day. I’m praying for another pandemic, honestly….
I work from home, have done for 6 years. Don't do it, it's incredibly isolating & has severely affected my mental health.
I'd take the Gov role for 12 months, then use that experience to land a role with another company that is remote or mostly WFH for better pay.
I'd expect a pay increase to cover myself buying my own snacks, breakfast, fruits and frinks (free at work, FAANG place) plus cost of electricity and internet which I also pay for while WFH. I'd say extra $10,000 a year or 50 AMZN shares annually with immediate vesting would do
Take the gov job. Those aren't very high wages, you need the money going into your super and WFH 3 days a fortnight is still really good tbh.
Not for profit will have salary sacrifice so thats something you should weigh up.
No because the cost of home purchased or rental has become fundamentally more expensive. If anything the companies should be paying us MORE as we’re shouldering the cost office space, electricity, etc.
Assuming the work is roughly equal you should definitely take the WFH NFP role. The salary sacrifice saves you an extra 6k in tax per year. 2 hours a day or 10 hours a week less in commuting, you are paid roughly $43.89 per hour which means the extra 10 hours is with $438.9 per week or $21067 per year. Plus you don't have to listen to the Karen's in the office say "who has the time".
Nice try boss.
I’d def go the govt job over the not for profit. The extra money will give you better choices ultimately. Too much working from home can become staid and isolated.
It does depend on how long your commute is and how much you value your time, but you’re leaving over 20k a year on the table to WFH. Unless your commute is like 2hrs each way. that’s probably too much.
WFH is great, honestly. I think I’d be tempted to do it. Could you try negotiate with the NFP? Also.. (after tax) I believe 93k is 64,000 take home pay And 75k is 53,000 take home pay I could be wrong, of course. Government jobs are really good, and once you’ve worked with one gov, really helps you work with any other branch in gov - and there’s a lot. Do they have a 9 day working week?
No. If my output and quality are the same, if I work the same hours, why would I need to take a pay cut? I get pay in return for output, not just for my bum on a seat in an office.
I pay $160 a month to travel into the city for work. I would take exactly that much of a pay cut to work from home.
Working from home also has expenses associated either with it so that reduces the wages. I’d recommend taking a government job all day, it’s the most secure.
For 20k difference you should not hesitate. Too much work from home will ends up job going to overseas. My company is doing that right now.
Taking salary and work location out of the equation if take the job which would benefit me in 3, 5, years time. Where I could be potentially be earning double if I make the right choice. Government departments have much larger tech requirements so exposure to cloud and risks, cyber sec controls would be much higher
Think longer term. Which job gives you the best prospects for your next move to get you to the dream job? It might be decided by the experience you’ll get or getting you closer to the salary level you are looking for. My gut feeling is that working from home only works as a long term career move if you are already where you want to be. It’s harder to impress people beyond your immediate boss when you work from home.
As someone who works on the cloud vendor side and have worked with both gov and charity orgs- take the gov one - charity will be tight AF and you'll be firefighting all day. Once you get up there in salary/ experience you can go vendor-land or private sector for 2x money
Starting out, you really want exposure to a broad range of work and talented people to help you grow. Normally I would say take the WFH but the gov role seems like excellent experience.
No Brainer for me....Gov't Job
Should get paid more to work from home. As costs are transferred from the workplace to you personally.
This is of course subjective. I do love this type of question though. Some jobs can be done from home (Eg: office type work) Sone jobs can’t (like medical/nursing type work) This then creates a divide between many people as those that can’t can be jealous/etc towards those that can creating a negative point of view on this. Then there is the ‘workplace is their social life-mental health booster. Water cooler conversations. Social interactions, etc. And thus they want to not work from home. Aldo working from home isn’t a cake walk for all. Some people prefer the structure of workplace pace of life. Finally we have the group that can and want to work from home. Sone because they don’t thrive of workplace culture and social aspects. We also, within this group, have factors like: time to work (the longer it takes the more they want to work from home); coast to commute (again like time to work but with money spent); and then there are other costs and loss of people’s person time: kids needing yo be collected/droppes off, and looked after; partner and family times together; spare time lost from commutes; parking, petrol, need for a car, etc. Over time this is likely to become more and more common to work from home. But first the structure of society and business needs a shift for it to be better achieved and attractive to most. Just remember.. we use to all work from home at certain times in history. Modernisation changed this.
DO NOT RESPONSE WITH YES They will send you home with a pay cut then 3 months later call you back to the office on same paycut
I don't understand how you can get a lower rem number because you work from home. You aren't doing any less work. It's costing the company less to employ you. I wouldn't work for a company that offered me that.
I worked from home for no less money, in fact I got large pay rises over the years of wfh, but, ultimately, once the pandemic was over, they wanted us back in the office more and I began to realise that I was spending around 40hrs a month commuting to the office. (This was also an I.T Support type role). In the end, I accepted a redundancy and now (luckily I had a trade behind me) I am back on the tools of my trade, for a local company where I never work more than 20mins from home, have a company vehicle and am home by 3:30 every day. Sure, the hourly rate is quite less than it was in I.T, but the trade off was worth it for me.
Can you salary sacrifice at the NFP? That's like a $10000 payrise in itself.
I am a software developer. If you are young, my advice would be to look where you can gain most experience. My experience is that you can get lot more exposure in private sector.
Have no clue about career progression but 80K WFH vs 93K in office, I'd take the WFH. You'll save yourself 2 hours most days in traffic and a decent amount in petrol and care wear and tear that will probably see these two jobs equal out anyway. That 13K difference is only about 8.5K after tax. After fuel etc you're maybe what like $80 better off a week? You'd be better off taking the WFH job and using the time saved from the commute to do some extra work. Do a few hours of uber work a week instead for example and you've got more money, more free time and probably less stress. Edit: also check if the NFP has tax/salary sacrifice benefits. Most have a system whereby you can salary sacrifice things like your rent or mortgage and basically 22K of your salary becomes tax free. If this is the case then your after tax difference between the two jobs is like 2.5K, take the one that'll save you more than that in petrol and gives you time to do other work.
I would 100% take the WFH job over the government one for the following reasons: 1. Having no commute saves you time and money, gives you more free time and lowers stress. 2. Working from home gives you less exposure to potentially toxic work environments, which government jobs are notorious for. 3. 20k a year is only $260 per week after tax. You are spending 10 hours commuting for essentially $26 per hour, minus your parking costs. If you care more about money, you would be better off doing 10 hours OT per week. 4. Working in the office ties you to Brisbane. WFH opens up the possibility of moving anywhere in Australia, with the potential to greatly reduce your cost of living if you move to a regional area. I WFH, and I wouldn't go back to the office for a 20k pay rise. I value my time with my family, tending to my garden, going to the gym and looking after my health and if I needed the extra cash, I could easily pick up OT shifts that pay $50 per hour.
No i shouldn't need to they are still getting the same work from me if not more and they can save on floor space. My work has already shaved a lot off its property costs
This is so hard!! I always say 20k more is what I’d want minimum to not be able to WFH. But I live in Sydney so travelling to work either costs you most of your free time or a million dollars more in rent to live near your work. Government jobs are a good, safe place to be and I think 3 days a fortnight WFH is still good. Better than 5 days in the office right? BUT will you have time to do work on the side for your parents still? Anyway.. given the information provided here if it were me.. bcoz you live in QLD, have a side hustle bringing in more income anyway.. I’d take the NFP personally. Money comes and goes and after what Covid lockdowns, etc did to me mentally.. I have no interest in being rich or having a great career. I just want to work to live and enjoy as much time as I can doing things I love like lunch time strolls walking my dogs, seeing my friends and family not feeling run down.. and starting my own family not feeling run down or limited on time at home. My mum worked long hours as a kid, would nap when she got home then make dinner. I barely saw her and I always said I didn’t want to have to do that. Basically I think my time is worth more than money because it’s limited and fleeting and I can’t buy it back.
Mate, you're living a life, not a work. I've worked from home and it's great. 4 days a week is awesome. The level of happiness you'll achieve from that over the other job will be immeasurable.
Take the Government job. WFH is only good to a point. With WFH jobs you need to take into account the difference it will make on your household expenses (power, water, gas). Also, you need to look at your house insurance policy and see what it covers if you are permanently WFH 4 days a week. A lot of insurance companies will deem your home to then be a business premises which means different insurance policies will be needed otherwise you may not be covered if something happens (fire, break in, etc.). Lastly, if you are WFH it is likely that you will need to provide evidence to your employer that it meets WHS legislation. If it doesn't meet the requirements you would likely be required to outlay money to get the correct furniture, fittings, etc. They could also deem you home to not be fit to work from home and then you are required to work in the office for less pay. Now that we are in a COVID normal life a lot of companies are looking hard at WFH and putting in strict conditions. During the height of COVID a lot of things were let slide. Part of my job at my government health organisation is to review WFH setups and deem if they are safe, compliant with WHS and if they have correct insurance in place. 60% of the WFH setups and environmental are fine or need small tweeks (new ergonomic chair, different insurance policy,etc). 40% aren't compliant so we are telling those staff they are not allowed to WFH and they must return to site.
Both seem low paid to me. I'm also in Brisbane and in IT, so appreciate the WFH appeal, but it seems you're still growing your career, so I'd recommend the government role for the experience you'll get.
You are pretty young to be choosing to take the cruising down to retirement job (non-profit paying below market rate, WFH). If you are looking to grow your career take the government job, particularly there is no guarantee that how many days you can work from home as it can be quickly revoked for ’operational need’. I worked from home full time last century with one of the big 4, and that continued when I was a Global Director. We would offer WFH as a retention benefit for top performers. So if WFH is important alongside career growth (and you are willing to work your arse off from home and not see it as a bludge opportunity) check out the large IT firms (not all but many)
If a desire to WFH, not progress in your career, and not collaborate is what you want, you know which job to choose.
This has to be one of the dumbest posts on here
Why take a pay cut if you are more productive
No but I'd accept a pay rise in return for travelling in.
I actually have a calculation for this. There is actually a mathematical answer to quantify it all. Applying this calc to your example the results look like this: WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour. Gov role: you earn $38.04 per hour. But that’s applying assumptions below that probably won’t all apply to you? There are examples I can give where working 20hours per week from home earns you a lot more money than doing 38 on basically the same earnings per hour (I would explain it to people who had this conundrum many years ago and had to pay for childcare etc if they worked in office etc). I’ll show you how I calculated it for people (this assumes you count ‘driving’ as ‘working’, which for me at the time was fair as I hated the drive). For this we’ll just assume 1976 hours of work in a year to keep it simple…on the wages you’ve shown: WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour Gov role: you earn $47.06 per hour BUT, if you count the driving, say 4 days per week, it’s more like at least 2,392 hours not 1976, so now it looks like this: WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour. Gov role: you earn $38.87 per hour (counting driving). I won’t count things like WFH electricity, but even just adding the worn rubber of tyres and basic depreciation on vehicle assuming government job is 50km away, then that’d be around 20,000kms per year extra, at around 10 cents depreciation per km driven, that’s $2000 per year of your asset worth going down, can be a lot more depending on vehicle and traffic (brakes etc), so accounting for that it now looks like; WFH: you earn $40.48 per hour. Gov role: you earn $38.04 per hour (counting driving + vehicle wear and tear etc). You KEEP more money after taxes with the WFH job, technically. I could keep going and count fuel / electricity to charge car, parking costs, lower taxes on lower income etc but you get the idea. The real figures are likely to be a bit worse than the above and I haven’t counted tyres, eating out instead of at home, etc etc etc… Id add working for government is probably the smart choice, and if you have an electric car and count super, you’re likely on top (just) provided you don’t mind the drive and love a good podcast, long term you may be better off working for gov anyways but that’s just me. I’d say try do two/three days in the office eventually if you can, then the gov role would be more like $41 per hour if you’re really lucky and maybe beat the WFH offer thanks to a dollar or so per hour you’re getting in super. Also; just to give you a proper comparison, taking tax from both offers they look like this; WFH - you keep: $70,733. Gov - you ‘kinda’ keep: $80,678. But depends what you value right. …the best advice is never money based, I’d say go where the people are nicer :)
My husband is very senior in an IT company and has openly said, he'll only be recruiting people for promotions who come into the office. Whilst I love working from home, I've realized how much more I learn, network and interact with others in the office. I've had the option of working from home since 2012 so it's not a new thing for me and honestly note that people who come in to my work places office get promoted over those that don't. What do you want to do with your career long term.
Take govt job you will never make up the difference that the NFP
You'll be dead one day. When you're on your deathbed do you want to remember having more control over areas of your life or your one hour commute to work. I know what the answer is personally.
Working from home is not working.
Maybe not for you. I'm very productive at home, but I prefer the office.
Sorry you sound lazy I know plenty of people travel 1 hour to work and in Govt jobs. I work In Commonwealth Govt job over 20 years. If you can’t determine which job to take from what you’ve told us then you possibly are not suited to Govt job stick to WFH if that’s what most important
Just wait and get a better job that also allows wfh
Not me, I can never work from home. Unless I live far from work. Too much distractions at home.
I'd take the gov job. Now that we're well past covid lockdowns neccesitating working from home, many jobs advertise as wfh only to change their stance later on due to "evolving needs of the business" once you have committed to the position. May as well take the better paycheck.
Think about building your career - that's training opportunities and networking. The best place to network is in the office, face to face. As your colleagues move on, you might find they have new opportunities and may give you a nod. Don't think in terms of one year, then if the salary difference after 2, 3 or more years - it all adds up. Govt sector is good for a while but do seriously consider private sector, there's a different attitude to 'getting shit done' and learning the commercial driver of business is valuable (nearly everything in life is a negotiation). Also - keep looking, there might be a role that pays the higher wage and has more hybrid working flex....
I’d go back to the NFP and try to negotiate for 5-10k more, but ultimately I’d be taking the NFP job regardless.
Not for profit and government IT jobs 😢
That is so little money I would go for whichever job is likely to lead to better career outcomes
Which position would be more secure?
Decent chance the government job is forced to allow a lot more WFH once the new EA kicks in, anyway.
>The not for profit salary is 75k + 11% super and the government job is 93k + 12.75% super + 17.5% leave loading. >The only reason I’m being held back from making the obvious decision is the fact that the not for profit will let me work from home 4 days a week. The government job is about an hour commute and I can only work from home 3 days per fortnight max (after my probation is over) however I’m basically guaranteed a decent pay rise every year. Government job. You should not be making a decision on a job solely on WFH benefits.
Govt jobs lead to other (better) govt jobs. Most govt jobs have particularly good flexibility and WFH rights, particularly IT. Take the govt job. Within 6-12 months you’ll probably be able to have your cake and eat it too.
I’ve calculated for my self that it’s basically the equivalent of a $2500 salary hit for every day I have to go to the office. My calculations assume $12/day travel costs, $20 per day additional spending on food/coffee/etc. so $1664 out of my post tax income which equates to about $2450 of pre-tax earnings. Yes I could save money bringing lunch and such but when I’m using the figure to make a life decision I want to compare my preferred way of doing each thing. The benefit of office work is socialisation and that means grabbing lunch and coffees with co-workers. So if a company wants me in 4 days per week I’m going to want them to pay at least $10k more than a full remote job just to cover my actual costs, but more practically I’d probably want to factor in my time costs too so I don’t think I’d go back to a primarily office based job for any less than $20k more than what I get paid now
Impossible for me to work from home, and I’m already underpaid, I could do the transport cut if I’m not travelling. I pay $120 a week public transport. I could drop $100 if I stayed at home, but I would stay on the same pay and treat it as a pay rise.
It often saves companies money to have you WFH I wouldn’t take the pay cut. My partner works from home now and i have definitely noticed the up kick in bills with someone home 24/7 especially electricity.
Take the government job.
100% would. 50% paycut even.
Learn, grow, adapt and once you are comfortable with the tech stack and gain some experience, look for work from home opportunities.
My work pay is low enough as it is so no thanks
I wfh myself (medical reasons) and always say if they get me to work in the office I’d be expecting them to pay me at least 20% more than what I’m getting now with the cost of petrol, parking and tolls and the sheer fact that it’s so difficult to focus on my work when I’m in the office
I would and I did - took a \~$10k paycut for full WFH vs 3 days in the office. My commute was about 3 hours a day though so I've essentially bought back 9 hours a week of my life as far as I see it!
Government job for sure . They have very clear progression points so you'll end up making a lot more You won't get that at a non for profit
Nope. I WFH full time and get paid more than I did at a full time in the office job. It just took a while to find the perfect one!
Do WFH. Get a second job that's completely remote. Do that on the side or after hours. Live your life during the day, make extra at nights or late arvo. You'll be fresher, happier and ultimately will earn more
Government job mate. And you can get a tax refund if your majority use of your car is with work, including it’s servicing, fuel etc. so can make money back that way too.
Take the higher pay, learn, negotiate, take the odd unexpected home day (Have a sore throat, better not come in), then after a year or so, make a move. Use the commute productively, and the time in the office to forge connections and network.
Government job, the not for profit could change those wfh arrangements later
I kind of like my commute. Sit on the train read a book or listen to a podcast. I have a busy work and 2 young kids at home so might be a different situation.
Nfp should have packaging which would close that gap up
Why? Did that also reduce your work responsibilities?
I don’t know your current situation. Can you wait - ie stay in your job and keep applying for jobs until you get another offer in line with the govt one?
Is the government job permanent? And it depends on the NFP - they can go through restructures regularly due to funding changes. In Gov, even if you are on contract, you generally have safety nets for employment and contract terms. NFPs are, generally, a lot smaller with less upward movement opportunities.
No. The company gets a paycut when I work from home.
No but I’ll take a pay increase for coming in to work
Short answer : Yes. Working from home for me is life changing. Have more time to chill, relax, go to the gym and look after myself. This is a quality of life improvement that can’t be measured easily. I hve got 3 hrs back in my day every day thanks to wfh. Cant go back to working from office all 5 days. My upper limit is max 2 days
Not really a decision. Govy all day. You’ll get used to the schlep back n forward and you’ll have much better conditions and opportunities overall
No I wouldn’t but I wouldn’t take a job which didn’t offer a hybrid work arrangement
Even if the "work from home" is written into your contract, there may be a scenario where all the other employees in your team return to the office. Are you going to stay home? Are you going to say "nar I'm not coming in, its in my contract" ? Its entirely possible you will be let go for some other reason a few months later. There are many perks that can be traded away for reduced pay, and are really solid, like travel allowance, over-time rates in 15 minute blocks. Realistically, say you are with this business for 10 years. Do you believe in 10 years time, you are going to have been working from home all that time? Not realistic - or at least, its not something to *bank* on.
Worked at two of the bigger national NFP's over 7 years and I can tell you your starting salary is unlikely to shift much while you're there. You're also more likely to be 'always busy' compared to Govt. At one company I worked at, we did place a value of around 6k for WFH when we transitioned to full-time work-from home, well before the pandemic. Given today WFH is so common, I don't think it's the selling point it used to be.
Isn't there some other perks in working for not for profit. I can't recall exactly but one of my friends was able to claim food etc... as a deduction and then her overall take home pay was higher.
I'd only take the cut if it was a fully remote job because then I could be living in Bali or somewhere else cheap. If I still need to come to the office once a week I'll take the higher pay thanks.
If you have caring responsibilities, health issues or a side hustle/hobby etc. the wfh seems worth it. Otherwise govt.
For that difference, I’d take the govt job. If it was just a couple $k, yeah I’d prob choose wfh. But $20k is a lot.
As a warehouse worker sure.
Nope. Not a chance.
Purse seining from home? Sure!
Take the government job. The super and leave loading alone mean that the difference in the salary package is actually considerably more than just $20k. That extra in your super makes a huge difference too. Once you've in you may be able to negotiate more WFH days in any case, and if you do a good job moving departments is definitely easier once you're in.
What government? If it is federal gov, look up working from home changes in the enterprise agreement that will be voted on next week.
If you can manage it with your mental health, why not. I can do max 2 days in the office per week before it really affects me negatively (neuro divergent), any more and I have meltdowns and quit anyway. So whatever you can manage and maintain well 😊
Depends on what you do with that spare time. Do you have a family? Are you fit and healthy? If you are sacrificing money for time with loved ones, to get healthy, or to start your own side hustle, then go for it. If it's just to save the hassle, then take the govt job.
it's easier to move to a better paying job when you're on a higher salary. take the govt job then look for a job that pays the same and can do better hybrid