That seems alluring. I wonder how large of a percentage of employees would, if prompted directly, opt to have company funds directed to have "ports" in major cities, if it was entangled with their salary.
Would you choose an additional 600$ a month and remote only, or would you vote for permanent variable spaces in major cities for events and team building?
As someone who goes in almost every day (I live close to my office and I enjoy getting out of the apartment). I wouldn't give up $600/mo for this, because management will never use that money for team events and travel. My team is spread out all across the country and we were told quarterly travel is no issue to all meetup in one of the cities that have an office. That went right out the door as soon as the economy went down. However, I can promise you that you wouldn't see that $600/mo back when you didn't get to travel.
I think this will be the new version of "free lunch" that tech companies offer. Come work for X, we pay for quarterly travel to meetup with your remote coworkers!
Why would it? Even in the most cynical business sense, a business will spend as much money on employees as they must. Again, assuming maximal cynicism, they won't care if it's salary or "ports", as long as it's the most effective buck they can spend (think ROI).
What is effective in attracting employees depends, at least partly, on what employees want. That might be either some amount of money into ports or more salary. Paying shareholders more will not attract employees.
Would you choose an additional 600$ a month and remote only, or would you vote for permanent variable spaces in major cities for events and team building?