My wife and I work in tech, and we were discussing this very thing last night.
We looked at each other and said, we could work and live in Hawaii? The example companies we've seen will adjust salaries based on the cost of living, which may deter some from moving to low-cost areas or India, but I think in Hawaii has an even higher cost of living.
But we decided not to look at it for now for a few reasons:
1) I think it puts employees a little bit at risk, depending on how unique their skill set is. When there are layoffs, remote employees may be less protected. Also, one of the things that makes sure you get treated well as an employee in the Bay Area is the ease with which you can hop companies. If you're living out in a forest in Oregon, maybe your employer *knows* you're harder to discover for competing recruiters, and that could impact which projects you are assigned and how much you're paid. On the flipside, if you're the #1 data scientist in the world and you always wanted to live next to a beach, good news for you!
#2) I think we're in the euphoric, honeymoon phase of work from home and I think it's not going to work nearly as well as people think. Let's say you have 20 people working on a new offering prototype. Normally, whenever you need feedback, you could just swing by a co-workers office and get input. You'd have weekly face-to-face review meetings to make sure you're on the right track. I've seen multiple instances during the Shelter-In-Place where millions of dollars were wasted because teams ran off on their own for 4-8 weeks without enough feedback, and their work had to be tossed after their plan belatedly received a broader review.
Also, it's usually already difficult to interview and train new employees with the staff on hand, and it'll be even harder without on-site employees. I think it'd be weird and risky to hire people without having a whole team of people meet them on-site and could increase the risk of fraud. And it'll be hard to get up-to-speed and build teamwork and good relations without face-to-face time. Companies can run for a while with their current teams that have already been recruited and trained, but eventually, they'll need more people on-site.
Greedy tech companies already tried this during the giant Outsource to India/China/Ireland/Eastern Europe/The Midwest Campaigns -- when they could've gotten away with paying a fraction of Bay Area salaries -- and it didn't work.
Many people in tech are hopeful that this could lead to people getting to spend more days a week working from home -- maybe 2-3 instead of 1. But my prediction is that there are intrinsic, substantial drawbacks to having everyone work from home that will become more apparent over time.
We looked at each other and said, we could work and live in Hawaii? The example companies we've seen will adjust salaries based on the cost of living, which may deter some from moving to low-cost areas or India, but I think in Hawaii has an even higher cost of living.
But we decided not to look at it for now for a few reasons:
1) I think it puts employees a little bit at risk, depending on how unique their skill set is. When there are layoffs, remote employees may be less protected. Also, one of the things that makes sure you get treated well as an employee in the Bay Area is the ease with which you can hop companies. If you're living out in a forest in Oregon, maybe your employer *knows* you're harder to discover for competing recruiters, and that could impact which projects you are assigned and how much you're paid. On the flipside, if you're the #1 data scientist in the world and you always wanted to live next to a beach, good news for you!
#2) I think we're in the euphoric, honeymoon phase of work from home and I think it's not going to work nearly as well as people think. Let's say you have 20 people working on a new offering prototype. Normally, whenever you need feedback, you could just swing by a co-workers office and get input. You'd have weekly face-to-face review meetings to make sure you're on the right track. I've seen multiple instances during the Shelter-In-Place where millions of dollars were wasted because teams ran off on their own for 4-8 weeks without enough feedback, and their work had to be tossed after their plan belatedly received a broader review.
Also, it's usually already difficult to interview and train new employees with the staff on hand, and it'll be even harder without on-site employees. I think it'd be weird and risky to hire people without having a whole team of people meet them on-site and could increase the risk of fraud. And it'll be hard to get up-to-speed and build teamwork and good relations without face-to-face time. Companies can run for a while with their current teams that have already been recruited and trained, but eventually, they'll need more people on-site.
Greedy tech companies already tried this during the giant Outsource to India/China/Ireland/Eastern Europe/The Midwest Campaigns -- when they could've gotten away with paying a fraction of Bay Area salaries -- and it didn't work.
Many people in tech are hopeful that this could lead to people getting to spend more days a week working from home -- maybe 2-3 instead of 1. But my prediction is that there are intrinsic, substantial drawbacks to having everyone work from home that will become more apparent over time.