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Isn’t this a case of the expectation creating the outcome. If half the employees bought homes outside commuting distance, what can the company do? Seems like t

Isn’t this a case of the expectation creating the outcome. If half the employees bought homes outside commuting distance, what can the company do? Seems like they’ll be forced to adopt remote first whether they like it or not. No company is going to be able to lay off half its workforce. The labor market for software engineers and most other professionals is still extremely tight. Until it’s otherwise, the workers are essentially in charge, and management will mostly have to accommodate.

ghaff 6y ago
This hits on one of the reasons why permanent remote vs. return to office is sometimes a contentious topic. In sufficient numbers, those in an area like tech who favor remote-mostly effectively have veto power over an aggressive return to in-person. And, while I don't think people buying houses outside of commuting range did it for this reason, it is a clear signal that, if forced back to an office for other than sometimes trips, they'll leave.
refurb 6y ago
It depends on the roll obviously, but I can see a company saying “hey everyone, 6 months from now we’ll all be in the office” and then deal with those who push back on an individual basis. High performer who is hard to replace? Sure, we’ll be flexible. Low performer with 10 people lined up, ready to take the role? If you’re not in the office on Monday, you’ll be fired. And the thing that gets me is some of the booming housing markets are far away from jobs. Tahoe for example. If you can’t work from home, it’s unlikely you’ll find another job locally. Who knows, maybe all these folks thought all this through and took the risk eyes wide open?
- 205guy 6y ago
  > Tahoe for example. If you can’t work from home, it’s unlikely you’ll find another job locally. That’s the situation now, but after 1000 remote tech workers move there and 500 decide not to go back to the city, 100 might pivot to lifestyle startups that employ 100-200 more. And now you have a little incubator that wasn’t there before and might grow a nice little self-sustaining eco-system. And once it gets going, it can always rely on the nice geography to attract some talent, even if the cities become huge employment centers again. In a way, I think this would be a very healthy development for these tourist towns. They are too dependent on tourism, and even when they were prosperous before Covid, they had issues with high property prices (due to empty second homes and Airbnb) and low service wages. Having a healthy middle class independent of tourism would be great for their economic stability.
  - refurb 6y ago
    That’s where i was heading with my question. I’m wondering if these folks have a plan B if asked to go back to the office. If so, that’s great and we could see some pretty interesting changes to the demographics of small cities. If they don’t have a plan B, well... that’s not good.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I’m in exactly this situation. Wife and I talk daily about whether we should roll the dice and move to a less inexpensive rural or vacation town and just hope my employer decides to continue WFH. So far we are too chicken to pull the trigger but we have the down payment all ready to spend if I ever grow a pair. Work has been pretty cagey about what post-pandemic is going to look like. Nobody is outright saying we’re 100% coming back to office or we’re definitely going optional WFH forever. It’s this uncertain “wait and see” that keeps us from pulling the trigger on Tahoe or Redding or somewhere else way out there and less expensive. If they ever make a clear decision: “WFH is optional for all employees” we put our house for sale that day.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I doubt that anywhere close to 50% of people are making long-distance moves, even the densest urban areas.

ghaff 6y ago

This hits on one of the reasons why permanent remote vs. return to office is sometimes a contentious topic. In sufficient numbers, those in an area like tech who favor remote-mostly effectively have veto power over an aggressive return to in-person. And, while I don't think people buying houses outside of commuting range did it for this reason, it is a clear signal that, if forced back to an office for other than sometimes trips, they'll leave.

refurb 6y ago

It depends on the roll obviously, but I can see a company saying “hey everyone, 6 months from now we’ll all be in the office” and then deal with those who push back on an individual basis. High performer who is hard to replace? Sure, we’ll be flexible. Low performer with 10 people lined up, ready to take the role? If you’re not in the office on Monday, you’ll be fired. And the thing that gets me is some of the booming housing markets are far away from jobs. Tahoe for example. If you can’t work from home, it’s unlikely you’ll find another job locally. Who knows, maybe all these folks thought all this through and took the risk eyes wide open?

205guy 6y ago
> Tahoe for example. If you can’t work from home, it’s unlikely you’ll find another job locally. That’s the situation now, but after 1000 remote tech workers move there and 500 decide not to go back to the city, 100 might pivot to lifestyle startups that employ 100-200 more. And now you have a little incubator that wasn’t there before and might grow a nice little self-sustaining eco-system. And once it gets going, it can always rely on the nice geography to attract some talent, even if the cities become huge employment centers again. In a way, I think this would be a very healthy development for these tourist towns. They are too dependent on tourism, and even when they were prosperous before Covid, they had issues with high property prices (due to empty second homes and Airbnb) and low service wages. Having a healthy middle class independent of tourism would be great for their economic stability.
- refurb 6y ago
  That’s where i was heading with my question. I’m wondering if these folks have a plan B if asked to go back to the office. If so, that’s great and we could see some pretty interesting changes to the demographics of small cities. If they don’t have a plan B, well... that’s not good.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    I’m in exactly this situation. Wife and I talk daily about whether we should roll the dice and move to a less inexpensive rural or vacation town and just hope my employer decides to continue WFH. So far we are too chicken to pull the trigger but we have the down payment all ready to spend if I ever grow a pair. Work has been pretty cagey about what post-pandemic is going to look like. Nobody is outright saying we’re 100% coming back to office or we’re definitely going optional WFH forever. It’s this uncertain “wait and see” that keeps us from pulling the trigger on Tahoe or Redding or somewhere else way out there and less expensive. If they ever make a clear decision: “WFH is optional for all employees” we put our house for sale that day.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I doubt that anywhere close to 50% of people are making long-distance moves, even the densest urban areas.