Tech CEOs predicting WFH will be permanent, and many employees will never come to an office again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A lot of smaller southern cities will be the biggest benefactors of WFH. Places like Savannah, Columbia, Greenville where having a salary above $65k in those cities is a cheat code for an easy life.

CA person here. I guarantee you that CA workers in big tech are not considering relocating to Savannah, Columbia or Greenville. There is a HUGE aversion to southern culture out on the west coast. The furthest south CA are willing to relocate are areas like Austin or Dallas, TX which has a younger/urban feel to it. Texas is more western than southern too.

No one out here thinks of South Carolina as a charming place to live. West coast residents also can not handle humidity. People on the east coast may see SC has historical and charming but on the west coast it is no different than Alabama.

Most Californians actually do not leave the state like people do on the east coast. If they leave the Bay Area many move further up toward Sacramento or into one of the coastal areas like Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Barbara. The ones that do relocate out tend to go to Oregon, Nevada , Arizona or maybe Colorado.

Montana and Idaho are getting quite a number of californians as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course productivity is still good.. Comparing notes with my colleagues, we easily work an extra 3 hours a day now. Breaks have become a rarity too.

This. My steps have dropped to sub-1,000. This is an unhealthy reality for me. And I need to find time to make a change.

This is true from what I've seen. At the beginning of PandemicWFH people were treating it like a vacation. I saw people doing yoga in the middle of the day in school playgrounds, everyone out with friends and dogs, people jogging so much that the sidewalks were constantly crowded.

Now when I go out between 8AM - 4PM roughly NO ONE is outdoors. Its back to normal traffic which is essentially nothing.

The companies cracked down quick. I don't know if they're just loading people up with work or they're actively monitoring people through online software, but the lounging about has severely dropped even as the weather has gotten gorgeous.

Must suck being trapped in your home working constantly. You don't even have the excuse of going out to eat on a lunch break anymore because where are you going to go?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Decentralization will be great for the country if it happens. No more struggling in a few high cost overcrowded metros and greater freedom of choice.

Plus it will make a lot of red states purple.

Look up the reverse migration to the south. A large contingent of Black Americans are moving back south in search of affordable housing. Places like Georgia, Texas and North Carolina are going to be the state's to turn purple.

Hell, Georgia was so close to having it's first black governor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the executive team for a fairly large Reston tech company. We are officially not renewing our lease (we have grown substantially) and are moving to a hotel type modified office a bit further our near the Loudoun border. That office will be mainly conference rooms. We have 259 people in this area and will have seats for 50. None permanent. We too have seen productivity skyrocket. People are very happy at home and it is working despite many having kids underfoot.

That’s b/c everyone is working extra hard b/c they have nothing else to do and fear for losing their job.

+1 once this crisis is over, wfh isn't going to be as popular as people think. It takes a lot of real discipline to wfh. I have done so now for the past six years.

[Anonymous]

On one hand, I hope this happens (hello Hawaii!). On the other hand, creative hubs exist because of proximity to people. Sure, non-creative jobs could be totally remote and life will go on. But I think it's very hard to replicate the sparks that come out of in-person collaboration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the executive team for a fairly large Reston tech company. We are officially not renewing our lease (we have grown substantially) and are moving to a hotel type modified office a bit further our near the Loudoun border. That office will be mainly conference rooms. We have 259 people in this area and will have seats for 50. None permanent. We too have seen productivity skyrocket. People are very happy at home and it is working despite many having kids underfoot.

That’s b/c everyone is working extra hard b/c they have nothing else to do and fear for losing their job.

Nope.

Already worked from home before pandemic. I'm way more productive at home, because WFH = 2 hours more sleep from not having to get up earlier and fight traffic. I don't come into work already stressed out because of traffic. You also save so much time not having to commute home as well. Overall stress levels are greatly reduced, and I don't have extroverts who constantly need to chat bothering me all day wanting to discuss work minutae that breaks my concentration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I would leave this area in a heartbeat if I were guaranteed permanent WFH. I'd much rather retire faster by saving more money also not have to deal with horrific traffic in this area.”

Once this happens, the salaries would readjust to reflect the lower cost of living areas where many of the employees reside combined with potentially larger pool of potential applicants / employees who otherwise may not have applied for specific positions if they had to physically move.

Yeah. People are assuming there would be no market rate adjustment in salary based on location. If work from home becomes widespread it’s very likely that salary would be prorated based on location. There would likely be a base salary + cost-of-living adjustment with priority given to LCOL areas. The same Amazon job that pays 200K in DC would likely pay 100K in Boise. It’s very unlikely you’d be retiring early and saving tons of money. Businesses are great at capturing any surplus.

Who cares. They could cut salaries by 25-30% and you'd still get way more ahead if you didn't have to work in much more expensive area like SF or DC. Facebook is now offering permanent WFH with a paycut. Even with the paycut, you'd probably get far, far more for your money than trying to live in Menlo Park. Go look up the home prices in SV. It's stupid, even if you make $300k per year. You can live on $80k in many other parts of the country. The days of super concentration of jobs are over. People are fed up with the lack of housing supplies that cause astronomical costs for living. Decentralize, reduce traffic everywhere, reduce pollution, and make housing much more affordable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SURPRISE!

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/zuckerberg-50percent-of-facebook-employees-could-be-working-remotely.html

Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

And they are still getting ahead moving out of an insane tax state like California in a location where it costs $4 million for a SFH. If you want to start a family, getting out of SV is the first step. Take the paycut and live for 1/5 the price elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Network contacts at Square and Shopify also confirm pay cuts for those who WFH and relocate.

Some of you are not looking at this long-term. I predict not only salary cuts of 40% but also serious benefit cuts. No more 6-month paid childcare leaves, no free breakfast, lunch and dinner 7 days a week (obviously), no free medical care (FB has onsight medical doctors) and much crappier health insurance, and most important I think they will sneak in much smaller 401K matches and stock options.

You can move to Ohio if you want to, but its the person who had daily face-to-face with Zuckerberg and Sandberg who are going to get the promotion and stock benefits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SURPRISE!

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/zuckerberg-50percent-of-facebook-employees-could-be-working-remotely.html

Zuckerberg says employees moving out of Silicon Valley may face pay cuts

Would you rather make $350k in SF or $270k in Austin or Nashville? That's the type of cut he means, i.e. way in the employee's favor in terms of COLA and quality of life.

I think this will be a big deal for mid tier and smaller companies, though.

If you try to work remotely, keep the same salary of 130k and move to Wyoming, you can live like a king. But if they do adjusted cost of living, that can easily go to 40k a year.

And I can easily see companies doing an adjusted cost of living arrangement. No question. That or your job will easily be outsourced to somewhere like a India.

[Anonymous]

I am from the South and the politics keep me from down there, but also I have friends who live across the South, and the issues they have accessing health care and other resources is too much of a trade off for being able to have a nicer home for less money. I'll stay here or near some other urban center WFH or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. They could cut salaries by 25-30% and you'd still get way more ahead if you didn't have to work in much more expensive area like SF or DC. Facebook is now offering permanent WFH with a paycut. Even with the paycut, you'd probably get far, far more for your money than trying to live in Menlo Park. Go look up the home prices in SV. It's stupid, even if you make $300k per year. You can live on $80k in many other parts of the country. The days of super concentration of jobs are over. People are fed up with the lack of housing supplies that cause astronomical costs for living. Decentralize, reduce traffic everywhere, reduce pollution, and make housing much more affordable.

This is wishful thinking, sorry. There are huge economic benefits to high concentration of people and jobs in cities. Relative to other developed countries, the US is already much more decentralized, and it’s frankly a drag on our economy that people can’t live in places with high concentrations of job opportunities because of the insane cost of housing.

Anonymous wrote:Who cares. They could cut salaries by 25-30% and you'd still get way more ahead if you didn't have to work in much more expensive area like SF or DC. Facebook is now offering permanent WFH with a paycut. Even with the paycut, you'd probably get far, far more for your money than trying to live in Menlo Park. Go look up the home prices in SV. It's stupid, even if you make $300k per year. You can live on $80k in many other parts of the country. The days of super concentration of jobs are over. People are fed up with the lack of housing supplies that cause astronomical costs for living. Decentralize, reduce traffic everywhere, reduce pollution, and make housing much more affordable.

Totally agree with you there! The solution is ... build more housing in places where people want to live. This is impossible right now because boomer nimbys who bought their houses in the 1970s for $10 have a complete stranglehold on land use policy.

If you’re about to come at me with any nonsense about how higher density increases prices and drives minorities out of the city, don’t. Everyone knows this is code for “I’ll have a hissy fit if I have to live next to townhouses or apartment buildings because they might have poor POC in them, and I bought my SFH specifically so I wouldn’t have to live near those people!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the executive team for a fairly large Reston tech company. We are officially not renewing our lease (we have grown substantially) and are moving to a hotel type modified office a bit further our near the Loudoun border. That office will be mainly conference rooms. We have 259 people in this area and will have seats for 50. None permanent. We too have seen productivity skyrocket. People are very happy at home and it is working despite many having kids underfoot.

That’s b/c everyone is working extra hard b/c they have nothing else to do and fear for losing their job.

+1 once this crisis is over, wfh isn't going to be as popular as people think. It takes a lot of real discipline to wfh. I have done so now for the past six years.

I disagree. I have worked from home for years and have always been super productive. You also realize there are whole companies that are 100% remote, like GitLab? Yes, there are lazy people out there but they’re lazy at the office too. In commercial companies, those folks are let go or kept around for lay-off time.

[Anonymous]

I've been laid off twice. Both times my next jobs have come from former colleagues that I knew well. My work lunch buddies really came through for me, and I know they extended themselves for me because they liked me and knew I wasn't going to make them look bad if they asked a favor on my behalf.

I think WFH has it's place and isn't all bad, but when the chips are down, if you are socially isolated, you'll regret it. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is that human connection is even more important that I thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm on the executive team for a fairly large Reston tech company. We are officially not renewing our lease (we have grown substantially) and are moving to a hotel type modified office a bit further our near the Loudoun border. That office will be mainly conference rooms. We have 259 people in this area and will have seats for 50. None permanent. We too have seen productivity skyrocket. People are very happy at home and it is working despite many having kids underfoot.

That’s b/c everyone is working extra hard b/c they have nothing else to do and fear for losing their job.

+1 once this crisis is over, wfh isn't going to be as popular as people think. It takes a lot of real discipline to wfh. I have done so now for the past six years.

I disagree. I have worked from home for years and have always been super productive. You also realize there are whole companies that are 100% remote, like GitLab? Yes, there are lazy people out there but they’re lazy at the office too. In commercial companies, those folks are let go or kept around for lay-off time.

The PP said "isn't going to be as popular as people think" and I have to agree. WFH is great for many, but plenty of others aren't so interested in it. I can't imagine being a young 20-something out of college or grad school and immediately WFH at my first jobs rather than have the fun of going into an office and socializing with other coworkers and having face to face contact with mentors and learning how to network. You miss out on a lot of great advice and useful office gossip working remotely. Plenty of young people would rather come in everyday to their office in New York or DC or any other hot cities than WFH all the time, because that's where the excitement and buzz is.

WFH is a blessing for families who need to live further away due to schooling and housing needs, and it allows them to avoid commutes and save on commuting costs. But even for this demographic it requires discipline. Some people thrive on a routine and keeping "office" separate from "home" and going back and forth between the two.

If I had to bet on anything, it's that I think highly paid professionals and execs will continue to come in to their offices in large numbers, maybe not every day but at least half the time and will continue to pay a premium to be close to the office, and young people will continue to come in most of the time, if only to get away from their cheap first apartments or shared apartments. The brain drain to a handful of popular cities will continue for a variety of reasons of which employment is just one. People in the middle, both middle age with growing families and in the middle of their careers, are the ones who will take advantage of WFH the most.