Migration from California to Texas, remote workers to the rescue
This article sheds a little light on the apparent exodus from California to Texas, particularly Austin. I have written before that I believe there is net outflow of people from California, New York State, New Jersey and Illinois, and that Austin is getting fairly clogged as a result.
I am unsure of just what this might mean. On the one hand, business in California (at least according to the article) does not appear to be suffering much in the aggregate. I have little visibility into specifics for different companies.
If companies were fleeing California and the other states like rats jumping from a sinking ship, and all moving to Austin, there would be more salary growth in Austin. So far, and I am a long-term veteran of the IT field here in Austin, I don't see a large amount of growth in average salaries. That tells me that companies moving here and people moving here to get jobs are more or less balancing each other, at least for now.
Also, if there were a huge shortage of high tech workers in California, one would think that companies still there would be more open to remote workers. So far, I haven't seen as much of that as I would imagine.
I have no idea what the future holds, but here is a WAG to consider.
It definitely take some discipline, education, imagination, planning and skill to properly use remote employees, especially contractors. Many managers in high tech have not done the homework needed to take advantage of this potential gold mine, and it is really too bad. NB: micromanagement of remote employees is rather difficult, and micromanagement is one of the prime reasons people leave their jobs.
Let's take a fictional high-tech company in San Francisco as an example. Stratus Cloud Technologies creates best-of-breed cloud-ware out of a small office in a San Francisco high-rise. They are growing, but having difficulty staffing for odd reasons: there is absolutely no available parking, their office is stuffed with tiny carrels, not even cubes, there are no meeting rooms left, the current workers feel like college students, and there is lots of noise because of unavoidable talking required to do business. Even the managers work out of carrels.
The boss has already surveyed new locations and concluded he cannot afford them yet. Money is still tight, and the time-to-market competitive pressures drive nearly all his decisions. He pays an average of $180,000 for each worker, tries hard to get only the best, and has had great difficulty getting the very high level employees he needs to write the extremely complicated cloud-ware that allows his customers to get far more done with far less. The average employee there works 55 hour weeks and commutes at least 2 hours per day to get to the affordable parts of the city where she lives. Boss has very, very little wiggle room.
One Friday, he calls his managers into his cramped office for an emergency meeting. He has just lost two of his most critical employees, who told him during exit interviews they loved the work itself, but just couldn't live with the manifold difficulties associated with working there. One was moving to Austin, the other took a huge pay cut to do similar work nearer to his home. Boss man tells the managers he is sending the employees home early, and the rest of them would talk over the issues over some beers.
Once the managers are gathered together, he outlines the situation, asks for ideas. Two of his direct reports do most of the talking.
Frederic, the older, more conventional Director of Support, believes they are doing mostly the right things and argues for staying the course. All they need is some more business, he says, and they will be able to bridge the gap and move to roomier offices. He believes it is important for the employees to work together in order to maximize productivity. Frederic is totally Old School, and proud of it.
Francine, Director of Development, who has noticed the issues, researched the matter thoroughly, and formulated her own views, argues in favor of sending all the individual contributors to work from home. She believes she can manage her crew remotely, and took the time and effort to learn how to do it, before ever talking about it. Francine waited for the right opportunity, and was ready when it came.
She discusses the costs of providing company laptops with docking stations, nice big screens, webcams and the probable heartfelt gratitude of the workers who gain two additional free hours each day when freed from traffic. Almost all the employees have broadband at home and the company already has a reliable VPN. She makes sure to point out how to overcome the peculiar difficulties of remote workers with Skype meetings, better workflow management, daily progress updates, and less, not more, direct management.
Then, she lays out her killer argument. She points out that, once they learn how to manage remote employees, admittedly a challenge, they can hire from all over the country, especially areas where it is far less expensive to live. She believes they will have a much bigger potential employee pool, and will save tens of thousands of dollars per year per new remote employee. They won't have to move for years, since the current office is plenty large enough for just the managers. In fact, office conditions will be downright luxurious for the remaining office staff.
Francine persuades the boss, who decides not just to try it, but to go for it lock, stock and barrel. Within a year, Stratus Cloud Technologies doubles their business, cuts their per-employee costs by 30%, drastically enhances their employee satisfaction, slows attrition to almost nothing. Francine becomes CIO. Frederic "retired".
Ahem: Hint!
I am unsure of just what this might mean. On the one hand, business in California (at least according to the article) does not appear to be suffering much in the aggregate. I have little visibility into specifics for different companies.
If companies were fleeing California and the other states like rats jumping from a sinking ship, and all moving to Austin, there would be more salary growth in Austin. So far, and I am a long-term veteran of the IT field here in Austin, I don't see a large amount of growth in average salaries. That tells me that companies moving here and people moving here to get jobs are more or less balancing each other, at least for now.
Also, if there were a huge shortage of high tech workers in California, one would think that companies still there would be more open to remote workers. So far, I haven't seen as much of that as I would imagine.
I have no idea what the future holds, but here is a WAG to consider.
It definitely take some discipline, education, imagination, planning and skill to properly use remote employees, especially contractors. Many managers in high tech have not done the homework needed to take advantage of this potential gold mine, and it is really too bad. NB: micromanagement of remote employees is rather difficult, and micromanagement is one of the prime reasons people leave their jobs.
Let's take a fictional high-tech company in San Francisco as an example. Stratus Cloud Technologies creates best-of-breed cloud-ware out of a small office in a San Francisco high-rise. They are growing, but having difficulty staffing for odd reasons: there is absolutely no available parking, their office is stuffed with tiny carrels, not even cubes, there are no meeting rooms left, the current workers feel like college students, and there is lots of noise because of unavoidable talking required to do business. Even the managers work out of carrels.
The boss has already surveyed new locations and concluded he cannot afford them yet. Money is still tight, and the time-to-market competitive pressures drive nearly all his decisions. He pays an average of $180,000 for each worker, tries hard to get only the best, and has had great difficulty getting the very high level employees he needs to write the extremely complicated cloud-ware that allows his customers to get far more done with far less. The average employee there works 55 hour weeks and commutes at least 2 hours per day to get to the affordable parts of the city where she lives. Boss has very, very little wiggle room.
One Friday, he calls his managers into his cramped office for an emergency meeting. He has just lost two of his most critical employees, who told him during exit interviews they loved the work itself, but just couldn't live with the manifold difficulties associated with working there. One was moving to Austin, the other took a huge pay cut to do similar work nearer to his home. Boss man tells the managers he is sending the employees home early, and the rest of them would talk over the issues over some beers.
Once the managers are gathered together, he outlines the situation, asks for ideas. Two of his direct reports do most of the talking.
Frederic, the older, more conventional Director of Support, believes they are doing mostly the right things and argues for staying the course. All they need is some more business, he says, and they will be able to bridge the gap and move to roomier offices. He believes it is important for the employees to work together in order to maximize productivity. Frederic is totally Old School, and proud of it.
Francine, Director of Development, who has noticed the issues, researched the matter thoroughly, and formulated her own views, argues in favor of sending all the individual contributors to work from home. She believes she can manage her crew remotely, and took the time and effort to learn how to do it, before ever talking about it. Francine waited for the right opportunity, and was ready when it came.
She discusses the costs of providing company laptops with docking stations, nice big screens, webcams and the probable heartfelt gratitude of the workers who gain two additional free hours each day when freed from traffic. Almost all the employees have broadband at home and the company already has a reliable VPN. She makes sure to point out how to overcome the peculiar difficulties of remote workers with Skype meetings, better workflow management, daily progress updates, and less, not more, direct management.
Then, she lays out her killer argument. She points out that, once they learn how to manage remote employees, admittedly a challenge, they can hire from all over the country, especially areas where it is far less expensive to live. She believes they will have a much bigger potential employee pool, and will save tens of thousands of dollars per year per new remote employee. They won't have to move for years, since the current office is plenty large enough for just the managers. In fact, office conditions will be downright luxurious for the remaining office staff.
Francine persuades the boss, who decides not just to try it, but to go for it lock, stock and barrel. Within a year, Stratus Cloud Technologies doubles their business, cuts their per-employee costs by 30%, drastically enhances their employee satisfaction, slows attrition to almost nothing. Francine becomes CIO. Frederic "retired".
Ahem: Hint!
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