WFH Gets Even Better

Don't you love tripping over a new idea you know nothing about while you're slogging through material that isn't going to pan out to anything interesting?  I do. Happened just today. 

Here's where it begins:

"...nearly two-thirds of tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area would consider relocating if given the option, and many of the region’s biggest employers—including Facebook, Google, Twitter, Square, and Coinbase—have announced plans to allow at least some staff to work from anywhere on an ongoing basis."

Here at "The New World" we looked at the whole "work from home" thing quite a long time ago, but there wasn't much to say about it since no one knew with any certainty whether a substantial number of companies and/or employees would continue the practice in the new world.  Today, it's pretty much the same:  predictions without any real evidence. 

But there are, apparently, some emerging incentives which may have an impact on the popularity of working from home (in addition to all the other advantages).  Municipalities are offering "remote worker incentives" to individuals who move there to work from home.  "Cities and towns have long offered companies financial rewards for bringing jobs and tax revenues to their region, but now many are turning their attention, and incentives, toward these individual mobile workers."

As it turns out, you might be able to score $2,000 cash if you move to Savannah, GA, to work from home, or maybe you'd rather move to Tulsa, OK, for $10,000.*  The Shoals region of Alabama, in the northwest corner of the sate, is offering the same amount for tech workers who relocate.  Topeka, KS, which is really in the middle of nowhere, ups the ante to $15,000.  And if you want to move to Vermont - well, you're too late, as their Remote Worker Relocation Program has run out of money and has not - at this point - been renewed.  But we can always hope.

The headquarters-siting sweepstakes is really a pain in the neck for all concerned.  A remote worker incentive program, however, is much easier, and benefits everyone - workers get to work where they want, with a little help for moving expenses.  Corporations get to live in much cheaper real estate markets, vastly increasing their options; and municipalities don't have to give up tax revenues to attract big installations, but instead get full-time workers who will live and shop in their town, in return for a reasonable investment.  “The multiplier effect on that investment becomes huge,” says Bob Ross, the senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Greater Topeka Partnership. “And then it just adds density to your community in terms of intellectual capital.”

As you might expect, most of these programs require extensive applications, and are limited:  only a certain number of grants are available.  But they certainly change the landscape of workforce distribution.  And they're not pandemic-dependent:  the benefits to all concerned will be just the same in the new world.  We'll just be much, much more used to working from home.

* - Tulsa is the ugliest city in the country, and I can't, at the moment, think of an amount that would get me thinking about moving there.