Prediction #5: We may see a great unraveling of location-based company workforces and an even bigger shift-to-remote

As companies now have the capability and experience to do work remotely, they will start realizing they can attract talent way far away. Outsourcing (to other parts of the US and the world) will start becoming much more normal. 

Inexpensive cities, remote talent will become attractive initially for the cost.  Why pay 100K for a marketing manager SF when you can get someone in Austin or Boulder for 60K?  Eventually, companies will realize they can get even better talent remotely as their talent pool explodes 100x.

In non-tech or corporate hubs, expect new companies to start emerging where taxes are lower as they can now start recruiting from anywhere.  Founders will remote companies in places like Wyoming and Nevada and grab the best talent from across the country as more will be comfortable with remote-only work.

This will have major ramifications:

• Expect a decrease in value in city real-estate. While cities still have value (culture, restaurants, dating) a lot of that value is hindered in a “socially distant” pandemic world with no large gatherings and density-based disease hot-spots.  If people can work remotely full time, expect many to move to burbs with some culture but more space, less density, and less cost.
• Expect a shift from CA to other states.  If remote workforces really do take off, we may see an exodus of 20% of people from the SF bay area and NYC.  Not everyone will move but enough might have major implications on the areas.

Opportunities:

• Software and tools that are optimized for remote only workforces will take off even more long term.  Think always-on video, or recruiting tools based only on video chat.
• Rethink every in-person process long term as a remote process.
• Expect a boom in remote-only job sites and application tracking.  
• Networking tools for remote-only companies that are focused on building a connection. = Imagine a Coffee chat-roulette type app for employees within a business. Sync calendars and randomly do remote coffee.  The explosion of tools like Donut to promote serendipitous connections between company people.
• Introduction of tools that express and emphasize the companies “core values” and OKRs across all products (imagine it embedded in Slack, Asana, Figma, etc…)
• A new generation of collaborative, remote brainstorming tools
• Benefits companies based on remote workforces (what benefits can you give to replace in-store eating, and how do you handle health insurance across the world?)
• Tools that help remote workforces maintain and enhance their culture.  (Remote Core Values Quizzes, 

If you currently are working on one of these opportunities or want to work on them, please contact me at charlie at iamcharliegraham dot com