Posted on 07/17/2017 11:49:07 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The 2016 election laid bare multiple divisions in American society, but one of the biggest is geographical. In major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, people are generally doing well (if not equally so), while many places situated far from urban business centers aren’t.
Remarkably, faith in the American dream runs highest in locales where social mobility is lowest. U.S. companies, which for the past eight months have been struggling to navigate choppy political waters, should see that as an opportunity—even a call to action.
Add Geography To Your Diversity Goals
Many business leaders I’ve spoken to have been thinking harder lately about how to reverse political, cultural, and socioeconomic polarization. Some say more urban professionals from the coasts should move out to the middle of the country. Others might wish for corporations to relocate to suburbs and rural areas in need of opportunity, rather than continue the opposite trend.
But if businesses really want to create jobs in struggling parts of America—the places unfairly dismissed by some on the coasts as “flyover country”—and bridge political divisions in the process, the solution is simpler: Hire more people outside of big coastal cities. Just don’t ask them to move.
The most innovative companies have already committed to building more diverse workforces, knowing that that’s both an ethical and competitive imperative. Some have set clear hiring targets for demographic representation, occasionally even publishing them in order to keep themselves accountable. Why not take the same approach to geography?
As virtually every politician across the political spectrum will eagerly remind you, residents of places like Youngstown, Ohio, or McDowell County, Virginia, are pissed off—and they have every right to be, because their local economies have been shattered in recent decades while jobs funneled out to big cities or overseas. In one analysis a couple of years ago, 20 metropolitan areas were generating more than half the country’s GDP output, and there’s little to indicate much has changed since.
In fact, the low national unemployment rate of 4.9% masks a deeper problem: Many people who would otherwise be available for work have completely opted out of the labor market. The “official” unemployment rate is higher in some places and lower in others, but in all cases it excludes those who haven’t actively sought work in the past four weeks. What’s more, people are dropping out of the labor force or retiring despite a spike in health care jobs, many of which can be done from anywhere by just about anyone.
One explanation, as PBS contributor Paul Solman points out, is that those roles are typically “quite demanding, both emotionally and physically” and often constitute “low-end, low-pay” work. The same is true for many who do manage to stay put in the “employed” column by picking up part-time, low-pay jobs with few or no significant benefits.
It’s not that good work doesn’t exist: Just ask any hiring manager how hard it is to fill an open role. There are lots of jobs to be had, just not where many people actually live, particularly outside a handful of major metro areas. For years, even the best-intentioned tech companies have cited a bogus “pipeline problem,” claiming that there just aren’t enough qualified female engineers or African-American developers out there for them to hire. That’s never been the case—it’s just that businesses haven’t always known where to look, or looked hard enough.
Much the same goes for geography. If they’re willing to actually look, companies can locate top talent well outside the same crowded cities where they keep desperately hunting within limited, competitive local pools. Some top knowledge workers actually want to leave major hubs for smaller towns and rural areas where their dollars will go further—they just haven’t found employers that will let them. Maybe that means a Seattle company recruiting new, remote hires in small cities undergoing surprising tech booms, like tiny Bozeman, Montana. Or maybe it just means letting a top performer leave headquarters to keep doing her job remotely from someplace else.
When companies make even small shifts toward more distributed workforces, the outsize impact can be surprising. Thanks to the well-known “multiplier effect,” for every job you fill in (let’s say) Detroit, you can actually create up to 4.3 jobs altogether: The person you hire will spend the money she earns locally, creating work for lawyers, schoolteachers, dentists, retail staff, and restaurant workers. It’s the reverse for every designer and developer you ask to move from someplace else to work with you in your New York office; you’ve just taken her talent and spending out of another city that’s now that much less likely to flourish in the future.
Yes, It Requires Going Remote
None of this can be accomplished without embracing remote work. While major employers, like IBM most recently, have ended long-standing remote-work policies, employees already see flexible arrangements as the inevitable future of their working lives. What’s more, offering more remote positions can help companies meet their diversity goals; women are especially likely to cite flexibility as a top employment priority.
Requiring people to come to a set location at fixed hours is a remnant of the Industrial Age, and it’s time to let it go. The COO of one growing company explained in Fast Company last month how he’s helped assemble a workforce from 19 employees back in 2006 to over 400 today—all of whom are remote. It can be done. After all, outside of big cities, the talent you seek isn’t concentrated enough to fill an office tower. There’s no single magic town filled with talented web developers you can hire in one lightning recruiting session.
Instead, companies need to leverage all the technological advances of recent years to erase what researcher Steve King has called the “paradox of place,” whereby “even though the internet and connective technologies have made working remotely easier than ever, people and companies are increasingly clustering together in fewer locations, mostly in cities.” At my company, Upwork, our own team is distributed. Over the last year, we’ve had 250 remote team members in the U.S. spread across 209 cities in 38 states, and by 2020, we plan to increase that number by at least 40%.
I call on business leaders to join me in setting targets of their own. Commit to hiring your next team member in a smaller city, small town, or rural area. Then commit to doing this as often as possible for the next few years until it becomes second nature.
You’ll find there’s a lot of talent out there, including in places you haven’t thought to look. There are many people who’d welcome the higher rates a tech company could pay. Don’t be cheap, either: Offer San Francisco or New York rates, which won’t just feel generous to someone living in a less-expensive part of the country but can actually help jump-start those areas’ economies. You’ll be rewarded with great loyalty. You’ll gain access to new talent, new insights, and the increased creativity that greater diversity brings.
What’s more, you’ll be helping to distribute opportunity and—maybe—a small, badly needed measure of understanding.
instead of outsourcing, we should be Insourcing.
I agree that America needs a much more aggressive global trade policy.
But I am not sure this is it.
That said, Trump really needs to do something about bringing back American jobs.
Our trade situation is terrible. With several countries.
Both democrats, as well as Republicans, are sold out.
Trump you made this a big issue during the campaign. A lot of people supported you because of this issue.
Now do something.
Makes a lot of sense. Many of my friends work from home for companies not located in CA. Doesn’t matter where you are really anymore. All one needs is a good internet connection, a decent computer and cell phone and you’re off to the races. No?
FBI etal just blew billions on the relocation plans to either Prince Georges(MD) or Fairfax County(VA) with the states bidding and adding to the waste of taxpayer dollars.
Guess we can call this a PDT ‘victory’ as two Democrat strongholds were denied this building.
Now, step 1 of RELOCATING the FED could begin in earnest, draining the swamp in ways no one thought possible.
Start with FBI being relocated somewhere in Mid America, a Red State not really necessary as when WE pay to relocate the permanent govt employees they will just ‘turn’ the state Blue.
Of course tell the employees WE did not guarantee your job would be in WashingtonDC for your lifetime, we are moving to Kansas and your job is there if you are willing to move (on your own) to Kansas.
The present highway infrastructure in place in the WashingtonDC area would be dang near perfect if ALL the Government employees were elsewhere.
UN should be next - move it to Somalia or Syria, where the UN could do the job it was chartered to do.
Should be plenty of room in Somalia or Syria as all the able bodied men are ‘relocating’...
Saw a ‘great’ cartoon in Patriot Post today,
Person in unemployment office with a robot as clerk.
Indeed
That’s very true, but one of the problems is that there are many parts of the country that have terrible internet connectivity, which nowadays is like not having the railroad run through your town. You’re just left out of the economic action unless you have good internet services.
I think they need something similar to the old rural electrification project to build it up fast for these places.
The most basic problem is that any job that can be done remotely can be done from Asia - and that is exactly what is happening. One of the reasons there are stories of tradesmen making good money is because some coolie in Bombay can’t unclog your toilet from there - and would only come here to do it if he is in a certain caste.
Trump is the only elected person in our Federal government doing anything.
Sadly, we all pay an extra communication tax to do just this.
Sadly, we all pay an extra communication tax to do just this.
What does Obamacare have to do with this?
I supported Trump for two major issues.
First off, I supported Trump because he (alone, basically) of all candidates, said we need to support American jobs.
Second off, I supported Trump because he (alone again, basically) said we need to protect our borders. With a wall.
Those are the two reasons.
Neither one, has really advanced, one bit.
Sure there is not currently a lot of illegal immigration, but that will change the DAY Trump leaves office.
The day.
He needs to build the wall, and he needs to build up American industry once again.
We need to grow, once again.
We cannot simply cede the future to China.
That is very, very bad policy.
For the past 10 years I’ve worked from home in Minnesota for employers based in New York, Chicago and Maine. This is not a new thing.
You’re not going to be able to work remotely at dial up modem speed. We need to run fiber EVERYWHERE.
Outside of populated areas where the cost can be recovered from the users, that is a very expensive proposition. I don't think that the extreme rural user could pay the price if it weren't subsidized by someone else.
I was hired by a high tech startup in Tallahassee. There were zero tech workers in Tallahassee. All the high tech people came from other areas, including California.* You can start a company anywhere, say Newfoundland or rural Buttbrother, Alaska. You just have to pay more for tech and you may need to accept remote workers. But the article is talking about (cough) “diversity” and “evening out political diversity.” (I think that means diluting the votes of people who are not sufficiently diverse enough to see how right liberalism is.)
* The California people were posers and annoying as heck. They came with a preconceived view that everybody not from LA or San Francisco were snot-nosed, low-bowed cretins. They only worked long enough to finally get rehired somewhere in California. One of them apparently thought he looked cool in a $1000 leather jacket. He told me how much it cost. The temperature in the plant never got below 78, way too hot for leather and outside during spring, summer and fall it was over 90 with high humidity. People used to watch him go passed. He must have thought it was because he looked so cool. Nope. Just the opposite.
The right wing off shored factories and wealth creation out of rural America to China. Now they do not want to subsidized fiber for the "displaced".
Marx was right. Free Trade will destroy a country and force socialism onto it's remaining population.
> You’re not going to be able to work remotely at dial up modem speed.
I did just that back in the days when a broadband connection required a T1 and cost $1500/month.
Hell, I was effectively doing that back in the days when I could work on my home computer and bring the FLOPPY DISKS with the finished product to work.
A heavy client solution is one thing that can minimize the impact of slow network speed, and even irregularly-connected, often-disconnected environments can be reasonable challenges that can be overcome.
As a general rule, don’t recommend technology solutions when you don’t know the technology.
With many call centers and back office operations already located around the country, the essential managerial talent and tools are available. The larger question is whether rank and file employees are available in sufficient numbers with the necessary job skills and readiness to work.
The downside of going remote, is that once you have the infrastructure in place to allow remote workers from Ohio, you can just as easily fill the jobs with remote workers from outside the US, too.
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