In the poll of 150 C-Suite executives on Tuesday, nearly a quarter of business owners considered whether to transfer their operations to a much cheaper location amid the increased costs.
People rely less on living in expensive hubs such as San Francisco and New York City during the pandemic because remote work has started to become the next best thing.
Many business owners said that they relocated operations due to the high cost of living and taxes. They also considered moving to cheaper alternatives, such as Texas, Florida, or Ohio.
New Business Hubs
Millions of Americans migrated from major towns to smaller cities and suburbs as the work-from-home set up boomed since the beginning of the pandemic. In the analysis of the data from the U.S. Postal Service conducted by MyMove, nearly 16 million residents in the United States moved out of large cities between February and July 2020.
Goldman Sachs Group and about 30 other major financial firms were looking for properties around Florida. Tech employees in the Bay Area found it less and less beneficial to remain living in the city. Twitter already said that even after the pandemic restrictions were lifted, its employees would still be allowed to work from home.
According to the poll, work-from-home strategies have become more appealing to larger firms, which implies that big businesses are more comfortable working on remote-work alternatives. And about 20% of the firms who make over $3 billion are mostly considering operating remotely.
A survey showed that 43% were prioritizing the separation of their employees between people working remotely and on location as most firms were not willing to commit entirely to remote jobs. Also, companies were still reluctant to bring work back on-site, and only less than 15% preferred to return to work completely after the COVID-19 restrictions, Business Insider reported.
The possible technological challenges of working from home could fuel a company’s reluctance to commit fully to remote operations, as WiFi connectivity and technical understanding will differ between each employee. In a remote work setup, managing the workload of an employee and engaging on a regular basis can often be more challenging.
Nearly 34% of executives said that working remotely hindered their employees’ productivity, and another 45% said that social distancing affected the productivity of their company.
