Remote Work and the Oregon Opportunity
Oregon is a magical place but also a place with real challenges. The way we grow our strengths and address these challenges is by facing them head-on with new energy and ideas.
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Jared Wiener works at Prosper Portland and is the City’s primary point of contact to the technology industry. He’s been a proud Oregonian for the past decade.
March 11th marked one year of working from my home during a pandemic. Much has been written looking back at this historic year, less about looking forward. Vaccines have arrived faster and with more effectiveness than was believed possible, and as each week passes we are closer to getting passed this phase. What is certain is we will not return to life as it was before. This is particularly true for “knowledge workers,” such as software engineers and project managers, because the sectors with lots of these workers have changed forever.
Most of the work I do is with the technology industry and nearly every worker in this sector is a knowledge worker. Like me nearly all of them have been doing their work in their homes this past year. Prior to the pandemic employers were slowly allowing more and more employees to work remotely more and more often. The pandemic, basically overnight, expedited this trend and changed the status quo from going into the office to working from home. Now that remote work is the new norm for these workers, how knowledge work is done has been forever changed. If you’re interested in the data side of this transition to remote work, Gallup has the stats and info to answer your questions.
For many businesses remote work has gone remarkably well. Many I speak with share that teams are producing at historic levels, and many of their employees are more satisfied and have no interest in returning to the office five days a week. More productive businesses, happier workers, and, in the long run, lower business costs—a business may no longer need pre-pandemic levels of office space per worker and the operating expenses that come with it.
Outside of changing where knowledge workers do their jobs, the pandemic may change how we think of the physical footprint of a business. Some businesses are assessing whether they need offices at all, others are recruiting talent from all over the country or world, and still others are redefining the purpose of the office as a place of learning and community, not necessarily where the work product is done.
We are in the midst of transformation. And, as with most inflection points, those who embrace it and accentuate it will come out ahead. That’s the challenge that lies ahead.
I can just see myself in fifteen years trying to explain to my son (who is currently eight months old) that just before you were born everyone would go into buildings to do their work. And I can see this dazed look on their face, the same one I probably gave my parents when they explained growing up without a color television, or the look teenagers today give their parents when the sound of a dial-up modem is played. In most cases, these transformations allowed us more flexibility, more tools of expression and productivity, and more opportunities to connect with others. It’s yet to be seen if our work-from-home transformation will attain the same feats.
Two things are clear regarding this transformation. First, there is unlikely to be universal solutions. There are pros and cons to different approaches, and different companies will choose different solutions. Second, working from home isn’t going away when we seize control over the pandemic. Certainly, more knowledge workers will return to offices more of the time, however, office work will not return to pre-pandemic levels. For anyone in economic development, this may require us to revisit some assumptions.
In general, an economic developers goal is to enable job creation and investment within the communities where they work. Not all growth is equal and we prioritize that which brings the greatest return to the community. Admittedly there are challenges with growth, however, the challenges associated with declining and shrinking communities are vastly harder to grapple with.
Growing is how we progress. In economic development, we work with businesses (entrepreneurs, small businesses as well as large corporations) to achieve this goal because they want these things too. They benefit from healthier, happier, and more well-educated individuals as well as from strong infrastructure and efficient government. Further, the collaboration between economic development and the private sector strengthens ties between the business and the community leading to even greater benefits. But, what happens when businesses have smaller physical presences or lack one altogether? Will industries with a largely remote workforce have businesses that remain invested in our communities?
A key component of growth is population growth. As John Tapogna pointed out in his most recent post, the states that manage to attract the workers of the 21st Century will see greater economic progress. The mobility created by the pandemic means that educational attainment is rising both for those born in Oregon and those moving here.
Educational attainment is correlated to economic mobility so as folks become more educated in Oregon and across the country, more of them will have greater choices of which community to work in. Couple this trend with the move away from full time office work for knowledge workers, and the importance of place is heightened. In other words, the states that succeed in creating spaces and communities for knowledge workers to call home will have an immense competitive advantage for the foreseeable future.
If businesses are less invested in physical communities, the economic development appeal must be targeted more directly to the individuals. Ultimately, they are who create the vibrancy in a business, an industry, and in a community. We must build on our advantage in net migration gains, particularly young, college educated folks. They come for something different and better than the place they left, with that frontier spirit alive in many (as discussed in this article by Kevin Frazier).
They have different ideas and experiences than folks who were born in Oregon or who moved here years prior.They come for clean air, progressive values, dense urban cores, west coast affordability and transportation options to go along with the manifold natural wonders across our state. We must do more than just acknowledge the need for cleaner energy and more equitable and diverse communities, we need to take meaningful steps toward those goals.
These progressive (lower case p intentionally used here!) beliefs and messaging is what needs to be heard now more than ever. Economic developers need to make use of greater opportunities to coordinate messaging and programming with tourism organizations like Travel Oregon. However, that will not be enough. While the tourism organizations are focused on people attraction, economic developers must focus on what will keep them here. Oregon as a place to live, work, and build community must no longer be a well kept secret.
As we rebuild in our new reality, we must be better. We must get better at telling our story of opportunity, beauty, and community. We must be better at inclusively welcoming more people to be part of the community we build. This story must be told to high skilled folks beyond our state and national borders. More folks need to know that Oregon is a place where you are welcome, and where you come to build your career and your life.
And, we must both show and tell it to the high school and college youth already here. Many of them will be part of the economy in the next decade. Oregon is a magical place but also a place with real challenges. The way we grow our strengths and address these challenges is by facing them head-on with new energy and ideas. Come and stay in Oregon, enjoy what’s here, and be part of making it better.
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Connect with Jared:
@JaredCWiener