The Expert Podcast

So you work from home you convinced your employer to let you keep working from home and you think that's a great idea well guess what you might open up a can of worms and did something that you can't put the genie back in the bottle there's an article from Fortune about how remote work could be the reason you don't have a job in 10 years and it might not even be 10 years and we've talked about this before on the channel but here's how it works you made an argument to your boss that says look I could do the same work at home why do I need to come to the office there's no benefit to have me in the office all I'm doing is driving in to sit in front of the same computer that I could sit in front of at home so you basically convinced your boss that they don't need the people in the office and the boss is thinking Hmm well if that's true then they could be anywhere why do I need to have them even in my state or in my area in fact the first thing that will happen is your boss might find that there's employees in different parts of the country that work cheaper because the cost of living is in its high.
If you're in Southern California or Southern Florida or New York or some of the High Cost of Living States where people get paid more because of their cost of living is higher the boss might say well the next time that I onboard somebody maybe I'll find somebody who lives in Indiana people are just as good there maybe somebody who lives in Oklahoma Iowa right and the cost of living is less so maybe their income could be less and they work that way for a while and then they might find that well guess what there's people who are educated that are highly insightful that are in other countries if we're working remote what does it matter if you're down the street other side of the country or other side of the world.
There are full-time employees in countries like the Philippines in countries like India Sri Lanka South America that worked 40 hours a week full-time for like 150 a week 200 a week and for them that's a high income that's more than they can make in their home country just double and these are college educated they can do programming customer service design work coding engineering work Document Preparation all kinds of Highly skilled work your employer may not be aware of this but if you make it so that they're not getting the benefit of having employees right in front of them where they can observe their work have in direct conversations with them you know one of the advantages for an employer for a boss is if you have all your people right there if they think of something they want to talk to you you're right there they can engage with you they don't have to get you on the phone or they don't have to um you know arrange a call.
There was a management strategy from back in the 80s was called mwba management by walking around and management by walking around was being right there with the troops being on the front lines being part of it rolling up your sleeves helping people with their efforts um being kind of shoulder to shoulder with your staff right and having that ability adds value to a company it adds efficiency that's production to a company if your people are remote anyways then you don't have that you lose that layer of Advantage so if that's the case if you don't have that anyways why not have the people be farther away especially if it's a lot cheaper look there's some states where just to get an entry-level person you have to pay 30 or 40 an hour there are some states that it costs 15 or 20 an hour that's half price for the same quality level of a person then you can even go to overseas markets if the business allows for it and be 10 of income.
So be careful what you wish for obviously working remote is great for an employee right you don't have to you don't have to commute you don't have to get dressed you don't have to pay for dry cleaning you can have your lunch break at home you can pet your dog you can do all those things but you might be introducing an unintended consequence by training and teaching your boss your employer that I don't need to have anybody here I can get rid of some of my rent Factor smaller building smaller footprint less overhead and I can also get people that maybe are elsewhere as long as they're just as good now they may not fire you to replace you with somebody else but when it comes time to add more people or to add more resources they may do it by offshoring to other places even onshoring to cheaper parts of the country might be a strategy.
So be careful pay attention to your job see what the um the vibe that you're picking up on is and see if it's crucial that they have people there because if it is you want to make sure you add value to your job to make sure you're retained properly look if you're a valuable employee your boss should be paying you top dollar but make sure that they know that you're adding Big Value to your company's margins so that you can increase your value and maybe even ask for a raise.