When is the right time to expand into a new location? Whether you’re a company ramping up hiring or someone who is thinking about the next phase of their career, expanding to a new location is a strategic move and will come with opportunities and challenges. To minimize potential setbacks, there are some key things to consider in selecting the new location. Here are three critical decision-making factors:
Talent
Accessing talent with the right skills is important for any company, especially during a period of growth. Make sure that you are looking at cities where you can find the right employees to fulfill your needs, where there is a steady pipeline of educated workers that will sustain your company well into the future. For individuals looking to take their career to the next level in a new city, consider somewhere you can truly advance, with an extensive network of peers to learn from. Several cities across the country are teaming with top-tier tech talent.
Network
Some of the benefits of expanding to an entirely new location include the ability to access new resources to help your business or career grow. Many growing tech hubs around the US have intricate tech ecosystems with resources to help entrepreneurs and even established companies scale, build capital, and secure partnerships within the community. Individuals can also use these resources to find the right career or pursue entrepreneurial opportunities.
Connectivity
The infrastructure in place that connects a city internally and externally should factor into decisions about moving. Many individuals will want to be in a place that is centrally located, making it easy for travel – professionally or leisurely. If your company will allow flexible work from home scheduling, home broadband connections are crucial. If your company has a strong international presence, you will need to expand to a city with access to international flights. All of these and more are important in deciding what expansion looks like.
At One America Works, we use these and other factors to help tech companies and talented individuals decide what expansion could look like. Learn more about moving to a new location in this edition of the Midpoint.
Inside this issue
- OAW Event: Hiring with a Distributed Perspective
- Salesforce Will Permanently Allow Some Remote Work
- The Future Of Cities Is At Stake: Here’s How To Win The Talent Competition
- What’s the Best Way to Expand Your High Growth Team?
- Cities Growing with a Distributed Perspective
Do you want to grow your company even faster than you currently are? Are you interested to hear how the distributed work revolution may impact your hiring plans? Do you have any theories on hiring that you’d like to discuss with your peers?
Join One America Works, Whitnie, a Senior VP @ First Round Capital, and Neal, the Chief People officer @ Brex, for a group discussion about the future of hiring.
We will have a limited capacity to ensure we have a great group discussion. Interested in attending? Sign up here by Feb 19th!
“An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks,” Brent Hyder, the president and chief people office of Salesforce, wrote in a blog post announcing the change.
Salesforce expects the new options to help improve equality and diversity at the company — since workers won’t be required to report to an office in places like San Francisco and New York, Salesforce can broaden recruiting to new areas.
The work-from-home revolution poses an enormous challenge to cities, which have long enjoyed a monopoly on high-paying jobs and upward social mobility. Without a monopoly on high paying jobs, cities can no longer expect people to come to them. Big cities are going to have to work for it and new competitor cities are emerging across the country.
The allure of a city is the close proximity of people and resources, allowing for a more efficient exchange of information, goods and services. But cities also need to invest in their physical, person-to-person networks — the kinds of connections that can’t be replicated online. Cities that can create their own innovation hubs, like Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Austin, are well-positioned for the post-pandemic economy.
As your business grows, it is important to find the right people to help take your company to the next level. To expand your high growth team with top talent, it is important to have a plan for expansion, build and maintain culture, expand your regional recruiting pool, and boast dynamic leadership.
One of the challenging aspects of team growth is maintaining a semblance of the old company culture while also building a new identity to match new strategic vision and goals. After you have communicated the vision for growth, you can begin to build up a culture that cultivates and supports growth. Educate employees on how to think about scalability and how to make sure that all activities are advancing the growth vision.
Cities Growing with a Distributed Perspective
High-Tech Jobs Surge in Raleigh as IBM, Oracle, Cisco Up Hiring, Report Says
Demand for high-tech workers remains very strong in the Raleigh-Cary area, and big tech is hiring. IBM, Oracle and Cisco are leading the demand for new talent, but many other firms of all sizes are beefing up tech staffs for the COVID-19 influenced economy.
Funding To Atlanta Hit A 5-Year High In 2020 As The City Produces Unicorns
Atlanta has produced at least three unicorns in the past six months, with Greenlight, SalesLoft and Calendly all reaching or surpassing the $1 billion valuation mark. The city’s startup growth isn’t just due to young companies setting up shop in the city and raising money, but rather is “companies with significant revenue growing.”
1871 Helps Black Entrepreneurs Deliver on Ideas
The Chicago tech incubator adjusted its business model to the pandemic without losing focus on a mission of improving venture capital’s sorry record of neglecting tech businesses founded by women, Blacks or Latinos.
Talent and Diversity Leaders From NPower Texas, Kanarys, and Work Shield
Innovation Awards finalists weigh in on creative partnerships, a new tool that tracks toxicity in the workplace, and startup leadership strategies in the Dallas tech scene.
