Ask HN: Convincing Your Employer to Relocate

6 points by maybebad 7 years ago | 6 comments

We work at a small company in south San Jose. I personally live in SF, along with 4 of the 5 other non-owners, the fifth being even farther north. The three owners live in the Belmont/San Carlos/Palo Alto area (halfway of the 1 hour drive to the SJ office on a good day).

The job is engaging, meaningful, and the company is successful. Yet all of the non-owners, including myself, constantly gripe about the commute times (101 can be awful). The commute into the office can ruin your day. You could be excited for the day's itinerary, have a bad travel experience, and arrive with little to no motivation. You consciously know your productivity is diminished. You dread the drive (or public transit) home. Your negativity, even if you try to hide it, is evident and contagious.

Your bosses sympathize so much as to allow you to work in accordance with off-rush hours (arrive 10/11am leave 6/7pm), but this just hurts your ability to socialize normally during the week. They try to compromise with work-from-home Fridays, which 50% of the time become a rescinded privilege due to the necessity of face-to-face interactions.

The team comes together and suggests a move to a "middle ground" that does not impact the owners' commute time but drastically reduces the totality of employee commute times.

The owners are hesitant because they believe that proximity to clients (SV proper) is crucial in terms of business development and contract procurement, despite nearly all interactions being made over phone and email.

HN community, we implore you, what hard evidence can we provide to business owners that the success of their business is directly related to the happiness of their employees? What arguments can we make to convince the owners that their business does not rely on an office in the same general zip code as their perspective employees?

mchannon 7 years ago |

In the end, you're probably going to have to vote with your feet, as in, move jobs.

Moving business addresses is not trivial, and real estate in S. San Jose, though also insanely expensive, is going to be substantially cheaper than mid-peninsula. Not sure adding the equivalent of one FTE in increased rent (which is how some may see it) is going to sell to your founders, though if you're going to make the case, point out they're already burning more than one full-time equivalent in added commute times.

Your curtailed ability to socialize can be seen as a feature, not a bug, even if that's pretty cynical. A lot of people are also what you might call "pathological commuters" whereby they enjoy staring at brake lights on the 101, which gives them what they consider a respite from chaotic home and work environments, and a chance to listen to radio or books on tape, or catch up on phone calls. I'd say the evidence lends itself pretty strongly that that's the kind of people you're working for.

Unless you've already asked and asked and the owners are getting testy from all the asking, try putting together a proposal as a group effort. Get lots of colleagues and coworkers to put their names on the proposal, and focus on the owners' upside and how you've figured out all the details- new location can be up in running by such date, new address is bigger and cheaper and in a better location, etc.

In the end though, it's their company, and it's your life, and the former seldom budges an inch for the latter.

siruncledrew 7 years ago |

Your workplace has like 9 people. Why not just work remotely and schedule in-person time when needed?

If you don’t need to be there specifically for 9am-5pm standard business hours, and there’s no need to have frequent on-site client meetings, then maybe the owners could even downsize the office. Depending on where you think the office should move, the first thing the owners would probably do is check the commercial rent prices, so factor that into the location suggestion.

Eridrus 7 years ago |

Collect offers from companies in SF, and then proceed to either quit or take them to management.

I mean, I refused to work in the south bay when I lived in the bay area for this exact reason - if they started their company there, they are likely to engage in motivated reasoning to keep it there.

freewilly1040 7 years ago |

Like other commenters I think you need to vote with your feet. If they don’t have active plans to move offices the answer is no. The why’s of you not being allowed to work from home on most Fridays or the office being in San Jose are irrelevant to your decision to stay or go. The needs of your bosses, and how much sympathy they have, are irrelevant too.

Is the job so great that the terrible commute is worth it for YOU? That’s what it boils down to.

masonic 7 years ago |

First if all, try 280 to 85 instead of 101... and/or carpool.

matt_the_bass 7 years ago |

Show them Salesforce. They’re not based in SV but pitch to all those start ups.