The days of reporting to the office may be a thing of the past, even after the pandemic is over. With many workers currently juggling working from home, and or a hybrid of split time, many workers will not be returning to the office full time. With this new model comes new expectations, and potentially new contracts for some employees reducing salaries and or pay based on the cost of living. Imagine you were living in the Bay Area working for a high power tech company, and then are able to work from home and move to a small town which has substantial lower cost of living. If you no longer have that high cost Bay area living, you may no longer have the compensation that goes along with it. Watch as Phelim and Harry discuss the future of work.
Video Transcription
Harry Brelsford 0:04
Hey Hey Nation Nation back with Phelim across the pond sir. How are you? It’s my morning your afternoon. How you doing?
Phelim Rowe 0:13
Doing right now? Right? So we were somebody’s gonna weekend now it’s snowing. So yeah, April is truly here.
Harry Brelsford 0:20
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So any event, sir, if you’re gonna wear a sweater I went and put on a sweater, how cool is that I thought I thought I doll up a little bit myself with that high tech Look, the old white t shirt and so on. But seriously, we’re in a two year later. For the sake of argument, it’s a year later that we’ve done a full circle around the sun with the pandemic. And all that that’s brought, what are you forecasting? What are you thinking about? As we get more vaccinated? In? What what is the what won’t work look like moving forward?
Phelim Rowe 1:01
Well, I think work is going to have to be hybrid. And there’s there’s lots of propaganda about, oh, you’re going to lose your job if you don’t go back to a physical office. And then that that propaganda and then work and then he said, Oh, employees will leave companies because they will crave the office. But actually, most people want a little bit of everything. And so you might imagine that this is a great time for the MSP in the UK. Given that we’re still in lockdown, it’s now illegal to leave the UK without a reasonable excuse. So we’re all very much I’m working. But I have not seen reports of you know, increased MSP revenue in net nearly nowhere near the scale that we would have hoped for. I can’t name names, but some of them some of them seem to be complaining where SD when trying to steal their market. Some of them are complaining about SaaS providers going straight to consumer. Now that might seem like doom and gloom. But as we know, in the channel market, this this comes in cycles, SaaS providers sometimes try and go round the channel, and then realize they need it. So my prediction is in fact that they’re going to come in a different side of the stack, somewhere, somewhere somewhere a bit higher up the stack, and less on the plain vanilla break, fix type type things for the UK economy and more in the complex areas. So so far from it being the end of the MSP in the UK, I think it’ll be a really good time to get specialized. Obviously, I have a pawn shop for security. But there’s lots of other verticals they can they can get into.
Harry Brelsford 2:42
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, we’re seeing the chatter over here in the us about the Amazon offices are going to reopen and that this and that, that. What I’m thinking about is I mean, I’ve always kind of been thinking about what the technology stack looks like with remote work and so on, we’ve had that talk. But outside of the SMB Nation venue, I’m kind of wondering if these zoom towns will now be less attractive. And here’s why, you know, these Colorado ski resorts that everybody wanted to move to and live the dream. Because I think you’re gonna see a dialogue about reduced pay reduced salary based on cost of living, right that there’s, there’s been some articles about that. And yeah, I want to bring my Oracle salary to Telluride, Colorado and live the dream in Oracle, ultimately, do not kid yourself, they’re gonna they’re gonna go, Well, what well, not not not so fast, new New Deal. If you don’t have that Bay Area cost of living well. And the irony is I believe Oracle’s moving to Austin, Texas where I am. but you get the point, maybe not the best example. but you get the point. I don’t know, feelings on that HR and compensation.
Phelim Rowe 3:58
And they’re going to try it. And you can you see people striking in various industries in the UK saying it’s unfair to make us all sign new contracts, or fire us. And that will go through the courts and people will work things out. But ultimately, yeah, they’ll spot a good deal when they see one. And but I guess it depends, if you’re going higher up the technology stack. And you have specific skills that are really in need. I think you could still be in the money. It’s that low level developer that hasn’t quite got going in their career that I fear for. Because by the time they get to be specialized, then there won’t be any specialists because everyone will have you know, been there. It I do feel for the new entrants and young professionals right now. I think it’s really quite tough, no collegiate experience and no opportunity to be the flavor of the month in terms of their technology.
Harry Brelsford 4:55
Yeah, yeah, I would concur. My youngest son’s finishing college at a technical college Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California and he has a quantitative methods degree basically. So he is technical, but it’s especially tough right now for young people to get an interview. And to get a job, right. I mean, there there was some real wreckage to the economy. So To be continued my friend and where can people find out more about you? What’s your URL, you have events, what’s the easiest place to find, you
Phelim Rowe 5:30
Check out CTG ntelligence.com or hit us up on Instagram or Twitter CTG intelligence. We have a full schedule really a full schedule. We’re doing the MSS series. You’re very kindly going to come and talk in the DMV DC, Maryland, Virginia. But but but it’s a really full schedule and and it’s really good to get your finger on the pulse for me, especially in this home working environment. I’m really glad to be doing these events.
Harry Brelsford 5:56
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, my friends will see both at your panel and next month. Thanks. All right.
Phelim Rowe 6:02
Thanks very much. See you soon.
