Decision Library
A location is a ten-year bet made on a two-day visit
Choosing where to put an office, a plant or a warehouse sets costs, hiring and logistics for a decade, and the choice is often made after a pleasant visit and a persuasive incentive package. A Decision Room compares candidate locations, remote-first and a smaller hub on evidence about the people, the routes and the exit.
Separate the decisions inside
A city for a headquarters, a region for a distribution center and a country for a legal entity are different decisions with different evidence. Score them together and a strong tax rate can hide a weak hiring market. Name the one you are making, then list its options: two or three candidate sites, a hub with remote staff, remote-first, or staying put.
Hiring reality and the true cost
Public wage data gives a first view. In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes employment and wage estimates by occupation for each metropolitan area every year. Your own recruiting results, offers made and offers accepted, say more, because they reflect the roles you actually need.
Add total occupancy cost over the lease term, travel between sites, and the commute your current team would face. Read incentive packages carefully: many state and local incentives are tied to job and investment targets and must be partly repaid if the targets are missed.
Evidence and its limits
Wage bands and hiring time for your key roles, commercial lease quotes, freight times to customers or suppliers, tax and employment rules confirmed by advisers, and conversations with companies that moved there recently. Chamber of commerce materials describe the best case, and a firm that arrived three years ago can describe the real one.
How the room argues a site
Each location gets a Champion, and so does staying put. The Grandfather prices the unwinding of each choice: lease break terms, incentive repayments, and the relocation of people who moved for the job. The Diplomat maps who is affected, from current staff who may not follow to the local officials whose incentive comes with conditions. The Scout gathers public data on wages, transport and rules, each with its source.
The Verdict names the leading site, the hiring evidence it rests on, and the figure that would change it. Leadership's Human Decision is recorded with it.
What to weigh
Talent access
Whether the roles that matter can be hired there at your wage band and in reasonable time.
Logistics
Travel and freight time to customers, suppliers and your other sites.
Total occupancy cost
Rent or ownership cost, fit-out, taxes and operating charges over the term.
Rules and incentives
Employment and tax rules, and the conditions attached to any incentive.
Reversibility
Lease break terms, incentive repayment and relocation costs if the site proves wrong.
Where it goes wrong
Flagship office
The location becomes a statement about the brand rather than an operating choice.
Staff attrition
Current employees decline to move, and their knowledge leaves with them.
Incentive clawback
Missed hiring targets turn a grant into a debt.
Boise, Denver, or a hub
A 40-person software company plans to hire 25 engineers over three years. Boise offers lower rent and a state incentive of $250,000 tied to 25 hires, but the company's own recruiting filled only 2 of 6 senior roles there in the past year. Denver costs about $180,000 a year more in rent and salaries for the same plan, and filled 5 of 6. A third option keeps everyone remote with a small hub of 2,000 square feet for meetings. With weights of talent access 35, total occupancy cost 20, reversibility 20, logistics 15 and rules and incentives 10, the hub leads in year one, because it spends little while the hiring evidence firms up. The Verdict names what would favor Boise: filling four of the next six senior roles there within two quarters, which would also protect the incentive.
Questions
- Can the room compare cities we have no data on?
- The Scout gathers public facts such as wage estimates and transport links, with sources. Your own recruiting results and lease quotes carry more weight, so the Verdict states how much of the case rests on public averages.
- Who chooses the site?
- Your leadership does. The Verdict sets out the reasoning, and the site chosen, with its approvals, is kept on the record.
Further reading
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