How Location, Commuting And Industry Hubs Are Impacting Careers - Including HR

Contact anyone about a new job and the first question is Where is it based? and the second, What is the hybrid policy?

I’m going to touch on a few different areas here all related to location.

With increasing house prices in Dublin there is a growing proportion of the professional population choosing to live in the outer regions of Dublin (outside the M50 ring road) Similarly, commuter towns in surrounding counties, like Louth, Meath, Kildare, and Wicklow have had an influx of people getting out of the city.

How This Affects The Jobs Market

1. People Want Jobs That Are Closer To Their Homes

I find that more candidates are looking for roles closer to home rather than roles that include a commute that’s more than 30-40 minutes long. Speaking to my colleagues in other recruitment agencies, I’ve found that this has fast become the norm across industries. 

For companies located in Dublin’s outskirts , such as North Dublin (D3 D5 D9 D11 D13 D17) and South Dublin’s (D4 D6 D14 D16 D18) location will continue to grow as an issue. Candidates living in West Dublin, Kildare, Meath, West Wicklow, North & South Midlands are increasingly unwilling to travel through Dublin to get to the harder to reach suburbs. 

Even people who are working in hybrid roles are looking for roles closer to where they live rather than face commuting into Dublin. Dublin traffic is a major problem with congestion  causing even longer commutes. And, yes, you might argue that public transport is that answer, however a huge swathe of people still prefer to drive to work. 

According to the CSO’s latest figures, 59% choose to drive to work compared to a combined figure of just 9% who opt to commute by Dart, LUAS or bus.

For professionals living outside of the Greater Dublin area and working in a Dublin-based hybrid job, two days seems to be the maximum number of days that they want to be onsite for.

2. Many Employers Aren’t Taking Employees’ Home Locations Into Account

Before deciding on hybrid policies, I wonder if employers could look at their existing workforce a little closer, and map out where everybody is located. In the long term, it’s unlikely that companies will be able to hold onto staff who have to commute every day.

Perhaps there’s an opportunity here for HR software creators to add a mapping function for employers. Something like how Google Maps uses address pins, or how daft.ie and booking.com offer map functions. That way they can be more strategic with their hiring and WFH/Hybrid policies. Or maybe this already exists and I’m just not aware of it.

3. Industry Clusters by Geographical Location

Dublin 1, 2, and 4 have a high concentration of corporates in key industries such as finance, professional services, tech, and legal companies. If you are an employer in one of these industries but your offices are located away from this central district there is a real possibility that you could fail to attract talent based on location. Especially if you’re not offering attractive hybrid opportunities.

On the flip side, a professional living in Kildare or Meath, working in Dublin city centre in an industry such as finance or legal who wants a role closer to home will face a challenge finding a relevant role in their industry that’s better located. The industries and employers that are more likely to be based closer to them or out around the M50 ring road and surrounding counties are industries such as Pharma, Manufacturing, Distribution and FMCG.

But, HR Can Move To Any Industry - Right?

Yes and no.

Essentially, it depends on the hiring manager, but let's look at the reasons why a company in Group B prefers to hire candidates with experience in group B, as opposed to A. 

Key: 

Group A = HR people in financial, professional services, tech, etc

Group B = HR people in pharma, manufacturing, distribution, FMCG, etc

HR professionals who have worked in an industry like FMCG, manufacturing, distribution, or pharma are more likely to have worked roles that have a multi-site nature. They are also more likely to have worked with bigger workforces and have more experience in areas such as employee relations. 

HR professionals coming from industries like tech and financial services often have more of a focus on talent, development, succession planning, rewards etc.   

So, yes, as a HR professional, you can move industry but there are distinct groups where it is easier to move within that circle. These groups are based on similarities such as typical org designs, number of sites, type of workforce, industry trends & challenges. I understand there are industries I haven’t mentioned, but I am keeping this simple to illustrate my point. However, nearly every industry will fit into Group A or Group B. There will be some examples, such as a large scale retailer where there is a split workforce between a large corporate HQ and large presence of multi-site retail & distribution staff. In this instance it depends where your role sits.

So what’s my point? I think many people overlook the importance of industry when it comes to choosing their next HR role, and rarely do people think about geographical industry clusters when looking at their career paths. 

Here are some examples to further illustrate my point:

John, a HR Business Partner living in Kells, Co Meath, 10 years experience in Financial Services. Employer has announced a new policy of 4 days onsite per week. John is looking to find a new job closer to home. To John's surprise, he struggles to find suitable employment within a shorter commutable distance. Why? Because the majority of companies located in this region are in Group B.

Roisin, a Head of HR with 15 years’ Tech experience relocates to Newbridge, Co Kildare, and a few years later is made redundant. Roisin wants to find a job with a max commute of 40 minutes by car no more than 3 days a week but unfortunately she struggles because the majority of the companies in this region are in Group B.

So that do we need to consider when planning our careers?

We need to be aware of our surroundings, if you live in a central location then this impacts you a lot less, but if you are living outside the M50 and believe that you will be there long-term then it would be sensible to map out what major companies are within a 25 km radius, and identify if there are any patterns with industry type.

Everybody is quick to think about their next move, but I always encourage people to think how the next move will affect the move after that. Let’s revisit our example above, John. I’m not ruling out that John may secure a suitable role but he could adopt a longer term approach. One scenario is that he expands his radius search and takes a role back in Dublin City but it’s with a large Pharma company that has a manufacturing & distribution arm. This gives John new experience and brings him out of the FS pigeon hole, 2 years later John secures a Senior BP role with a large-scale manufacturer 20 minutes from his home. He was strategic with his career planning. 

Where we live, where we work, and how we get to work will always be huge factors. 

With the urban sprawl of Dublin and average transport infrastructure I think these challenges are here to stay. I think it’s really important that each company thinks for themselves, looks at their geographical region compared with their competitors, their existing workforce, where the external talent pool is, what transport links they have, and of course carefully analysing each business unit and the need for it to be onsite.

When we think about all of this geographically, we can understand why some companies who are 4-5 days onsite are still attracting and retaining talent, and why others are getting grief over having a 3 day onsite hybrid model and not 1-2. Companies need to do what is right for them, not copy a new industry norm or 3 days on 2 days.