I’ve never lived in South Dakota or Northwest Arkansas, although I’ve visited both places several times. I do live in Chicago, though, and I appreciate that, like my city, other states have a history, geology, economy and culture that create a sense of place that is unique.

It’s not that I haven’t moved around: After college I lived in Manhattan (N.Y.), Florida and Texas, a state (formerly its own country) that invented sense of place.” And I know that I am most at home in Chicago.

The dislocation and distress that comes from moving long distances has plagued me at times, and I was relocating voluntarily; I can’t imagine the emotional and physical disruption of facing a big move because someone else demands it.

So yes, I’m talking about Tyson Foods’ surprise announcement that it would consolidate 1,000 corporate jobs in South Dakota and the metro Chicago area at world headquarters in Springdale, Ark. The "OneTyson" move will happen in stages over some period of time, with relocated employees enjoying a newly expanded headquarters campus with indoor and outdoor spaces “designed to foster collaboration, connection and creativity,” Tyson said in a news release. The move is intended to encourage faster decision-making in running its vast protein businesses, the company said.

Individuals move around the country and around the world for their employers — and the military — and bring their families with. If you’re on the executive track for an international conglomerate or joined the armed services, you know upfront that it’s part of the package. Clearing thousands from their offices (the production facilities in South Dakota will remain) at one time is a different proposition.

There are precedents. In August 2018, then-Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that the agency’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture would move, wholesale, out of the D.C. area. Hundreds of high-paying jobs were promised to Kansas City, the community ultimately chosen as the agencies’ new home. The decision generated plenty of opposition, from Congress, from the USDA’s Office of the Inspector General, and most of all, from the employees.

By February 2021, the now KC-based agencies reportedly were operating at about half-staff and the workload on remaining and new staffers was, in turn, about doubled. In May 2022, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in congressional testimony that the agencies had hired about 450 new employees, bringing to total to 650 out of a goal of 750 ERS and NIFA employees. A federal General Accounting Office report published in April noted that the relocation plan, and the cost savings it promised to produce, simply assumed all the existing employees would move; the loss of expertise and institutional memory proved far costlier than any financial calculation predicted.

The pandemic, of course, complicates the dynamic. Theoretically, for example, the Kansas City-based agencies could rehire the expertise that still resides in Washington and have them work remotely. So, theoretically, could Tyson retain longstanding employees with a remote option? Presumably most of these corporate jobs are dependent on communications technology anyway, and many likely are peripatetic sales positions.

Gathering employees in a centralized location does foster cross-pollination of ideas far more easily than a remote set-up; I know, our company works entirely remotely and maintaining a casual camaraderie is a deliberate effort. But how much benefit is there to the company if most of the employees are brand-new and looking for direction? What cost is there to losing the employees who will leave Tyson rather than uproot their lives?

Tyson Foods has been very clear that the relocation of these operations beginning in 2023 does not involve layoffs. It doesn’t have to; Tyson looks likely to lose hundreds of professionals from its ranks anyway.

'OneTyson': A good move?

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