I worked at a place where a junior developer announced shortly after starting that he was moving 3 time zones away. The company decided to continue to employ him. It was probably doomed no matter what they did, but they also insisted he work on a VM at the company headquarters, and didn't have him visit the team in person on a regular schedule.

Edit: In this situation, he was hardly local first, given the short time between his hire and his moving far away. All of which is to say I agree with the poster I replied to.