At least. If you work an 8 hour day, a 0.5 hour commute each way adds an extra 12.5% to work time commitment each day, and it’s considered unpaid time.
I couldn’t believe how much more time it felt like I had in the day just cutting out the short work commute. You don’t really realize the extent of how much time you waste going into work until it’s gone. Even a short commute adds up quick when you include all the time to get ready in the morning and decompress at night. Plus all the extra maintenance on a daily driver and gas… Companies making people go into the office when it’s not even necessary are just power hungry morons. That’s all there is to it.
And for many, half an hour primping in order to be seen in public. I guess if you’re still in vid convos that somewhat still applies, but for others, now you can lay around in your underwear and stink and still get work done.
My wife was talking about this recently. She used to wake up at 5:30AM everyday, take a shower, blowdry her hair and style it, put on makeup, and prep her lunch by 7AM. Then she’d set out on her 1.5 hour commute to the office.
Once we started working from home, all of that extra time went to sleeping well and relaxing.
If you have complicated health problems that can increase the amount of time done “primping” as well. I generally have to be awake three to four hours before I have to be anywhere and it’s a fucking nightmare.
The traveling time I’m saving by working from home, is directly reinvested into having a walk with the lady and the dogs, including sitting on a bench in the sunshine including a coffee, and if the mood is right, we’re staying for my first meeting at 10:00, …
I went from commuting 1-3 hours a day to zero commute. It is unbelievable how much of a quality of life improvement it is.
I am grateful I worked in a couple offices before switching to fully remote for my next few jobs, because it showed me how much better remote working is for me.
Yup. I have meetings at 8AM. If I had to do them in the office, I’ll have to be up at 6AM to get ready and leave to be able to get to the office in time. If I do it at home, I wake up at 7:50, which gives me almost 2 hours of extra sleep.
If I leave the office at 5PM, I’ll get home around 6PM. At home, I can log off as soon as the clock strikes 5, and now I have an extra hour of time to do whatever.
That adds up to around 3 hours a day that I save from not commuting to an office.
It’s not just the commute even, my “morning routine” is maybe 10 minutes if I’m not going into the office, 30+ if I am. Need to make myself “presentable”, pack some food, make a to go coffee. When I’m able to just snack and make coffee during downtime waiting for replies etc at the office it’s so much easier, I get another hour of sleep if I need it…
If your boss says you must return to the office, after 3 years of WFH. At best, it shows that they do not value or respect you, and are just making an arbitrary decision in a bid to sell more stocks.
At worst, there might be some insidious reason to make employees physically available. Maybe they are getting a kickback somehow, or selling data that they can only get when you are there, or maybe they are just horny and want to seduce you sexually.
A remote worker is often happier, more productive, and cost less to employ even if they are paid the same as an on-site worker. Offices do not have to provide parking, seating, HVAC, power, wifi, and will even have less physical security vectors.
If some people prefer to go into an office, then it should be optional. Not a hybrid model where they force you to come a certain number of days a week.
At the end of the day unless you are on some kind of probation or evaluation period WFH should be the default when ever possible.
Can confirm. I quit my last job because they told us to come back to the office. In 2020, when COVID was still in full swing. And being remote was our company’s entire business model.
Control is another thing. I can’t tell you the amount of execs I’ve heard say “they’re losing control of their company” or “I don’t feel I have the same control over my people”. It’s crazy that they think that. What do they think the past 3 years have been when they’ve gotten record profits “oh, but our profits would be even better if we had people back in the office”. Sadly no amount of data will override the entrepreneurial “it could always be more” what if that they throw out.
I’m working in IT and as my last team lead hasn’t had any technical knowledge in my area, and he didn’t had to for his job, he wouldn’t even be able to control what I’m doing, …
Yeah, but there will also come a tone when the technical lead is being managed by someone with less technical experience than them.
At that point, it is less about telling them what to do and more about making sure they stay productive on tasks and projects that are important to the company.
The last part is important because a lot of the work management does at that level is supposed to be catching all the shit from other departments and setting goals, which does not look like technical work.
He couldn’t control whether you’re doing your work properly, but he can control that you "pretend* to be controlled by him.
It’s never about making you a better worker, it’s just about the illusion of control.
Think about it, when was the last time you had an interaction with your superior that actually had anything to do with your actual job? It’s all just a huge charade.
Any executive who has “lost control” of their business by allowing their employees to work from home is no more than the ring master of a runaway circus that they never actually controlled to begin with.
I’ve had the unfortunate displeasure of working for at least one company that made a full time job of keeping their employees under their thumb and I can say this much: the more you micromanage your workforce, the better your workforce becomes at professional time wasting. By that I mean finding creative ways to look very busy while achieving nothing of benefit to the organization.
But then again, much of the corporate world runs on incompetence so poor business decisions based on some executives feelings, rather than statistics, aren’t exactly rare.
The executives are nervous everyone will realize how overpaid and absolutely fucking useless they are. Every good workplace I’ve ever had, was absolutely nothing to do with the VPs/C levels. The best work places those people are barely involved in most of the day to day.
Control sounds insidious, but there are a lot of ways in which being physically present plays into your psychology and manipulates you into working harder/later/ect. Thinking back to the last time I was in an office, usually when someone was fired/they announced layoffs, the anxiety in the space was palpable. You ended up working later voluntarily just because you were afraid of not being seen at your desk and they’d fire you next.
WFH allows me to be more rational with my employer. They can’t scare me into working harder, and I’m not at all attached to the “office culture” if it suits me better to leave. I think a lot of the “soft power” of the employer-employee relationship comes from physical proximity, which is why you have middle managers not involved with the bottom line profitability rooting for BTO.
I’m on my second probationary period entirely WFH, you shouldn’t be required to work in the office unless the job physically requires it. Return to office is very often a big power grab by shitty management that don’t know how to measure outcomes properly and instead prefer to micromanage. It is one of the biggest red flags.
I have not read the article yet but the headline saying “equivalent to an 8% raise” does not just have to mean some kind of soft value. I have to drive 50 km each way to my office. I am much more likely to eat out while at work ( or to hit a drive-thru on the way home ). Given the price of gas where I live, going to the office probably costs me $50 a day more than staying home. That is $50 after tax so you can simplistically double that in terms of salary that it consumes. If I have two jobs to choose from, from a purely financial stand-point, my current job and a fully remote one that pays me $100 less per day are equivalent in terms of the value they bring to my family.
Crap. I have been a “want to be in the office some of the time” guy but making me actually type this out has made me question that. I think I need to start shopping my CV.
Commuting is also a nightmare. Thats 1-2 hours a day of slog to get to an arbitrary location to do a job that I could do at home. Combine this with school drop offs and pick ups and the ability to do life admin during the week instead of cramming it all on a Saturday with everyone else like pre COVID and WFH is a winner.
I love those benefits. I would be extremely upset if I had to go back to the office. I’m more comfortable at home and I’m able to help my wife care for my son who is special needs. I save on gas and wear and tear on my car. The fact that I can listen to my music while just wearing shorts and a t-shirt was a game changer. IMO people in general suck and it’s nice not to have to interact with them face to face on a daily basis. Some of my coworkers say they miss being in the office. I think they’re nuts.
I can’t go back to working in an office full time anymore. It would be a really difficult adjustment especially losing the time to commuting and needing to deal with child care. Plus we found that we no longer needed a second car anymore since we were both at home so we sold one. Our life is built around not having to commute anymore.
The push has nothing to do with anything but getting money back into real estate. The majority of wealthy people’s money is tied up in either oil or real estate. Billion dollar office buildings going unused is unexplainable to the oligarchy. And I don’t use the word Oligarchy lightly. Combined with less oil being used moving people around, and you have the most powerful people in the western world yelling at business executives to get their workers back in the office or they’ll be unable to barrow money from the 0.0001% small companies don’t have a lot of debt from the Oligarchy so they don’t have to listen to them. But if you know anything, wealthy people don’t like it when the poors don’t filter their money upwards so this fight is long from over.
Conversion would cost billions for most of those buildings. And many of those areas can’t support a population increase on the level of hundreds of thousands of people. It’s do able but these people are not willing to do anything that improves humanity.
If Zoom is trying to get people back into offices, it may not be a real estate issue.
After all, are you going to argue that companies that are more than happy to outsource and offshore work overseas and sell off industrial assets are suddenly going to care about keeping their 4-year leases?
After all, are you going to argue that companies that are more than happy to outsource and offshore work overseas and sell off industrial assets are suddenly going to care about keeping their 4-year leases?
Zoom is beholden to the same investors trying to force everyone back to the office. They are likely required to use office space owned by one of their investors… That or poor leadership that hasn’t adapted to the new environment
It is in the sense that commute time is not paid so compared to commuting jobs your effective hourly wage goes up. Also, commuting time is actually a negative wage.
I think it’s basically saying companies need to pay more if they want people in-office. Which makes sense to me. If you want someone to spend time and money to commute they need to compensate for that. You can’t ask someone who has been WFH to start coming in without some incentive or else you’re basically cutting their pay.
That said, many people won’t switch from WFH to in-office for any amount of money.
It could be considered a raise in terms of the amount of time you dedicate to work and the amount you get paid for it.
8 hour shift plus 1 hour commute both ways means you effectively dedicate 10 hours to your job. Replace the commute with a 30 second walk from your bed to your desk and you are now making more money for your time.
Mind you, I still agree that remote work should never be actively viewed as a raise or a perk. It should be the default for jobs that are compatible, which is a ton of them.
Many people also seem to forget that not everyone has a dedicated room or otherwise extra space to work in. Sure, if you live alone it doesn’t matter but with other people living in the same apartment/house and perhaps them also working remotely, you suddenly need extra space just for good working conditions. Working space has a cost, be it in an office building or at employees’ homes. Also good ergonomics means one needs a good desk and a great office chair which are not cheap to buy. Sure, I wouldn’t necessarily demand more pay just for WFH, but I would never ever ever take a lower compensation in exchange either.
That said, I love working remotely from home and wouldn’t go back to office. It’s just that even if you save time and money in commutes, there are other costs in place that wouldn’t otherwise necessarily exist.
Sure it’s not a raise, but that’s not really the question. The question is the hidden cost that companies are imposing on themselves by demanding that employees come into an office. If employers are going to demand that out of their employees, they should do that with the expectation that employees will ask to be compensated or will leave.
Especially galling since if I were to move to a cheaper region my company would want to pay me less. It’s “we only pay you for the value you bring” when cost of living goes up, but “we want some of those lifestyle savings” if I can get my costs down.
I view it as a benefit, and I’m willing to make concessions on salary for additional or better benefits. Arguably you could have both, but I think unionization is required for that and I’m in a low unionization industry.
Before the pandemic I was spending almost 2 hours a day on my commute to office, while being on site for 9 hours with an unpaid one hour lunch break. That’s 20% of my working hours.
I can use this time for entertainment and side projects
There’s not enough money in the world to pay for the time I save.
Besides, I save a lot on gas and food, and gain much more comfort (my house, my coffee, my chair, my screens, my toilets)
To be perfectly clear, if my company wants me back to office they will have to raise me more than 30%.
I spend $400 a month on gas because of my long commute. Work from home is definitely a raise in my situation. Gas bill goes down to $100 a month. Works out directly to a 5% raise just in gas alone. Car insurance can be switched to leisure only saving money further. Gain an extra two hours a day which were unpaid before, so my workday is now only 8 hours instead of 10, that is another equivalent to 25% on an hourly rate indirectly.
Then there is all the other benefits such as just being happier and more productive.
That’s what I’m saying. Unless they talk about hybrid then yeah it’s equivalent to 8%, but if we’re talking full remote try more like 800% raise to get me back into an office. lol
It might be the average. Some pepole like working from office beacuse they feel lonely at home or they want to separate their work space from their home space.
My parent company issued an RTO for everyone stating the typical corporate talking points (we did great during COVID but now we need to all come back within a month because we all work better together, blah, blah, blah). A half hour later an HR rep had to clarify it was meant to apply only for the parent company. I imagine the parent company is doing poorly and is trying to shake off some workers to cut down on its payroll. The only reason I can think of why they can’t force my smaller company is because we’re actually making them a lot of money so far.
It’s because they need the real estate money, they built a lot of buildings on long term leases which are now expiring. Also, who is going to rent a space for a restaurant when no one is using restaurants for lunch in business districts?
Yes, people didn’t get my comment. We don’t have all the choice and luxury to work for a great company or good project. In old Europe, a 1 WFH was an ultimate privilege before COVID. Nowadays, It should be choice, I don’t mind coming 2 days a week but it to be a “mandatory minimal” 2 days is a bit ridiculous. Still, If I have my own or max 4 seats offices, I’ll be okay with it.
Crazy that it’s so low. I’d assume people who commute to work waste like an hour minimum going to and from work, so 1/9th of their work day is just unpaid “work” as far as I’m concerned.
That’s ignoring all the benefits in comfort at home. I’m surprised it’s just 8%.
I’m not surprised; WFH is a great benefit to workers. The big thing is going to be how companies choose to balance remote and in-person work and it is going to be wildly different across different industries.
From experience I have seen how employers/government were forced back to the office. My Indian colleagues had to return to their offices because the office buildings were empty and it cost money. Government officials either owned or had friends own office buildings and it made monetary sense for them to force workers back to the offices. It was a play between corrupt officials and businesses, nothing more. Well, that and a profound and deep distrust of their workforce. It was a sad sight to see that happening to them.
My guess is that this could also occur the same way in the west.
The giant multinational corporation that owns the company that owns the company that owns the buildings is the same multinational corporation that owns the company that leases the office space.
How are they going to surreptitiously pull money out of the country otherwise?
Government officials either owned or had friends own office buildings and it made monetary sense for them to force workers back to the offices.
Even that is sunk-cost fallacy. If they own the buildings, that means they’re already paid for. The only money they lose is theoretical and non-existent.
Edit: In fact, it costs them more money as you have to pay for utilities, maintenance, overhead, etc. when you fill a big building with people 5 days a week.
There’s gotta be pressure for offices to open up so employees are forced to spend money on food/coffee/dry cleaning/whatever around the building itself too.
I feel for those businesses, but not enough to subsidize their existence when I don’t need it.
Spot on. It is so much more than just ‘already owned a building’. There was an industry created around offices, inside and out. Powers that be (corrupt and otherwise) wanted to keep the gravy train going and so order people back to offices. Does it make sense for people to do so? Largely not I think bit screw the people right? Despicable.
Hey, I agree. It is about corrupt officials and businesses who want to make more. I’m not burning a candle for the (perceived) plight of these monsters 😀
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