Bosses and workers still can’t agree on whether the commute is part of the work day, and it’s creating a $578 billion productivity problem
Bosses and workers still can’t agree on whether the commute is part of the work day, and it’s creating a $578 billion productivity problem
It's creating a $578 billion productivity problem
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I used to work for a company that had the right idea. We brought our work trucks home, and our work day started when we turned the key, and ended when we got home.
Had to be at a job for 8 and it was an hour away? You were paid for that. Only had a job 5 minutes away? Enjoy the extra sleep in time and the short commute home.
Now, this is way different than an office job that is stationary, but there is definitely a conversation to be had about it. If nothing else, it may have more companies going back to taking WFH seriously again instead of needlesslt forcing people back into office spaces in order to prop up the commercial real estate sector.
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When I had a 1hr commute through heavy city traffic, I needed a break when I walked in the door. It took me at least an hour to get up the energy to do anything. Most of the time I would sip coffee while pretending to read e-mails or talk to coworkers. My body might be there but I wasn't doing anything. So the company was paying for my recovery time from the "work" of the commute.
I don't know why any company would push an employee into a long commute if it's not necessary. It costs the company a ton of money in productivity.
It's the problem with companies focusing on time spent, not productivity. I can waste a ton of time and get nothing done if I am so inclined.
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In many Labor Economic Models, the distinction in Time is measured as Time spent working vs Time spent not working, in which the commute is factored. Many companies deal with people's reluctance to commute by offering better pay or better benefits (if they're seeking specific skillsets that are more difficult to find close by), but sometimes you find a gem like your company.
I know it would be difficult to implement for many companies, but I wish more companies did something like that when they could. The company I work for doesn't pay for commutes from home, but will pay for them if you are temporarily relocated to a different office by calculating the distance between the two offices and average fuel price
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From what understand that is following the U.S. tax code. The commute from your home to your assigned work location is considered the employees responsibility. If they are temporarily assigned to another location further away, the difference in mileage is considered a business expense. In some states they are required to pay the employee. In others it's an allowable wage theft, the company claims the mileage and doesn't reimburse the employee.
I drive a work vehicle. I have to declare how many personal miles I used the vehicle for yearly. Personal miles are all non-company related miles and the commute to my primary office. This benefit is considered income and taxed.
Currently my primary office is my home so 95% of my miles are business. At my last job they assigned my primary office to one 20 miles away (even though I was only there 1 day every 2 weeks). As such 20% of my miles were personal. A real dick move in my opinion but perfectly legal.
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Oh it’s simple. Would you be commuting if you didn’t have the job? No? Then it’s work related and should be compensated.
If you have a two hour daily commute you should be paid for those two hours. Hell the company should probably pay for the cost of commuting and a tax for offsetting the emissions.
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In the US, commutes aren’t covered and that’s part of law. However, the FLSA was passed in the 30s and the Portal-to-Portal Act was passed in the 40s so it’s arguably time to reevaluate.
As pro labor as I am, I do think it’s reasonable to put some cap on commute times so that commuters can’t abuse it. The hard part is coming up with a good one. You can’t give a max time without some idea of things like housing, public transportation, commute costs, etc. because then employers could abuse it by setting up offices away from everything or setting the radius too low.
A completely different problem for paid commutes is that suddenly it becomes work time. When I had a shit job doing pool inspections, the city controlled my time in the car from the office to the pools and back. The city did not control my time commuting. If the company is paying me for my commute, I’m on the clock, which means they can reasonably ask me to do things like not listen to my podcasts or take specific routes. If I’m on public transport, they can reasonably ask me to do work because I’m being paid. My solution here is working from home.
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If the company is paying me for my commute, I’m on the clock, which means they can reasonably ask me to do things like not listen to my podcasts or take specific routes. If I’m on public transport, they can reasonably ask me to do work because I’m being paid.
You do work: you commute.
If the company wants you to do some other kind of work in that time, they can offer an office space in your car or public transport... or have you stay at your home office, it's up to them.
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I would move as far as possible from the job site. 2 hours one way on a train watching Netflix, 4 hours work, 2 hours relax on the train. That would be nice.
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…and you just wouldn’t get hired, because the guy who lives next to their office is a more attractive option, even if he’s only 80% as productive as you.
And that’s arguably why it makes some sense; companies would be more likely to hire more locally and be more flexible about remote work - both of which save precious planetary resources ánd people’s time.
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You're highlighting that it's not a great solution, but at least a 2 hours of flat payment per office call would be an acknowledgement of my time considering it's an hour each way for the majority of people.
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Literally happened at a place I worked at. They hired people near to the work, who then within a year bought a cheap house out in the boonies and increased their commute to 3+ hours daily. And they got paid for it. Such a stupid policy (for the company, I don't blame the workers for taking advantage).
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There should be a reasonable limit of one hour in normal traffic for the commute each way though. Basing it on time would encourage companies to be flexible on start/end times to avoid needing to pay for people to sit in traffic, and there should be some kind of high but not crazy limit on commute time.
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Yes I should only have to kiss and lick one boot a day each way maximum.
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Imagine how much more chill everyone on the road would be if they were getting paid to be there.
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Is a worker on the road for their own benefit or for the benefit of their employer? Do people voluntarily choose to drive in godawful rush hour traffic 5 days a week just for shits and giggles, or is it because times are mandated by their employer?
Fuck you. Pay me.
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On the other hand, should the distance a employment candidate lives from work be material to the companies employment decision? Should an employees housing options be dictated by the employer?
Maybe employees deserve compansation for commutes, and maybe a company changing their in-office policy should include compensation to make up for the impact to the employees lives.
It's a nuanced debate. In the military, housing on post is free, and those who chose to live off post receive a housing allowance. You could say this is a comparable arrangement. But the military also dictates where you live, and you don't have quite the freedom as you do with a private employer. Huh, just something else to think about.
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Maybe employees deserve compansation for commutes,
If companies charge to have their workers commute to work locations to do jobs for them, then yes, they should.
Basically the flip side of the coin of, for example, a plumber coming out to your house to fix a leaky pipe charging you for him to actually come out to the house regardless of any work done when he gets there.
and maybe a company changing their in-office policy should include compensation to make up for the impact to the employees lives.
Well a company should make sure compensation is satisfactory enough for the best talent to do the best work for them.
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On the other hand, should the distance a employment candidate lives from work be material to the companies employment decision?
This only seems like a difficult question if it's one worker having the conversation with their employer. The moment it's one employer vs. all their workers, the answer is obviously yes, with the employer left footing the bill.
Why would the employer have to foot the bill when they could just fire all their workers and hire people who live closer? Because our housing market is hell and nobody lives closer. Either businesses will have to pay for commutes directly by treating them as hours worked, or they'll have to pay for them indirectly by relocating their offices to places where workers actually live.
Given how sprawled we all are, the latter will be the more expensive option. At least, until sufficiently large businesses lobby governments to subsidize the costs of relocating their offices... ugh.
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Should an employees housing options be dictated by the employer?
Only if employees can dictate where employers have their offices at, to make their commuting life easier.
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On the other hand, should the distance a employment candidate lives from work be material to the companies employment decision?
I don't think a company would want to restrict themselves by using that as a criteria, because someone who is much better for the position but lives farther away may be excluded for the person who lives closer who cannot do the job as well.
Cost to employer is calculated based on many factors, the capability of the worker doing the work is one of them.
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It’s a nuanced debate.
Actually, I'm big on nuanced conversations, but I really don't think it is in this case, I think what you been expressing is more strawmanning than actual real world scenarios.
In the military, housing on post is free, and those who chose to live off post receive a housing allowance. You could say this is a comparable arrangement. But the military also dictates where you live, and you don’t have quite the freedom as you do with a private employer.
I don't think you can use this as a justification for the points you've been expressing, as a military and a corporation are two very different things, and the responsibilities of persons to each of them is very different, and not comparable.
Huh, just something else to think about.
Well, real conversations are always better than just attempts to redirect the narrative, that's for sure.
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People don't choose to commute for "shits and giggles", but there is choice involved in how long your commute is, if it's a job that pays well enough that moving is an option. To be clear, if a job is changing from remote to in-office, I think it should absolutely come with a pay increase to compensate for that increased labor of getting to the office. But should you be paid for the time spent commuting as if they're working hours? That doesn't seem right to me.
I live in a city with ridiculous urban sprawl. However, I choose to live in a smaller apartment with a higher $/sq ft so that my commute is just a 10 min bike ride. I chose it both because it saves me time and reduces the amount of pollution I'm contributing every day. I have coworkers, though, that choose to live as far as 2 hrs drive each way, outside of the reach of the city's public transport. I've asked, and their reasons are: to be closer to their relatives, to be in a part of town they just like better, for lower cost housing so they can spend more elsewhere, or bc they want their kids to be raised in a suburb instead of the city. They all technically could live closer, but they choose not to because they have other priorities. Which is fine and valid, but still ultimately a choice.
So, should my coworkers be paid up to 50% more than me (4 hrs per day!) because of their choice? Or to say it another way, should I be paid less than them because of my choice that is already costing me more in rent? Wouldn't that actually incentivize longer commutes and the problems that come with it, like more road congestion and more pollution? Realistically, I think employers would stop employing those who live so far because they're not actually getting more value from the employee that's costing them 50% more.
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The transportation situation in the US is fully the failure of cities, states and the federal government to fund and plan for adequate land use and transport networks.
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I could not agree more. The vast majority of American cities seem to have been thrown together ad hoc one development at a time with zero planning for mass transit with a few exceptions like Chicago.
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In person work should be taxed to pay for the roads, transit, and congestion costs they cause if we really wanna get all 'let's measure productivity' about this.
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Your commute is your own problem, I don't pay my employees for driving to work, they can always move closer to the office or sleep in their cars in the parking lot overnight if driving home and back is such a big deal.
So no, I won't be paying you to drive home and furthermore, at my businesses I have a swear jar policy; every swear word an employee says I take a dollar/hour off their pay for that day. So watch your potty mouth or you'll be the one who ends up paying me.
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I have seen you thinking similarly on other posts. Are you actually a business owner or just a troll? Based on that second paragraph I have to believe you're just a troll.
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Forcing companies to pay for commute time would also force companies to lobby for more efficient public transport and cycleways, and limit private car access to areas with regular traffic jams. In addition, there are certain job categories where driving time is limited by law: truck drivers, bus drivers, and others. However, these rules only apply when the driver is being compensated for being on the road. So, your bus driver may have driven for two hours to get to work, and now he's towards the end of his nine-hour shift, bone-tired. If the company was forced to pay him for his commute, his shift would end after seven hours, and possibly five (if he has to drive back home for another two hours). That would improve road safety. I think the two aspects - more public transport and more road safety - should be enough for everyone to support the idea of paid commute.
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Would also encourage employers to allow remote working
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It would also give employers a shared incentive to address the cost of housing. It would either incentivize the companies to not build all the jobs in a single location (ie. downtown of a major city), or it would give them an incentive to pursue policies that would lower the costs of housing in major metropolitan areas.
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Holy shit that made a lot of sense.
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Commutes are part of the work day if the employer does not allow WFH. How else is the employee supposed to show up for work?
There is no reason to debate, it's clear as day. But the greedy, rich assholes on the reins think everyone should be honored to waste their lives working under them.
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Commutes are part of the work day if the employer does not allow WFH. How else is the employee supposed to show up for work?
This.
Our country went mostly work-from-home for over a year, and people were more productive, not less. If you're going to inconvenience your work force unnecessarily then you should pay for it, absolutely.
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WFH?
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Work from home
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It’s easy:
Are you requesting I as a worker dedicate any part of my time, and/or usage of my personal resources to accomplish something for YOUR business? Yes it’s part of the work day.
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This would create an issue where they only hire people in close proximity. This is terrible, for a number of reasons.
Nepotism gets exponentially worse and is then excused, poor areas will be effected the most because they lack businesses
I think a better solution is allowing people who have longer commutes to write it off on their taxes. This prevents the issues above
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Also, half the time, I’m literally taking work meetings during my commute because I’m both required to physically be in the office and also start taking meetings before I can even get to work.
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When meetings are scheduled while I'm on my way home (I work 07:00 to 15:00 so it happens regularly), I fill my timesheet to show that as work time. I'm happy to argue if I ever get called on it
I have participated in meetings on the bus, in my car, on my bicycle, and while at the hair dresser, all that was work time
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This doesn't entirely make sense, since commute is only a part of the routine. You could say, you wouldn't be taking a shower, so the employer has to pay for the water and the time you spend in the shower, etc.
The employer has no influence on where you live, why would they be paying for it?
If the company is paying for your skills, sitting in traffic is not one of them. So it's up to you to optimise your commute. (I.e. Bike, train, etc.)
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If i live 3 hours from my workplace my employer should pay me for the six hours to get to and from?
maybe I'm old school...
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more reasonably would be something like the first 30 mins of commuting counts as working hours, as an example
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Very unrealistic example to use.. It would be very unusual for anyone to take a job that's 3 hours away and make a six hour commute daily, while working an 8 to 10 hour work day.... that example is not the norm and would never be the norm for majority. But let's say for arguments sake you example works.... yes the employer should pay you for that extreme commute... absolutely.. but maybe I am more new school which was bound to happen as time wore on in society
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No, i am expecting you to be at your place of agreed work that you were well aware of, at a time we agreed as stipulated in your agreement that you were open to reject if it was not suitable for you.
Its not the employers job to tell you where to live, how to get to work, or what to spend you time doing outside of work hours. Don't like the commute - pick a different job or move, you're an adult who can make these decisions.
Better yet, start a business where you pay your employees this way.
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Don't like the commute - pick a different job or move, you're an adult who can make these decisions.
Well yeah, that's what's happening. That's what sparked this debate.
People ARE leaving their jobs for other organizations that allow work from home, getting paid more in some instances too.
If a competing business can't offer more than what the same work from home jobs are offering for the same position, work from home will win every time. Just like you said, it's business. Supply and demand, in a tidy work offer contract based on what is agreed upon.
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Return to office mandates would be a lot more palatable if we didn't have to live an hour and a half away in rush hour bumper to bumper traffic because the average person can't afford to live anywhere near the central business district anymore.
Or if we could take nonexistent public transit.
Or if we could ride a bike or walk without getting run over by a moron in their suv.
We have so many issues I don't know where to start. Personally I want to RTO. I'm sick of working from home. But with issues like that..fuck..
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Why on earth would you want to return to the office? Social vampires exist there.
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I like working in the office because I have a way better setup there and don't have room at home to do the same thing. I also like the mental separation my commute gives between work life and home life (usually, sometimes people piss me off so much I can't shake it before I get home). That being said the more people who WFH the better. Traffic during Covid was great and the office was never quieter.
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Because I want to work at work and be home at home. It never stops when I'm working from home because I'm expected to always be on. I find it more efficient to pull up a chair and sit down next to someone going over things line by line. I miss learning through osmosis which is what I call it when you hear people talking about something you're vaguely aware of but never really saw in real life but maybe read an article on once. So you go and look over their shoulder and learn something new. (Someone on lemmy called me a horrible person because of this once so hopefully you're not a toxic SOB like average lemming.) Mostly though I just find it like herding cats, trying to get work done when everyone is in a different time zone and may or may not be online..it's just incoherent. It's fine to work from home here and there if you have a few hours of technical work that you just need to knock out. But overall I find it much more effective to be in office. IMHO
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Or if we could take nonexistent public transit.
This makes the whole debate so much easier. I work in the train and bike for three minutes. My whole transit is billable and is billed.
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If only! My commute is about a half hour and really isn't that bad all things considered. Any more than that though and I'd be grumpy about it.
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Australia followed America's lead for quite a while so our cities are set up with a commercial zone surrounded (connected by road) to suburban zones
Fortunately now they're starting to build residential towers right in town, but I really want them to let people build out workplaces in suburbia
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Set minimum wage for any in-office position to match the amount required to purchase a house within 15 minutes average transit to the office.
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Some people just want to watch the world burn. I love it haha
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Sometimes the old has to be burned down to prepare the ground for new growth.
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I say it, knowing that there's no possibility of it happening in the current day but, really, it's the only way that's fair for both sides and removes most potential discriminatory policies. If a business can't afford to pay its workers enough to have a decent life, they can't afford to be in business.
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Or reform land and housing so the landlord grifters stop fucking everyone over simply for having their name in a registry of who owns what.
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Porque no los dos?
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So that's, what, $1,500,000 per hour?
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I'm not sure what area has average cost of houses around $2.8B but, if that's the cost, sure. That is, of you're not trying to imply that the "Wage-Price Spiral" exists, despite all evidence contrary.
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Do I have to perform the commute to be employed at Job X? If so, sure as hell sounds like a part of Job X to me.
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I don’t think you want to work at X…
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Especially as a moderator
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In general, bosses want white collar workers to work 24/7 — at home, on the train, in the car, etc. etc. It’s ridiculous. Push to keep your work and home life separate. And if your boss expects you to work on your commute, count those hours towards your “40 a week”.
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I actually wouldn't mind counting the commute towards my workday if we had reliable public transit with secure wifi around here. I could get set up, go through emails, square my head for the workday, etc. on the way in and wind down, answer emails, finish up small tasks on the way back. All while actually committing 8 hours a day to my employer rather than 8 plus commute time. Could allow more flexibility for folks living further away from their office as well.
I feel like the argument against is always going to be the same though. Work outside the office isn't Real Work because Real Work can only happen in a cubicle under surveillance. It's the same reason they don't want us to work from home
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When I remote in on the bus to/from work, that's work hours. It's slightly cheating on the maximum 40% WFH but I haven't had complaints. I share network from my phone
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Lots of bickering about how it works now vs how it should work. Meanwhile I'm going crazy that nobody is pointing out how much of the burden of the commute is placed on the worker. It's literally thousands of dollars a year in being licensed to drive, vehicle registration, insurance costs, variable and ever increasing gas prices, repair and maintenance. Every single aspect of the commute is a burden on the worker, and corporations take it for granted. It's not factored into most people's pay rate or compensation. Whether or not the employer should be held responsible for relieving some of the burden, we should recognize that workers need to lessen this burden one way or another. Increasing tax deductibles to include commute time isn't an unreasonable first step. Treat it just like travel for any other work related reason.
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I've been lucky enough to have one job that did pay for transit. Specifically, they would pay for a weekly bus pass for any employer that wanted one, plus monthly bikeshare membership for any employee that wanted that. It was solid.
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Here in Alberta if you work in oil, they'll pay for your hour(s) driving to the site and back.
(Not saying those jobs have fair wages or oil execs divide it fairly or anything of that substance)
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You americans propably see this differently, but in europe it's very simple:
The employer need you to come to work. He doesn't care where you live and how long your commute is.
The worker can chose an employer close to his home, or relocate and live close to the employer. Generally, if it's a priority, the worker can live within walking distance of the employer. If other priorities overrule proximity, there's likely still public transport to get to work.
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That is NOT the case in all of Europe. Stop making the rest of us look bad because your country mistreats workers.
At least I got the answer to my "sarcastic or bootlicking moron" question from earlier 🤦
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So you are saying it ought to be this way or it already is?
In the Netherlands it's quite common to receive €0.21 per km tax free (which doesn't cover the cost of the commute unless you ride a bicycle). I have a job that comes with an EV as a perk, including all charging expenses for company and private use both. I only have to pay for charging outside of the Netherlands. I do pay an extra tax for private use, but since it's an EV that's not a big amount at the moment. Some people receive a country wide public transit pass as a perk.
So if your claim is that there is no commute compensation anywhere in Europe, you're wrong. If you say it ought not to exist, well then I simply disagree.
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I just spent a couple weeks in Germany and Spain. The weather was nice, not too hot not humid even in September. Cities are walkable with clear defined pedestrian paths and bike lanes. Rent was affordable (I looked at a few places for fun and everything was cheaper than the dump I live in far from city center). Seems like it's way easier to live close to work and commute on foot or by bike than it is here.
Take a look at this video about North American stroads. It's really enlightening about how awful commuting is in the US (and maybe Canada but idk).
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this is exactly the logic in the US as well. except we're more tethered to jobs because of our malignant healthcare system and general lack of a social safety net. and most of us barely, barely have public transport as an option
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I think this makes the most sense. Increasing mobility makes Capitalism more efficient. Public transportation should also be free because of the benefits they have on society. People should also be taxed on miles driven with an additional cost based on weight of the vehicle. Then subtract work commute mileage from salary and tax the remainder.
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Everything about American cities, car culture, corporate culture, and so on is proving to be a failing model. What a mess.
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Second: Workers aren’t grasping the managerial challenges of leading a remote workforce.
I can grasp it pretty well: Shitty managers can't tell if someone's working without watching them, so they're panicking. Managers who can measure their teams output more accurately than asses-in-chairs aren't having a problem.
As the experts have maintained for years, a flexible hybrid schedule is almost always the proper approach.
The proper approach to have people sitting in an office on a Zoom call, maybe. I've never seen hybrid be as effective as either fully remote or fully on premises.
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Spot on. I'm a people manager and I set my expectations on productivity early and give them the freedom to make their own choices as to how and where they spend their time. At the end of the day, if they didn't get the work done, they're held accountable for it. Wish my own boss understood this.
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When they forced me back into the office I didn’t ask permission, I’m just subtracting the hours I commute from my workday. Nobody I work with is in the office I go to so I just poke the mouse every 15min and tether my personal laptop to my phone for the first couple of hours while I decompress from the hour commute. Nobody ever comes by my cube, I’m just in a depressing beige box all day hating the company that’s making me be there.
I used to like my job and go out of my way to find and solve problems. Sometimes I’d work at night if there was something interesting I’d found. Now I’m never ever online after I get home and I’m doing enough to not get fired.
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The Bobs know what you're talkin about.
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I want to make a ‘give my back my god damn stapler or I’ll burn the building down’ joke, but it’s a highrise and I don’t want to be on some FBI list or something.
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same. i find extended toilet breaks to be a convenient time sink
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I would subtract the time I could have spent sleeping more and the time it took me to get ready. That’s my time!
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If I have to travel for work on a plane or outside a certain mileage it's compensated. Therefore, travel is part of work and I should be compensated.
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The US tax code disagrees but I do not.
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Although I agree with what everyone is saying "that it make sense to compensate workers for the commute in time and money", I'd like to nuance a little, because I think it is a bit more complicated from a moral standpoint: Imagine employer were paying for your commute and you were on the clock during it, what happen when you move to another appartment/house further from work ? Should the employer continue to pay and clock your longer commute ? It seems weird that my decision to move to another part of the city would affect my employer. The consequence would be that employer will mandate that you cannot move without their appoval or that their cost for your commute is fixed in the contract and need to be renegociable. In the end what it boils down to is not that commute should be paid for and part of the work day. What people want is better salaries and smaller hours. Then the commute doesn't matter anymore, and stays at the expense of the worker who can therefore move wherever they want.
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What people also want is to work from home if possible.
To stay out of the adult kindergarten managers desperately want to put people into for reasons entirely unrelated to productivity.
Paying for the commute would be the boss paying the cost of the unnecessary demand for repeated physical presence.
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The programmers especially on my team agree with you 200%
My team works from four locations in three states, two time zones. We work on the computer, we meet on Teams, we chat on Teams. Occasionally we phone reach other
The other IT people are happy to be in the office occasionally to catch up with others in the office, the programmers overall don't
So they commute typically about an hour each way on days they must be in the office to work exactly as they do at home and have about as much social contact
Some of them are quite unhappy with the situation
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Paying for commute expense is already a solved problem.
Some examples, a fixed amount based on data provided every month for commute. (200 dollars a month or whatever)
Or if a company wants to be both stingy and generous at the same time, make you expense your gas or public transportation every month up to a certain limit.
It doesn't matter if you move to a different part of town. The cost is negligible to a business.
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The expense half may be cheap, but does the time count as wages? That could be non trivial.
In my case, I leave the house an hour before work, but I have some errands I run. When does my "commute" begin? If I wanted to cheat and bump my pay, drive to a park and ride near work and show up on the bus, which wouldn't be that much longer than normal. Then show my employer the public transit route from my house that would have a 2.5 hour transit time, and claim the extra 3-4 hours as pay.
It's such a tricky gray area. On the one hand it is unfair to lose hours to a commute on your own time, on the other it creates ways to cheat the system that should be difficult to audit, unless I give my employer permission to track me, which seems unreasonable.
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what happen when you move to another appartment/house further from work ?
Because employers have never forced indirect layoff by changing a person's office location without agreement to make them quit instead of being fired.
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exactly, this is a non issue. if someone wants to go through the immense hassle and expense of moving just to get like 30mins more pay daily, ok
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Where I live, I have to calculate (and show the process of calculation) the cheapest cost of getting to and back from work from my house. My boss simply pays me that much each workday. If I move, I have to do this calculation again. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to get to work (i.e. I'm not "on the clock"), they are simply imbursing me for that part.
Ironically, sometimes moving further away is both cheaper and faster.
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The only reason I own a car is to get to work. Otherwise I’d use public transport and delivery services all the time.
Therefore, 90% of the time I use my car is in service of my job. Getting to the office and coming home from the office. Therefore my commute is entirely based on the fact that I’m going to or from work. Otherwise I wouldn’t be using the car, sitting in traffic.
So yeah, it’s 100% ‘on the clock’ time, even if they want to somehow argue it isn’t. Even if I wanted a car for things like grocery shopping or getting elsewhere in the city, the time spent in traffic going to or from work, and the wear and tear on the vehicle during that time is because of my job. Therefore my job should pay for my time and the vehicle maintenance. Period.
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I'm not paid well at my current job but it's also close and I can walk/bike.
I'm looking at jobs that pay me a lot more and it's not worth it since I have to buy, license, and maintain a car then on top of that I'm driving into work, which blows.
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Allow WFH and pay us if you want us to come in.
Also, I remember paying for travel time when we needed a technician to come to our house and service something. So there is already precedent that traveling for work counts as work in itself. Hopefully that actually went to the tech and not their boss.
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I like working in the office, but I hate having to spend an unpaid amount of time commutinh to work. If I could get paid travel time I'd be a very happy man.
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Yeah, this is it. While I prefer WFH, I don’t mind working in the office, but I don’t want to spend more time driving to and from, that’s just more lost free time.
My company actually closed the office where I worked because we all went 100% remote and they never forced the issue. Had they tried to, it wouldn’t have helped their case that we have dozens of other employees all over the country not linked to either of the company’s offices.
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Well.....It wasn't part of my work day, but I came on as a remote employee. Now that they are telling me that I need to come in 3 days a week with no comp increase, you can bet your butt that I will be counting that commute as part of my work day.
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Nothing like plonking that work laptop open on the train and billing for your time
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My company is going to be pushing for three days a week in the office soon. I find it suspicious that so many other components have landed on three days as the magic number. They clearly get together and plan this shit behind our backs.
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I don't think it's that much of a coincidence that everyone landed on the same number... a) word travels, and b) pick a number between 2 and 4
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It's bullshit. If it was 50/50 a pair of parents could have opposite days in the office to have someone always there for the children
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It's for taxes. 3days a week means that you're an in office employee for most subsidies.
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If I didn't choose to do it, its part of the work day.
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When I worked in Belgium not only did they pay for your transit costs, they even paid for your car, phone, and lunch. Granted the car and phone were contingent on you having a use for them for your work, but still.
This was nearly 20 years ago.
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I work in belgium now. Electronics Engineer
The car is because they don't pay you shit for actual salary and a car is a huge tax cut (they budget 500 euros per month at my company). However, CoL is lower than America in most places.
They don't pay your transit costs, some jobs have "meal check" compensation so 8€ per day or so. Not bad. Only some companies give phones. Probably ad many give work phones in America.
Also there is minimal or no pension fund contribution in many/most jobs and the pension system is on the brink of collapse it seems. No Roth IRAs here or anything. Don't get paid enough to invest in anything. Everything goes into the house here because almost every single house that is affordable to people under 40 has to be stripped and fully renovated.
Also jobs are scarce right now. 2 companies hiring for PCB design stuff within 25 km of my house...
But as a whole, 32 required days of holiday by law, going to the doctor costs 4€ instead of 400, there isn't any stigma about using all of your holiday, and consumer and worker protections are very good! Plus great public transportation.
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A lot of those problems are true in the US/Canada as well (maybe more so; eg. pension). But unlike the US/Canada you get compensated for lunch and transit. AND you get a huge amount of time off. That alone is already drastically better than what you get in the US/Canada. Sure, if you make big bucks that's mostly moot, but most people don't.
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When I did WFH my boss insisted that because I didn't have to commute I should have all my tools up before my shift even starts.
I didn't last very long.
This same company got sued up the ass when we were in office for trying to say we needed to have all our tools up before clocking in. But somehow WFH made it ok.
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Pre-shift prep time is paid. At my last shift job, we were expected to be there and ready before the shift started, but we also got paid for that time.
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In the EU it is legally part of the work day, thought not many act on it. EU Supreme Court already ruled it as so.
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That ruling is limited. It only applies for jobs where there is no local job site, e.g. construction workers who have changing construction sites.
If you work in an office or factory, or if your work is limited to a certain region (e.g. you clean houses in an area), then commuting to the office/factory/region is not part of the work day.
Otherwise you would get weird situations where people could apply to distant jobs and the employer having to pay those costs and hours. Get a job with a 2 hour one-way commute and you would then only need to work 4 hours... obviously not going to work.
Many employers in Europe actually do pay for some or all commute costs in order to attract workers, but usually they don't pay for the commute hours.
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Otherwise you would get weird situations where people could apply to distant jobs and the employer having to pay those costs and hours. Get a job with a 2 hour one-way commute and you would then only need to work 4 hours… obviously not going to work.
From an employee perspective, that's not much of a problem but the solution is hardly complicated either. Wouldn't employers just not hire people who live too far from the work site?
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Otherwise you would get weird situations where people could apply to distant jobs and the employer having to pay those costs and hours. Get a job with a 2 hour one-way commute and you would then only need to work 4 hours... obviously not going to work.
The obvious solution is to limit it to the historically normal commute time (30 mins to 1hr each way)
You can choose to live 4 hours away, but the organisation only pays for x hours
I think the minimum commute time available to a young family person in my town now is 45 mins, so that would be an obvious limit here
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Our union has refused to push the company on this. They said it is an eu directive not a law.
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Sounds like it could be a potential $578 billion wage theft problem.
(I know, it's neither really)
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In the UK it's pretty clearly spelled out (although not always perfectly applied, I'm sure there's still the odd boss trying it on).
Your working day starts when you arrive at your contracted place of work, and are ready to start work. Not when you walk in the door, before having a cuppa or breakfast in the office kitchen. Not after your computer has booted up and is ready for you.
If you have multiple places of work, or are travelling away from your contracted place of work, then your working day starts the moment you walk out your door and leave home.
The end of the day is the same, if you're in the office it ends and then you leave, if you're working away it ends when you get home (so factor in travel time and leave site before then).
Whether or not you actually get paid for every hour is another matter, however. Salary vs hourly work. If you're salaried it's supposed to be give and take - however it's ultimately up to you to take what you can to balance it out. Work isn't going to offer you an early finish, not as easily as they'll ask you to stay late.
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This may be factual law but just because a
holyLaw book says something that does not make it true.The way i understand and perceive my job is as a basic equation for trade. I give, my time, body and energy and in return i receive a monthly paid liveable wage and some additional perks.
When i feel my return doesn't match my input i have no reason to keep working. Many of my collogues have the benefit of a position that allowed full time WFH, mine simply does not, travel absolutely counts towards the investment i have to put in to do my work.
But to nuance my own perspective, i'm not complaining for not being paid my commute hours because i don't recognize that i am being paid in hours. My contract may state i am paid per hour but paper is imaginary. Reality is that i get a monthly deposit. And if its enough to get by, stay healthy and have a little extra, then i am content human being and worker.
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My workplace tracks hours for salaried workers, and we're not allowed to accrue more than about a week of excess time without taking it, to the point where of we go over, our managers must put us on leave until the balance is below the limit
People find it pretty easy to take a day here and there, especially Fridays (it's like no one believes people do anything productive on Fridays)
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Your working day starts when you arrive at your contracted place of work, and are ready to start work. Not when you walk in the door, before having a cuppa or breakfast in the office kitchen. Not after your computer has booted up and is ready for you.
Kind of. The "ready to start work" bit is important. If your workplace has requirements that take extra time - such as a long walk from the front door to your desk, a computer that must go through a five-minute bootup process, a queue at the security gate, etc - those must be covered by the employer. But, yeah, arriving to work and having a panini in the kitchen isn't going to net you thirty minutes of flexi.
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As an hourly employee, if I’m doing a thing for work then it’s on the clock. Driving to and arguably from work should be paid.
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It's a bit rude to say "8 hours at work, 8 for recreation, 8 for sleep" when the work is actually half an hour to an hour longer with the alleged "lunch break", and eats into the recreation time typically an hour at each end
So really it's 8 hours at work, 3 hours work related, 5 hours recreation (nb recreation time is also spent in the "recreation" of making oneself sufficiently presentable to attend the office), and 8 hours of sleep/missing sleep worrying about whether you can afford to commute (fuel, parking, bus fares) in the few days before pay day
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I have it easier as a contractor, I have a MD rate and then I have a MD rate with commute + having to be in the office that's twice the MD rate, they can decide if they really need me tp be there.
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That sounds so nice. Employment should have more give and take like this.
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Workers aren’t grasping the managerial challenges of leading a remote workforce.
Cry me a fucking river
Each year, the average American spends nearly $8,500 and 239 hours traveling to and from work, per data from Clever Real Estate.
One could argue that's "good" because it makes the wheel of economy turn. Gas pollution alone would make me say this is bad for all involved (except oil companies and their shareholders, but they can go fuck themselves)
Still, though, WFH Research also finds that fully remote work is associated with 10% to 20% lower productivity than fully in-person work [<- link to the research paper, go to page 10]. Barrero explained the disparity to Fortune in July: “In many of the studies we cite and in some of our own survey evidence, workers often get more done when remote simply because they save time from the daily commute and from other office distractions. This can make them look more productive on a ‘per day’ basis, even if it means they’re actually less productive on a ‘per hour’ basis.”
There's no reason to "go above and beyond" when you're in the comfort of your home. It's why perceived "per hour" productivity drops. Besides, nobody actually works 8 hours straight, there are several pauses, even in an office or factory. We're not robots.
When that commute is eliminated, they view it as a productivity increase. Employers, naturally, instead see it as less bang for their buck.
"You'll waste precious hours of your day and you WILL LIKE IT, WAGESLAVE!"
Challenges in communicating remotely and lack of motivation are the main issues preventing fully remote workers from being more productive
Good luck motivating me to waste 2h every day without any raise or compensation in order to be "more productive in the office"
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this is bad for all involved (except oil companies and their shareholders, but they can go fuck themselves)
But think of the worker's retirement funds invested in ETFs holding oil futures!
We're not robots.
And whose fault is it? Work harder so we can replace you with some!
/s
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They also don't count the externalities of rush hour congestion caused by people needlessly commuting.
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Not sure why there is any confusion here. This is an externality long borne by labor.
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hence why they want it back, they just hate the idea of the lower classes not knowing their place!
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Bosses: No, it's not.
Workers: Yes, it is.
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If you want a full summary of the article you need to follow that by:
Author: But don't forget how hard six figured middle managers have it now that the only way they have to motivate employees is rewarding them with money for work accomplished.
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In the meantime simply steal your commute time back.
(This is a joke)*
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I always did
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If you need to do something for work that you would not otherwise do it's part of the job and should be compensated. At least that has been my attitude with any company trips or events and going to the office.
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I see good perspective on each end of this...
Perhaps a compromise would be a set amount per mile from home to work? For example just say like $0.65/mile.
Thoughts?
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I'm here to tell you that seeing "good perspective on each end of this" can fuck right off. Yes I'm going into full on asshole combative mode, and I am here to tell you unequivocally that you may go and fuck yourself!
And to eloquently point out why, I'm going to carefully explain why the employer side can eat shit: We have a massive climate change issue, and having workers commute is exacerbating on so many levels. Even if we electrify the transportation entirely with carbon free sources, there's still a tremendous environmental impact issue by way of the public transportation or the car production itself. One of the best ways to mitigate this is encouraging remote work WHENEVER POSSIBLE! I realize pilots, EMT's, and firefighter's won't have this luxury but if all the office workers are working from home, this removes a huge amount of congestion from our roadways, decreases the non-carbon pollutants resulting in dramatic air quality increase, improves emergency service response times, reduces the fucking taxes we have to pay on transportation infrastructure maintenance, and a host of other psychological benefits.
We have a huge pay gap - CEO's are making hundreds of times more compensation than their average worker, and the time involved in commuting EVEN FURTHER dilutes the "amount made per hour". If I have an hour commute each way, I get to take my day's pay and stretch it over two more hours. What could anyone possibly have an issue with that for? Oh I don't know, childcare? A dentist appointment that requires additional burned time off? This is why people call scabs motherfucking shithead scumbags. BuT tHe EmPlOyEr iSn'T ReSpoNsiBle, bull fucking shit. The employer chooses to be in some shitty downtown location so the uber rich CEO can walk from his cocaine penthouse to the HQ. For the life of me, I see this happen time and time again where HQ's removed and moan about attracting talent but they position themselves in some fucked up location where they don't compensate even a fraction of what they should so their employees could afford housing.
We have a mental well being crisis - people are treated like shit and trampled on enough as it is. Many companies take this indifferent approach and focus solely on the business itself, with little to no regard for the people that make it successful. People are spending hours every day commuting instead of looking after their own personal well being. Commute times cut into exercise, family time, self actualization, and pretty much everything people care about.
The best way to mitigate this is by being on the clock from your front door to the workplace. As it was well put elsewhere here in the comments, fuck you, pay me. I will get the world's tiniest violin out for the employer side of the argument and then stomp on with heavy work boots. Then I'll light it on fire and piss on the goddamn ashes. Fuck the employer's argument.
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Well said.
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I think the primary issue though is that it incentivizes businesses to only hire people who live nearby. On the one hand that’s good because it’s good for the environment, but on the other hand it means I can’t decide to move further away from my employer without risking being fired. This is a bigger problem if your house has multiple working adults.
We could mitigate that by forbidding companies from firing employees who move further away but stay within some reasonable distance, but that then creates an incentive to move as far away from your job as possible to make that extra income.
So, how do you compensate employees for their commutes without restricting where they can live or creating an adverse incentive?
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Unbelievably based. You want me to be in an office because you think it's more productive? Great. Pay me for everything involved in that switch and I'll do it. Oh, it's more expensive? Boo fucking hoo.
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Depends on a lot of things but yes. A compensation based on distance is good
In Debmark we get "driving deductable" (not sure about the translation)
Thats also some cents per kilometer, after a certain amount of km. If you live super close you get nothing. And you get more if you live far away too.(if you live in certain munincipalities you get more)
It also doesnt matter how you get to work. Bike, train, bus or car. Its based on distance using google maps navigation iirc (or some similar tech)
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When my job that I did covering at other locations, the company would pay me per mile to get there. It was in 2007, and they paid $0.55/mile. I think with inflation that should be much higher now.
I think that was a calculation that was just gas and wear on the car.
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That would encourage people to work further away from their home, increasing commutes and lowering productivity further.
If anything, we should do the opposite - lots of small office spaces spread out among high density housing. Enable in-person collaboration with a much shorter commute.
Edit: Wow, didn't expect this to be controversial. Anyone care to explain?
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On the one hand, as a worker, I absolutely think it should be considered part of the work day, HOWEVER, there's so many factors that go into what constitutes your commute, that I'm not sure how businesses would account for that. Is it based on distance, so the farther away you live, the more compensation you get, just because you live further away? That seems to unfairly reward people people who live farther away. Do you just give a blanket extra 1 hr (30 min before/after the work day) to everyone to account for it, assuming that that covers most cases?
It does seem to be a standard for most businesses that travel, you're paying for their time just to come out. I've had plenty of plumbers/handymen/house fixerish people who have charged just for gracing me with their presence for <10 min, even though they didn't actually do any work, there's usually a ~$50–100 minimum charge for house calls. I'm assuming their travel time is getting factored into it, so why shouldn't other workers travel time be factored in as well?
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Am commercial HVAC mechanic. My clock starts when I get to the shop, grab stuff, then start travelling, or when I get to site if I start there, then ends when I leave my last call for the day.
I can spend anywhere between 10-12 hrs a day not being at home due to traffic, and get paid for 8.
But I see your idea of having a standard 1 hr in and 1 hr out as a compromise and it's up to you how close or far you live to your work location or bubble. For me, I live within my work bubble, and can work anywhere in the region depending on the day. Could be anywehere between 10 minutes, and 2 hours.
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Seems like the most straightforward way to account for commute would be to average the commute times of all employees at a workplace and pay accordingly. If a business doesn't want to pay that, they can set up a work-from-home situation.
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I consider my commute part of my work day. If it takes me an hour each way, I'm only in the office for 6 hours. I go home to "finish up the day" but don't really get a lot done other than light emailing.
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Luckily my job is quite relaxed. When I come to office - I don't work at all. I just socialize. 😅
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Trust me, coworkers have opinions on this.
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they want us to be back at the office because of "connections" and this sort of bullshit, so yeah, at least half of my time there will be that, then.
thankfully I only had to do this for 1 or 2 months when they forced a RTO, before I left that job and found the fully remote one that I am since then.
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It's crystal clear that commuting is not part of the work day, but perhaps it should be.
Just like we should only work 6 hours so we can actually have some time after to do things we want, like hobbies or just enjoying time with friends.
Work is consuming people's lives and entire identities.
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Can anyone kindly provide a non paywall link?
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Seriously, any post to an article without a non paywalled link is an incomplete post. I downvote any that don't include such a link with the post.
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Commute is part of the work day, but unpaid. In fact, avoiding commutes in big cities are one of the main advantages of remote work. In some cases, it is nearly, or even more, two hours back and forth an office or a plant. If people could go to the irs jobs just with a 15-20 minutes walk, it would be a very different issue, but mainly is an hour of traffice jams or packed metros and buses.
If commute should was part of the daily hours, we would see employers preoccupied because there would be people working 6 hours or less in the office or the plant, so they would ask for better transit systems and more affordable housing that implied nota having to go to live 40-50 km away because prices are unpayable nearer. Many of them would allow remote work more easily.
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This is why I refuse hybrid or on location working as an office worker: I'm not getting paid for the commute. Fuck that. (Of course, it's also a waste of time to be in the office as it's impossible to concentrate, when you have some sales people loudly talking into their phones right opposite you as you're trying to get some though work done)
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I use my drive as part of my work hours.
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Wow, that’s cool! I’ve fallen in to a wormhole and ended up on Hexbear!
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Nah, Hexbear would defend employers screwing over their employees as long as the government claimed to be Marxist. They would only talk about this in a negative light as long as the problem happens in a liberal democracy.
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I would propose a $1.50 decrease in the minimum wage IF it was coupled with a pay for commute law. I would go down by $3 an hour if it also had a half pay for "on call" hours amendment.
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Can your employer then tell you how far away is reasonable to live?
"Why don't you live in the $4,000/month apartment 5 minutes away instead of the $1,000/month place an hour away?"
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Guys, it's a free market. The boss gives the worker money, and the worker makes sure that the commute is short. It's his responsibility. He can change employer or relocate his home. It's not as if all people have the same commute
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Yeah because there's an infinite supply of jobs and an infinite supply of affordable housing near every single one of them 🙄
I guess we're playing another game of "sarcasm or bootlicking moron" 🤷
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Not a popular opinion, and it does suck, but I do think we should strive to sponsor mileage of any kind as little as possible and that includes employers paying for commute, to incentivise wirking closer to your home or relocating closer to your work
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In the US, zoning restrictions means people literally cannot live very close to their jobs in a lot of locations because housing is far from businesses. City structures encourage commutes, and would require spending money to undo those problems. Your suggestion punishes the poor who would need to move more often to find new jobs.
We should instead sponsor more mass transit accessibility and frequency to decrease the use of single occupancy vehicles in daily commutes, which would have a for larger positive impact over trying to force people to live in specific locations that limit their ability to find work. For example, if people move near their jobs and want a different job, making them movie again is stupid when instead they could have easy access many potential jobs within 30 minutes or less on public transportation if working at home is jot an option.
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Yes well, unfortunately, hastening climate change will also disproportionately punish the poor in very concrete ways much more than high gas prices ever will. It'll also punish the real poors of the southern hemisphere.
You can force corporations to pay 50% of the fare of any of their employees transit like it's done in a lot of places in Europe and I'm not against that as a band-aid but nothing beats re-zoning to fix your density issues and living close to work in terms of quality of life and ghg emissions
And absolutely no paying for anyone's gas
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There's a real easy way to come to an agreement: If you're being paid, you're at work. If you're not being paid, you're not.
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Great, no need to pay my employees then because they're volunteering their time to do stuff beneficial to me.
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Hey smooth-brain: it's actually the opposite that's true:
If you're doing anything for your employer, it should be paid. That's driving, emails, snow-removal, talking to a coworker, waiting for transportation, etc.
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