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

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.

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.

Imagine how much more chill everyone on the road would be if they were getting paid to be there.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The solution is working from home.

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..

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.

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”.

This is easy: would I be going there daily if I didn't have to per the employers requirements?

If yes: then it's my problem not the employer If no: it's the emplpyer's problem not mine

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If I didn't choose to do it, its part of the work day.

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.

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.

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.

Sounds like it could be a potential $578 billion wage theft problem.

(I know, it's neither really)

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.

if only there was a way to get work done while avoiding the commute...

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.

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"

Not sure why there is any confusion here. This is an externality long borne by labor.

Bosses: No, it's not.

Workers: Yes, it is.

In the meantime simply steal your commute time back.

(This is a joke)*

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.

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?

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?

Luckily my job is quite relaxed. When I come to office - I don't work at all. I just socialize. 😅

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.

Can anyone kindly provide a non paywall link?

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.

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.

I use my drive as part of my work hours.

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)

It's a lot different in America. We're too big and spread out for biking and public transit to work for most workers. If you don't have a car, public transit is very unlikely to get you where you need to go. And our public transit costs end up being as much or greater than the expense of owning a car. In short, our conditions for commuting aren't comparable to standards in other countries. We would have to (and severely need to) overhaul our infrastructure to prioritize public transit over personal vehicles,. I can tell you for certain, that it isn't happening in our lifetime.

In lieu of that, American workers could do with tax breaks and compensation tie-ins

Wow, that’s cool! I’ve fallen in to a wormhole and ended up on Hexbear!

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.

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

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

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.