An overlooked factor that could curb return-to-work enthusiasm

By?Ty West??–??Editor-in-Chief, The Playbook, Oct 1, 2021, 2:30pm EDT

In the pre-pandemic era, commuting time occupied an interesting gray area in the employee-employer dynamic.

Most businesses probably wouldn’t agree the 45 minutes a worker spent in the car on the way to the office was “company time.” Most employees probably weren’t being compensated for the time.?

For employees, commutes were often viewed as a necessary cost of employment, albeit an annoying and frustrating one. But my guess is most employees didn’t consider their commuting time as their own time.?

Commutes occupied a strange no-man’s land. When Covid-19 hit last spring, that changed overnight.

Time employees previously spent commuting became time spent playing with their kids, pursuing a hobby and a variety of other things, especially as the world opened up more after the initial Covid-19 wave.

I didn’t have a terrible commute before Covid-19, but even I was amazed at all the extra time available once you subtract time in the car, the time you spend getting ready and everything else that goes along with in-person work.?

Over the past 18 months, that time has been earmarked for something else, and that’s something employers need to keep in mind when they think about the return to the office.

When you’re asking workers to return, you’re not just asking them to spend eight hours in the office. You’re asking for that bonus time back, and it’s not an insignificant amount.?

The average adult worker in U.S. metro areas spent 48 minutes commuting in the pre-pandemic world. That doesn’t include the ancillary time that goes along with that, such as getting ready or stopping for coffee.?

It’s also worth noting that many workers — particularly those who live in the suburbs of the largest metro areas — spend much more than 48 minutes a day commuting.?For many, it's more than an hour each way.

Just going off the averages for all workers, New York City (75 minutes), Washington (71 minutes) and San Francisco (70 minutes) are among the places where the average daily commute is more than an hour.

Many employees are?already hesitant about returning to the office, so I doubt they'll be keen on giving that time back to their employers?— even if it's only a few days a week. It's yet another potential?disconnect between employers and workers on the return to the office.

There’s another wrinkle to the commute equation employers should keep in mind. Many employees are using the time saved from not commuting to actually perform more work. That may have been work they were previously doing after hours or on weekends.

As employers assess return-to-work plans, many are citing productivity as a key factor.?

If that’s the case, businesses need to assess how much productivity will be lost for employees who shift active work time to their commutes and whether having them back in the office is worth the trade.

Amy Marcum, manager of HR services for Kingwood, Texas-based professional employer organization Insperity Inc., said there is a double-edged sword when it comes to productivity and the return.

"When I work from home, I've got an hour and a half, two hours more in my day that I'm working rather than sitting in a car," she said.

Marcum said employers in crowded metro areas are realizing that remote work can result in employees having more active work time because of the lack of a commute.

Ultimately, businesses will need to ask themselves if it makes sense for a worker dealing with burnout to spend two hours sitting in a car instead of doing their job — especially in this hiring climate where a number of businesses are short staffed, leaving both employees and managers stressed.

Like many issues companies are facing with Covid-19, it’s a risk-reward scenario.?

Companies have to assess the benefits of bringing employees back against the accompanying obstacles, such as how the need to commute will factor into an employee's decision to pursue another job.

Is a potential loss of collaboration or culture to the organization worth the commuting hassle to the employees who comprise that culture? It's a question more companies need to ponder.

They also need to keep in mind the role commutes have when considering an employee's enthusiasm about returning to work. I've heard from some that managers with return-hesitant employees will assume a worker is disengaged because they aren't excited to return.

In some cases, that could be true. In others, it might just be they don't want to trade an hour with their child at the playground for an hour spent on the interstate.