Changes in behavior differ among age groups, with younger Americans using the saved commuting time to engage in leisure activities
They consider commute time as working. Which on some level I would like to agree with but none of my employers so far has paid me to commute so I do not consider it working.
Yes of course I don't use the commute time I save to get more work hours in. Duh!
Seriously they big mad that companies haven't reclaimed saved commute hours for work, they believe that time belongs to them SMDH.
“decrease in hours worked away from home only partially offset by an increase in working at home” cue the violins.
By the way, this is all during a period of rapid US economic expansion. You're welcome plutes.
I don't think you understood it the way I meant it. Let me explain.
Commute time is time that I do not get any work output done. Employers know that and do not pay for that time. For me as an employee I have to basically treat this as "the cost of being employed" and I have a few knobs there.
I can choose how far away I live, i.e. do I waste 15 minutes on the subway for this but pay high rent or for an expensive condo or do I waste 1.5 hours driving and paying for the maintenance, gas etc. each way and live in a nice house in the sticks. I may also have the option of taking a train for the 1.5 hour trip and I might be able to get an hour of work done on the train.
Now it's up to my employer-employee relationship that I can get whether I am able to count this as work time or not. Some employers have strict policies: You gotta be at the office at 9 and clock in and clock out for lunch and back in and back out at 5. This is the time they count and you better be on time or you get dinged. Such an employer will not pay for your one hour of actual work you did on the commute.
Other employers may not be as strict, people generally get to work around 9, no punch clocks but social pressure ensures that even if you did that hour of work on the train and do another hour of work on the train ride home, people only "see you at work" for 6 hours and think you're a slacker. So again effectively your employer does not pay your for your commute time i.e. I can't count it as work. It's my time. I may be fine with listening to an audio book or reading in that time and I might enjoy it. But it was never work time to begin with. I was just forced to make use of that time in some way in order to be employed somewhere to get money.
Or you may be at a great place that understands this, some people come in at 7 and leave at 2, others come in at 11 and leave at 6.
In any case, with WFH I can now finally do whatever I want with that time instead of being locked into doing something that I can do while commuting.
I understand it the way you meant it. There are zero bona-fide reasons that I cannot work at home. If my employer wants me to battle traffic an hour each way, that's time taken away from myself and my family, it's fuel, wear & tear on my car, it's added stress and risk of permanent debilitating injuries -- all costs that my employer wants me to take on, for free, just because some exec who never comes to the office doesn't feel comfortable with peons doing the same.
Getting to the office is work, and expense, that is not paid for. You're making an extremely narrow definition of "work" that your employer is delighted by. You're paying for the privilege of getting a paycheck. I'm saying that you aren't being paid for your time.
Couple of scenarios:
1. Your employer wants you to go to a conference where you're to represent the company. Your "work" is programming, and your output is zero for the duration of the conference. Should you be paid for your time, should your plane & hotel costs be covered?
2. Your employer wants to buy some computers. The computers are worthless to your employer if they're sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Do they pay a shipping fee, or let them rot in the warehouse?
> You're making an extremely narrow definition of "work" that your employer is delighted by. You're paying for the privilege of getting a paycheck. I'm saying that you aren't being paid for your time.
I think you still aren't really understanding the person you're replying to.
They're not saying that's the "definition of work"; they're merely -- correctly -- acknowledging that's the definition of work that nearly every employer imposes on employees. They're not saying that's a good thing, just accepting reality and trying to plan for it.
Sure, some people may work as a contractor and have compensated commute time as a part of their contract. I think that's great, but it's also probably vanishingly rare, at least in the context of office work (I've never personally heard of this actually happening, but sure, it's possible, and probably exists).
Not really sure how your "scenarios" are relevant to this. Yes, companies pay for employees to go to conferences, paying for their travel and lodging expenses, though often many companies can be pretty stingy and inflexible about this sort of thing too, setting cost limits that can make trip logistics challenging. And if a trip goes over the weekend, an employee isn't usually compensated for "overtime". And of course an employer would pay to ship needed equipment somewhere; what does that have to do with anything?
But that really has nothing to do with employee commute time. The fact of the matter is that commute time is generally accepted to be something the employee has to bear, uncompensated. I don't think anyone is saying that's a good or fair thing, just that's how it is.
> There are zero bona-fide reasons that I cannot work at home.
If you find a company that's cool with that, awesome. Fortunately there are many more companies that are cool with that than there were in 2019. But many people still do not have that option; many employers are forcing employees back to an office, and still consider time-in-office to be the only valid "work time". That's sucks and isn't fair, but that's reality. Ignore it at your peril.
> They're not saying that's the "definition of work"; they're merely -- correctly -- acknowledging that's the definition of work that nearly every employer imposes on employees.
No, I get it. If you accept a definition of "work" that has you eating hours of overhead per day, you'll never negotiate a better deal. Don't accept it, at least not without a fight. I don't accept it.
Tell us about that wonderous employer that pays you for your commute time, so that we may work there as well.
And no cheating. If your employer has a "perk" that pays for an amount of public transport, that does not count. It's a perk. It can be taken away at any time and isn't part of the actual contract. It usually also doesn't pay for the entire amount regardless of where you live. It has a maximum or maximum "range". It usually doesn't pay for driving on your own if you choose to use your car. It is often money you can also use to pay your cell phone bill or somesuch, which means people that live closer can use more of it for other stuff rather than public transport. As the parent mentioned, short term contractors don't count. I'm talking employee, which is the relationship to work that most of us have.
And I mean actual contractual negotiation of: OK you want to pay be $150k but I live in the sticks, it takes me 1.5 hours by car+train one way to work, we'll put into the contract that you pay X amount for car maintenance, Y for gas and Z for the train ticket indexed to inflation or I work 5 hours instead of the 8 otherwise agreed.
It seems like you still do not understand, despite the explanations and you are mis-characterizing my definition of work. You also seem to think that I'm siding with employers here. In fact it is the opposite.
My "definition" of "Work" in an employer-employee relationship: Time my employer pays me for in which I perform something we agreed upon.
Thus my commute was never work time. And because it was never work time, if I no longer commute to the office, they can't expect me to now work during the time frame that I used to commute. They can only expect me to work during the times of the commute that I actually worked. It's part of the (say that was the arrangement) 8 hours of work I did for them.
Unless of course I was fortunate enough to have that last arrangement I mentioned, where yes, working on the commute was paid for. Take the 1.5 train commute again. Let's say 30 minutes of that was getting to the train station on time, waiting for the train to arrive and walking to work and thus of that I was able to work for one hour, because I was lucky enough to work for an employer where they do pay me for work regardless of where I am even in the "office times".
Most people are not in that category. In fact, a lot of people do not even know how many hours they really put in. I can only recommend, if you don't track your hours, do so. Tracking hours is good for employees and bad for employers. Look at what your pay stub says, how many nominal hours you are working. That is your target. Try to stay close to that.
EDIT: Forgot about the conferences and such. Of course the employer has to pay for that. It's work time. By only the nominal hours. If they make me represent them at some conference for 12 hours that's fine, I'll do that for that weekend or whatever, but I plunk down 12 hours in my "timesheet" and I don't work for a day or so the week after or some other time that I choose and I damn well expect hotel, transportation and food to be paid for.
I would be interested to hear your opinion on the issue of perception.
The traditional work from office (WFO) model left very little room for "abnormal hours". WFH seems to have removed this issue, but I presume that a certain number of places will still want some amount of WFO due to the specifics of how their business is run (maybe they are in some institution that has that expectation, or there is a practical need for things to be done face-to-face).
For cases where some amount of WFO is needed, and an abnormal schedule is permitted, how does the company deal with the perception of "not working hard enough"?
Example: Dan comes in at 11 and leaves at 3, but then comes back at 6 and works for another 4 hours after picking his kids up from school. Some of the others in the office choose something closer to a 9-5 schedule, so they see Dan as "never being there".
I listened to an audiobook, "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture", where one of the bosses (John Carmack) would essentially come in very late in the day, then work through the night. Most of the other employees would come in at 7 or 8AM, and head out at 6PM. John took that to mean that they were "always leaving early" and it gave off this impression that he was the only one taking things seriously (or something like that) because their schedules were so different.
What would be a good means to fight that sort of perception?
The only thing that would really make any sense would be to have some kind of giant whiteboard where you could see everyone's schedules, so you could figure out how many hours they were really working, but I could also see some people resenting that as some kind of "corporate shaming" or whatever. "Why does it matter when I'm here, as long as I get my work done!?"
It also does raise a certain amount of problems that come with needing to be able to communicate with people in an expedient manner. I'm not just talking meetings, but when you need to bounce something off someone for "How does this new widget work?" or "What do you think of this change I have planned?", it makes it a lot harder when you don't really have a clear guarantee of when they will be available to respond within a reasonable time frame. It just kind of slows the whole "flow" down.
Yeah that's always been an issue at offices and I think while it changed a bit is still an issue with WFH.
My dad told me a story about his work place when I was a kid. There was this guy that would come in at like 6 am and leave at like 2:30pm. One day their boss, who came to the office at 10 every day for whatever reason was annoyed or something and publicly reprimanded the guy for leaving so early. His colleagues however knew that he was both a good worker and that he was in early, not slacking and basically told their boss to shut it. It probably helped that they were in a unionized shop :)
I would hate a public whiteboard. I think it would very easily be seen as or even used as corporate control. A lot things that seem like a good thing actually aren't. Like unlimited vacations. In general people take less vacation under such policies. Of course there are people that abuse it and actually "take it too far" but mostly social pressures like not wanting to be "the guy that took the most vacation" reduce the amount of time you take. Especially in NA where a culture of overwork exists in many places. Personally I keep good track of how many vacation days I take and try to take the same number every year. 30 days is very reasonable.
Now to come back to the topic of perception. It's hard to talk about somehow but I think talking about it with your colleagues is the only way. As a team (not coming from HR or "corporate") you should come up with team agreements. If you don't make them explicit they are still going to be there but it will be unspoken and (mis) interpretable. So a team agreement might be that everyone is supposed to be available in a certain time frame. Because you as a team talk about it you can (hopefully) find an arrangement that works for everyone. Joe always has to get the kids from school at 3 and is back at 4, no problem. Everyone knows to either wait or send their questions to him in an async friendly format during that time. Jane is an early bird and will have a PR ready before most others even started their day but leaves at 2.
This only works well in small groups I believe and if there is room for overlap where you can actually talk and bond. Very few people overall can work effectively in a completely async fashion. The world does not mostly consist of people that can do this well. But for most small "Seal teams" you can find an arrangement which works. You usually won't be able to find an arrangement that works well for an entire company of 10000 people.
An example of what to do when you don't have 100% overlap. Bouncing something off someone can also take the form of a PR. Here I have to plug metrics. I really detest metrics. They incentivise using tools in just one specific way so as to show good numbers. "Time to merge" must be below X. Screw that, we have a team in 5 time zones and we have a tiny amount of real time communications overlap so we use async communications which includes just making a decision and implementing it that way and putting it up as a PR asking "I thought about this and I had these 3 options. I thought this was the best one because X, Y and Z. What do you guys think"? By the time of the next in person (well Video :)) overlap some people have had time to take a look and we can discuss or they have replied. I might need to redo some stuff or adjust it. That takes time. My metric will suffer. But using the PR for this made good use of a tool we already have to solve an issue. But in a company of 10000 people you will have managers of manager of managers that look at metrics only. Or at the fact that Joe didn't respond to the question they asked at 3:05 for an hour.
Articles like these are simply crap. Commuting less != working less. If commuting is work then employers should pay for it or have the time taken to commute deducted from work hours.
Either way articles like these are horseshit and likely sponsored by those renting human farm space (offices).
> If commuting is work then employers should pay for it or have the time taken to commute deducted from work hours.
If your employer requires you to come to the office, then getting there is part of the job, and I think you should be compensated for that time. Commuting during rush hour certainly isn't a pleasure activity that I'd be doing without obligation.
Actually, this may be a good incentive for legacy onsite businesses to relocate their offices closer to where people live. Ie there is no need for downtown offices for programmers, these could be on the outskirts to reduce commute time and costs that cover employee travel.
I'm not sure about the phrasing "have to give up" getting paid for time and expense not incurred, but yes. On the other hand your employer may be willing to pay relocation expenses.
Only if you frame it that way. On the other hand, a shorter commute means you now have free time you can monetize however you like, which you can put a value on at whatever hourly rate you think your free time is worth, instead of being forced to monetize it by commuting.
It could be worse than that. If your employer were to pay you specifically for the time it takes you to commute, then the only rational thing to do (assuming you don't care all that much where you live) is to find the cheapest house, far from your office. If you commute 2 hours each way, your employer has to compensate you for 4 extra hours of work per day, and, to make matters better, you're saving on housing costs.
But if you move to the city center and now have a 15-minute commute, your housing costs have likely gone up a lot, and your employer is now only paying you for 30 minutes of commute time per day.
Now, you could say that an employer wouldn't do it this way; they'd basically just give everyone a fixed "commute time stipend", and let people "spend" it how they wish: either on an actual longer commute, or on higher housing costs that shorten the commute. That's probably more fair in the case where the office is in a city center. But if it's the reverse, and the office is out in a cheap suburb, then it perhaps becomes more fair again to pay for the actual amount of time in someone's commute.
> then the only rational thing to do (assuming you don't care all that much where you live) is to find the cheapest house, far from your office
I don't know what you mean by "rational" but it sounds like there's a hidden assumption that the only thing with value in life is cash. If your life is completely devoid of anything outside of work, then, sure, I guess that makes sense. But I have hobbies, I have a child, I have a spouse, and time spent outside of work is extremely valuable. If I commute 2 hours each way, I get less sleep, I don't have time to cook so I eat drive-through garbage, I barely see my spouse, I leave home before my child is awake and return after bedtime. If you're still only focused on the cash, I'll note that my mental and physical health will degrade quite rapidly under this condition, which will impact my work performance, which will eventually cost me my job. To me, "rational" is not a synonym of "short-sighted profit-seeking," but that's how you're using it.
I guess you missed the "assuming you don't care all that much where you live" parenthetical, even though you quoted it.
You seem to be doing that a lot in these threads; ignoring parts of what other people say so you have something to argue about. Please stop doing that.
Nope, didn't miss that, but "where you live" doesn't capture my point. It's not just about where you live, but how you value your time. You'll note that I didn't mention location as a consideration, as that was already covered in the parenthetical.
You've really got to follow the money on this whole "let's all get back into the office" nonsense. Commercial real estate is extremely overpriced and a market correction might affect some people (including the FED's lobbyists). Not to mention higher commercial real estate prices contribute to inflated housing prices near urban centers.
Honestly, I'm tired of it. Let's move on a society, let people who want to work from home do it, and downsize / revamp offices for the people who do. Saving on the commute alone is worth it.
There's a longer tail effect than that. I used to put 100 miles a day on my car, now it's maybe 2 if I go to a couple stores. This isn't just commercial real estate, it's car manufacturers, gas companies, all the service businesses for commuters (parking lots, the starbucks on the corner, all the restaurants near offices), etc.
I don't think that's a bad thing. Anything that means less car usage is a good thing, and as commercial real estate keeps losing demand, those spaces will end up converted to residential real estates in cities with ludicrous housing prices. Work from home is good for workers, for the environment, for residential renters. It's the companies who benefit the most from forced office commutes that are hand wringing.
I slacked off more in the office, got up from my desk more, walked around more. When I was actually at my desk, I would browse random websites more than I do at home.
There are too many distractions in the office and not enough private offices to work in, for the people who require deep concentration to work. I don't see that changing anytime soon because a private office (with a door) is seen as a perk/privilege for managers who are mostly stuck in meetings anyway, and not for those who need to be able to concentrate.
garbage article filled with propaganda from FED who are lobbied by Commercial Real Estate investors.
CREs are losing their ass over companies canceling/downsizing their office presence - all thanks to remote work.
If you ask who this article benefits, then it becomes clear their motivation for study. There is a reason Fed decided suddenly to launch this study of remote workers and came to this conclusion, completely ignoring employee wellbeing & work output (which are the main things employers should care about)
Just say "No" to these work-a-holic junkies. Don't open the article, don't read the article, don't engage it any further than "Nice try Mr. Capitalist"
Anyone writing these articles is a Fed. All of these article are just trying to guilt trip and shame people into working more.
Yes of course I don't use the commute time I save to get more work hours in. Duh!