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submitted 1 year ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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[-] mercano@lemmy.world 200 points 1 year ago

At least. If you work an 8 hour day, a 0.5 hour commute each way adds an extra 12.5% to work time commitment each day, and it’s considered unpaid time.

[-] whatisallthis@lemm.ee 113 points 1 year ago

And your gas and car wear and tear

[-] Anemervi@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago
  • You might need to buy additional food
  • Wear and tear of work attire
  • Might need to pay extra for someone to watch pet/child

Also there are additional costs of time

  • Extra time shaving or similar (if you know you are staying home some things can be delayed a bit)
  • Possibly extra time to prepare food
  • Traffic/weather delays
  • Extra effort for small things easily manage while at home e.g accepting deliveries, watching pets or opening for maintenance workers

That's of the top of my head, so 1 hour lost per day is a low estimate.

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[-] Misconduct@startrek.website 68 points 1 year ago

I couldn't believe how much more time it felt like I had in the day just cutting out the short work commute. You don't really realize the extent of how much time you waste going into work until it's gone. Even a short commute adds up quick when you include all the time to get ready in the morning and decompress at night. Plus all the extra maintenance on a daily driver and gas... Companies making people go into the office when it's not even necessary are just power hungry morons. That's all there is to it.

[-] scytale@lemm.ee 49 points 1 year ago

Yup. I have meetings at 8AM. If I had to do them in the office, I'll have to be up at 6AM to get ready and leave to be able to get to the office in time. If I do it at home, I wake up at 7:50, which gives me almost 2 hours of extra sleep.

If I leave the office at 5PM, I'll get home around 6PM. At home, I can log off as soon as the clock strikes 5, and now I have an extra hour of time to do whatever.

That adds up to around 3 hours a day that I save from not commuting to an office.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

And for many, half an hour primping in order to be seen in public. I guess if you're still in vid convos that somewhat still applies, but for others, now you can lay around in your underwear and stink and still get work done.

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[-] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 148 points 1 year ago

People don’t like offices and are more productive when they’re happy. Who knew?

[-] fictitiousexistence@lemmy.ml 64 points 1 year ago
[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Bullshit. You only knew since I told you on Thursday.

[-] pastromic@citizensgaming.com 15 points 1 year ago

Companies forcing people back to the office are a red flag for bad management, so I'm sure that's another reason they're seeing people leave.

My company realized that they can remove office space and use that money for more employees. What a fucking crazy concept.

[-] CubitOom@infosec.pub 135 points 1 year ago

Honestly. It's about more than money.

If your boss says you must return to the office, after 3 years of WFH. At best, it shows that they do not value or respect you, and are just making an arbitrary decision in a bid to sell more stocks.

At worst, there might be some insidious reason to make employees physically available. Maybe they are getting a kickback somehow, or selling data that they can only get when you are there, or maybe they are just horny and want to seduce you sexually.

A remote worker is often happier, more productive, and cost less to employ even if they are paid the same as an on-site worker. Offices do not have to provide parking, seating, HVAC, power, wifi, and will even have less physical security vectors.

If some people prefer to go into an office, then it should be optional. Not a hybrid model where they force you to come a certain number of days a week.

At the end of the day unless you are on some kind of probation or evaluation period WFH should be the default when ever possible.

[-] ramble81@lemmy.world 77 points 1 year ago

Control is another thing. I can't tell you the amount of execs I've heard say "they're losing control of their company" or "I don't feel I have the same control over my people". It's crazy that they think that. What do they think the past 3 years have been when they've gotten record profits "oh, but our profits would be even better if we had people back in the office". Sadly no amount of data will override the entrepreneurial "it could always be more" what if that they throw out.

[-] KzadBhat@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago

I'm working in IT and as my last team lead hasn't had any technical knowledge in my area, and he didn't had to for his job, he wouldn't even be able to control what I'm doing, ...

[-] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago

He couldn't control whether you're doing your work properly, but he can control that you "pretend* to be controlled by him.

It's never about making you a better worker, it's just about the illusion of control.

Think about it, when was the last time you had an interaction with your superior that actually had anything to do with your actual job? It's all just a huge charade.

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Any executive who has "lost control" of their business by allowing their employees to work from home is no more than the ring master of a runaway circus that they never actually controlled to begin with.

I've had the unfortunate displeasure of working for at least one company that made a full time job of keeping their employees under their thumb and I can say this much: the more you micromanage your workforce, the better your workforce becomes at professional time wasting. By that I mean finding creative ways to look very busy while achieving nothing of benefit to the organization.

But then again, much of the corporate world runs on incompetence so poor business decisions based on some executives feelings, rather than statistics, aren't exactly rare.

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[-] SheeEttin@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Can confirm. I quit my last job because they told us to come back to the office. In 2020, when COVID was still in full swing. And being remote was our company's entire business model.

People don't quit jobs, they quit managers.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

I'm on my second probationary period entirely WFH, you shouldn't be required to work in the office unless the job physically requires it. Return to office is very often a big power grab by shitty management that don't know how to measure outcomes properly and instead prefer to micromanage. It is one of the biggest red flags.

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[-] Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 90 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Commuting is also a nightmare. Thats 1-2 hours a day of slog to get to an arbitrary location to do a job that I could do at home. Combine this with school drop offs and pick ups and the ability to do life admin during the week instead of cramming it all on a Saturday with everyone else like pre COVID and WFH is a winner.

[-] EricHill78@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I love those benefits. I would be extremely upset if I had to go back to the office. I'm more comfortable at home and I'm able to help my wife care for my son who is special needs. I save on gas and wear and tear on my car. The fact that I can listen to my music while just wearing shorts and a t-shirt was a game changer. IMO people in general suck and it's nice not to have to interact with them face to face on a daily basis. Some of my coworkers say they miss being in the office. I think they're nuts.

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[-] thefluffiest@feddit.nl 84 points 1 year ago

It’s not a perk. Don’t reinforce their framing

[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have not read the article yet but the headline saying “equivalent to an 8% raise” does not just have to mean some kind of soft value. I have to drive 50 km each way to my office. I am much more likely to eat out while at work ( or to hit a drive-thru on the way home ). Given the price of gas where I live, going to the office probably costs me $50 a day more than staying home. That is $50 after tax so you can simplistically double that in terms of salary that it consumes. If I have two jobs to choose from, from a purely financial stand-point, my current job and a fully remote one that pays me $100 less per day are equivalent in terms of the value they bring to my family.

Crap. I have been a “want to be in the office some of the time” guy but making me actually type this out has made me question that. I think I need to start shopping my CV.

[-] wesley@yall.theatl.social 77 points 1 year ago

I can't go back to working in an office full time anymore. It would be a really difficult adjustment especially losing the time to commuting and needing to deal with child care. Plus we found that we no longer needed a second car anymore since we were both at home so we sold one. Our life is built around not having to commute anymore.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 55 points 1 year ago

The push has nothing to do with anything but getting money back into real estate. The majority of wealthy people's money is tied up in either oil or real estate. Billion dollar office buildings going unused is unexplainable to the oligarchy. And I don't use the word Oligarchy lightly. Combined with less oil being used moving people around, and you have the most powerful people in the western world yelling at business executives to get their workers back in the office or they'll be unable to barrow money from the 0.0001% small companies don't have a lot of debt from the Oligarchy so they don't have to listen to them. But if you know anything, wealthy people don't like it when the poors don't filter their money upwards so this fight is long from over.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Don't forget micromanaging bosses who can't stand not being able to watch their employees at all times.

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[-] CodeBlooded@programming.dev 54 points 1 year ago

Holy smokes, working from home is not a “raise.” You should be compensated for the value you bring, not where you’re sitting when you bring value.

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 42 points 1 year ago

I spend $400 a month on gas because of my long commute. Work from home is definitely a raise in my situation. Gas bill goes down to $100 a month. Works out directly to a 5% raise just in gas alone. Car insurance can be switched to leisure only saving money further. Gain an extra two hours a day which were unpaid before, so my workday is now only 8 hours instead of 10, that is another equivalent to 25% on an hourly rate indirectly.

Then there is all the other benefits such as just being happier and more productive.

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[-] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It could be considered a raise in terms of the amount of time you dedicate to work and the amount you get paid for it.

8 hour shift plus 1 hour commute both ways means you effectively dedicate 10 hours to your job. Replace the commute with a 30 second walk from your bed to your desk and you are now making more money for your time.

Mind you, I still agree that remote work should never be actively viewed as a raise or a perk. It should be the default for jobs that are compatible, which is a ton of them.

[-] ElectricCattleman@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

I think it's basically saying companies need to pay more if they want people in-office. Which makes sense to me. If you want someone to spend time and money to commute they need to compensate for that. You can't ask someone who has been WFH to start coming in without some incentive or else you're basically cutting their pay.

That said, many people won't switch from WFH to in-office for any amount of money.

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[-] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 20 points 1 year ago

In terms of time returned, gas, wear & tear, etc., I would consider being told to go back to the office as a pay cut.

If I'm being asked to sit somewhere else, then I would definitely want to be compensated for that.

[-] Saneless@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, financially it can be a raise

But emotionally, it has no equivalent and is like losing a toxic work element

I get paid about $200 (miles, after gas) to go to work so even any office work is extra money for me

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[-] drekly@lemmy.world 54 points 1 year ago

8% seems extremely low. You could double my pay and I don't think I'd stop working from home

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[-] eyy@lemm.ee 47 points 1 year ago

But boomer bosses need to physically see their workers sitting in chairs, they need that feeling of power!

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My coworkers and I figure it at about 20% raise. No need for a second vehicle for the household, less money on food and clothes, plus the extra time.

[-] jeanma@lemmy.ninja 42 points 1 year ago

I could trade my WFH for a room with a view and a door. :) fuck openspace and flexdesks!

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago

Honestly I wouldn't. I can't think of anything that would make me work in an office again. I can't do it.

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[-] coheedcollapse@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Crazy that it's so low. I'd assume people who commute to work waste like an hour minimum going to and from work, so 1/9th of their work day is just unpaid "work" as far as I'm concerned.

That's ignoring all the benefits in comfort at home. I'm surprised it's just 8%.

[-] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 36 points 1 year ago

I'm not surprised; WFH is a great benefit to workers. The big thing is going to be how companies choose to balance remote and in-person work and it is going to be wildly different across different industries.

[-] Mini_Moonpie@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 year ago

What's galling is that big companies claim that the main reason for making people come into the office is to promote in-person collaboration. But, they constantly demonstrate that they don't, in fact, value in-person collaboration. They organize people into cross-geography teams all the time to save money on hiring. So, you're often sitting in a cubicle on a conference call with people on the other side of the planet that you will never see in the hallway. Or worse, you're sitting in a conference room with a handful of coworkers, struggling to communicate over a crappy speaker phone with a handful of coworkers on the other side of the planet. They also frequently lay off entire product teams in one fell swoop. Decades of institutional knowledge that you might tap into during a water cooler conversation just disappears overnight. It's hard to go along with all the extra real costs and pay the happiness tax that commutes and cubicle farms extract when it's so obvious that the stated reason for it all is a lie.

[-] reddwarf@feddit.nl 34 points 1 year ago

From experience I have seen how employers/government were forced back to the office. My Indian colleagues had to return to their offices because the office buildings were empty and it cost money. Government officials either owned or had friends own office buildings and it made monetary sense for them to force workers back to the offices. It was a play between corrupt officials and businesses, nothing more. Well, that and a profound and deep distrust of their workforce. It was a sad sight to see that happening to them.

My guess is that this could also occur the same way in the west.

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[-] dzso@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

8% my ass. I view WFH as a 300% raise.

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[-] CafecitoHippo@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm waiting to hear back from a job and chomping at the bit to leave because they offer a hybrid work schedule (3 home/2 office). It's a 6% pay bump (from $80k to $85k) but being able to work from home 3 days a week is such a big plus (and not having to manage anyone being the other) makes it worth it for me. Not to mention that I can cash out all the vacation time that I've accrued. I'm sitting on 287 hours of vacation time right now so that would be roughly $10.9k paid out when I leave. I asked them if I could cash some out earlier this year but was told "no but if you leave the company, you'll still get paid out so don't worry about losing it". Well guess I'll be leaving the company then. I rolled over 218 hours so it's not like it wasn't time I didn't have accrued. I also have 300 hours of sick time and 41 hours of weather time too. Those won't get paid out though.

I worked from home for over a year and we had our best year in commercial lending as a credit union while everyone was home. Now everyone needs to be in the office every day. Yeah, no thanks.

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[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Also informed by boomer consultants/board members advising millennial CEOs. No valid justification in most industries

[-] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On the sustainability front:

WFH means people aren't commuting. This is good, as we use less energy, particularly gas in our cars. On the down side, public transit agencies may have to dramatically cut service, increasing people's reliance on cars to get around. At an extreme level, they may go bankrupt due to lack of ridership.

Energy - home energy use has increased home residential energy use by between 7% and 23%. Lower income residents who do not have air conditioning can also suffer disproportionately. Higher income workers can readily afford expensive home upgrades, like adding a home office. Since empty commercial buildings still need to be heated and cooled, the energy savings aren't as great.

Real Estate - the US will need to delete 18% of its commercial real estate. There is trillions of dollars worth of commercial real estate debt maturing in the next 3 years that will be worthless. I've actually seen vacancy rates approaching 30% in many downtown markets.

This will leave every major city with a giant hole in its central city and cause major economic disruption in both the real estate investment market, construction I distry and walkability of cities. We may be staring down the barrel of another "white flight to the suburbs" that we saw empty out cities from the 1950s through the late 1990s.

[-] girlfreddy@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The upside to these empty buidings is they can - and should be - transitioned to housing. It's just the rich companies who own the buildings don't want to have to invest any money in that.

Gov'ts should force them to, but that won't happen either. :/

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[-] TheCopiedCovenant@lemmy.cafe 17 points 1 year ago

I would rather make 50k WFH than 100k in an office.

[-] Xenxs@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

For double the salary, I'd need to think long and hard about it tbh.

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[-] haych@lemmy.one 16 points 1 year ago

If my work tried to end WFH I'd leave instantly.

2 hours drive a day is not only a waste of my time but my money on fuel.

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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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