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Some staff say full time in the office would also cost them lucrative side jobs.
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Cost of commute ‘keeps office workers at home’
21 September 2022
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Four out of 10 office staff said the cost of commuting is the main reason they prefer working from home, according to a survey by software company Adaptavist.
Rising travel and food prices were the top reason hybrid work patterns were more appealing, while some said the ability to do a side job was crucial and they would lose more than $1,000 a month if they had to return to the office full time.
Head of organisational transformation at Adaptavist, John Turley, said the pandemic had been instrumental in long-term workplace changes.
“The transformation of work over the last few years has been long lasting, but will also continue to evolve,” said Mr Turley.
“Just as employees have grown accustomed to questioning the level of flexibility and freedom their organisation provides, they’re now rightly considering costs associated with heading back to the office, working from home or some combination of the two.
“Whether these costs are mental, emotional or financial, employees and employers will need to find a new equilibrium between doing business and the ways people want — and need — to work.”
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Demand for flexibility plus the current skill shortage meant businesses had to adapt to retain or attract talent.
The research asked the respondents what perks a business could offer to encourage them back to the office full time and flexible hours was the most popular response at 43.6 per cent.
Next on the list was reimbursement for commuting costs or free parking, picked by 30 per cent, while 28 per cent said free food or beverages.
The report also revealed that more than half of the respondents had either taken on an additional job or planned to do so.
The report said that having to work back in the office full time would not only quell employees’ side hustles but could also cost some of them more than $1,000 a month.
Adaptavist’s report showed that Australians' desire to continue hybrid working resulted in more employees in a mixed work environment when compared to the US, the UK and Canada, 34 per cent compared to an average of 29 per cent.
The tension between staff wanting hybrid arrangements and employers preferring workers back in the office was something each business had to overcome, according to futurist and author Mark Pesce.
“This research helps to confirm that Australian workers feel deeply concerned that new ways of working — a necessity of our longest-in-the-world lockdowns — will be lost as employers strive to recover a world of work that their employees believe was gone forever,” said Mr Pesce.
“Organisations and their employees both need to bend and adapt in order to succeed.”
Adaptavist provides training and consultancy to help organisations connect with their employees whether hybrid working or in the office through partnerships with leading technology such as Atlassian, Slack, AWS and more.
Adaptavist asked 3,500 employees across the US, the UK, and Canada, including 500 from Australia, about their views on hybrid versus in-office workplaces, productivity and the future of work for the firm’s reinventing work report.
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