The cost of commuting: Why employers should consider chipping in

Every day, hundreds of thousands of employees wake up hours before their workday starts,  just so they have enough time to make it to the office in time. But commuting to work is work — and should be compensated accordingly. 

The average American spends an average of 27.6 minutes traveling one way, according to workplace insights platform Zippia, totalling at least an hour of extra work time. But nearly a quarter of Americans spend more than 30 minutes on a one-way commute, which adds up to lost time and money. This CEO believes if employers want their workers in the office, they should be doing whatever it takes to make it less taxing. 

"If people are commuting for an hour or two hours or three hours a day just to get to an office, that's work and they're on the clock," says Phil Libin, CEO and founder of Mmhmm, a video communication platform. "So you have to consider from the company's point of view: how are you going to get the best results? What's the most productive? And it's hard to imagine that everyone spending three hours a day sitting in traffic is ever the right answer for any kind of company or job." 

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Traveling 55 minutes per day equates to over 333 hours per year — nearly two weeks of an employees' life lost to commuting, according to Zippia. While time is money, commuting comes with a high price tag, too: real estate company Clever Real Estate estimates employees spend approximately $8,466 on their commute every year, around 19% of their annual income. Commuters also spend an average of $867 on fuel per year and an additional $410 on vehicle maintenance, as well as added costs like parking pass fees, tolls and parking tickets.

"If you need everyone to be in a physical location because the kind of job requires it — like assembling cars or doing brain surgery — you should set up your company so that most people can afford to live within a 10 to 20 minute commute," Libin says. "But if you have work that doesn't require people to be in the same place, consider the cost of the time of commuting and pay people for it. Or better yet, just eliminate it. Because even if you pay people for the civil waste, it may be more fair to them, but it's still a waste for the company."

While employers can subsidize certain commuting expenses, such as offering to pay for subway passes and train tickets for those in metropolitan areas, there's nothing they can do about the loss in productivity that stems from long commute times. Recent data from Dartmouth College found that stress, anxiety and frustration felt by individuals during their commute can reduce their efficiency at work, increase levels of counterproductive work behavior and lower their engagement. And employees won't put up with it for long, Libin says. 

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"I as a CEO will never again in my life give up two to three hours a day, five days a week sitting in traffic doing this high stress, low productivity activity," he says. "So why would I ask someone else to do it? Anyone who's forcing people to do something they don't want to do is not seeing that in six months or 12 months or 18 months from now, return-to-work won't be the hardest thing they'll be facing. Retaining talent will, and companies that pushed away their most confident people are going to deeply regret it." 

A forced commute will give highly productive employees more reason to leave immediately, and it will be harder for an employer to limit talent to one geographic area especially when there are plenty of hybrid and remote positions available. 

"I'm not saying that companies need to be fully remote," Libin says. "I'm saying that they should be reasonable and take into account the obvious trade offs, then they can decide what's best for them,  without being blind to one side of the equation."