Clocking in when you start your commute is a bridge too far in my opinion. If the company has no say on where you live then they could end up paying a person astronomically more just because they wanted to live far away. Like imagine an engineer who wants to live out in the mountains and commute 2 hours each way to work why should the company compensate them for that? Especially when you have another employee who is paying 2x as much in housing costs so they can live near work. Long term it would encourage people to live further from work which would just worsen traffic and suburban sprawl that nobody should want.
I would much rather see a housing incentive if a person lives with 3 miles of work so that people can have shorter commutes and the idea of walking/biking to work wasn’t unreasonable
My company’s policy is that if you’re traveling to other offices, that’s paid time. If I go into the main office, but then midday have to drive 2 hours to one of our labs or something, it makes sense I’d be paid for that, right? Same with commuting during business trips. So, if I have the ability to WFH, how is it any different? I’m having to travel from one office location to another.
It depends, where is your designated work site. If your main office is the one at work then being able to wfh is a privilege that if feasible should 100% be allowed but if part of your job is not able to be done remotely and once a week they require you to go the office there is no reason the company should pay for that
On the flip side if you are a remote employee who does not have a designated work site that’s asked to come to some random office to pick up a new laptop that should be on the clock.
The difference is control of the situation if you know where your designated work site is and choose to have a long commute to get there that is a personal choice, you don’t however have control over the random places that your work sends you like secondary job sites or another state.
Obviously there is no right or wrong answer to this as it’s all opinions but the way I see it is it’s bad for morale if a coworker got to work less than because they lived further away and others had to pick up their slack. Environmentally it’s worse because it encourages people to live further away and be even more car reliant.
There also are just better options.
If the goal is to reduce the total hours people have to work because 8 hours + 1 hour unpaid lunch + 1 hour of commuting eats away at people’s day then you could just lower everybody’s required work time by the average commuting time
If the goal is to pay people more you could just use the extra money you would use for paying for the commute and just pay your employees more
But you could add extra incentives like anyone who bikes/walks/takes public transit to work gets to leave extra early
As I mentioned before pay people more if they live within X distance from work so they don’t have to commute as much
Neither they are driving to work. If they were visiting a client that would be driving for work but the time you spend outside of work is not for work.
Why is your time and your coworkers time so worthless to you? Not to mention the financial burden. And believe it when I say, if the CEO of your company has to travel more than 30 minutes one way they have it written in their contract that they are “reimbursed” for their time lost. But you? Eat the cost of not only your commute but your CEOs as well. Some even get a private jet to fly them to work and back every day.
It’s literally just not a logical thing to do and the article you linked highlights exactly why it doesn’t make sense.
It encourages people to live further away from their jobs which increases commute time, increases traffic, and increases pollution
If your goal is to pay employees more then just pay them more but paying the employee who lives outside the city more because they chose to have a 2 hour commute when another coworker pays a premium to live 5 minutes from work is clearly unfair
If your goal is to have employees work less hours then just have everyone work less hours again why should some people work less than others just because they want to live far away
I think everyone should be paid more but this is the dumbest way to do it
I am literally not mad at the rules of the game… I am saying the rules are fine which are already codified for when your are “on the clock”
I am not opposed to changing the rules to make the game better for everyone but giving Carlos an extra 2m/ game because he lives in Wyoming when everyone else lives 5 minutes from the stadium is just bullshit.
Equity is a very important issue with uncontrolled circumstances but commuting distance is mostly in control of the employee in which case equality makes more sense
I don’t think you understand… The only difference is there are those who expect and demand to paid for their time and money spent getting to work and those who don’t. There are those who accept getting the raw end of the work-life and financial balance, and those that don’t. If the CEO can demand, expect, and get compensation. So can the boots on the ground worker. Only real difference is that you don’t. That’s capitalism.
Saying that we should be able to do things because a CEO does is a shit argument.
We don’t need more people acting like CEOs who terribly pollute the planet…
The money that is going to the workers is fixed it is a zero sum game if they pay people more for commuting they aren’t going to just take a loss on their income.
In the case of the pilots and the flight attendants the difference is not them commuting from home but that they can be stuck waiting at an airport or even on a plane that isn’t departing that is completely out of their control. So if they normally get paid $50/hr for a 5 hour flight that under normal conditions involves 3 hours of unpaid airport time currently they would get $250 if they instead got 31/hr they would get paid the same for a normal flight but if there was a uncontrolled 2 hour delay they now get 310 instead which is 100% deserved
In the case of engineers if they have 10 engineers who have a budget of 5000/day why should the 9 that live 30 minutes away get paid $484 and the one that lives 2 hours away get paid 645 for not contributing anything extra?
Compensation should be increased!
Work life balance should be increased!
Doing it through paying commuting costs for office workers is a dumb way of doing it.
All your reasons for it are coming down to ad hominem attacks that I apparently just hate workers and I have said multiple times now that it has nothing to do with that and I want workers to be paid but the mechanism of paying them for commuting just doesn’t make logical sense
If you want to have a real conversation where you give real reasons why you think a commuting compensation is useful I would love to hear your reasons but if you are just going to keep insulting people who disagree then you can talk to yourself
Clocking in when you start your commute is a bridge too far in my opinion. If the company has no say on where you live then they could end up paying a person astronomically more just because they wanted to live far away. Like imagine an engineer who wants to live out in the mountains and commute 2 hours each way to work why should the company compensate them for that? Especially when you have another employee who is paying 2x as much in housing costs so they can live near work. Long term it would encourage people to live further from work which would just worsen traffic and suburban sprawl that nobody should want.
I would much rather see a housing incentive if a person lives with 3 miles of work so that people can have shorter commutes and the idea of walking/biking to work wasn’t unreasonable
My company’s policy is that if you’re traveling to other offices, that’s paid time. If I go into the main office, but then midday have to drive 2 hours to one of our labs or something, it makes sense I’d be paid for that, right? Same with commuting during business trips. So, if I have the ability to WFH, how is it any different? I’m having to travel from one office location to another.
It depends, where is your designated work site. If your main office is the one at work then being able to wfh is a privilege that if feasible should 100% be allowed but if part of your job is not able to be done remotely and once a week they require you to go the office there is no reason the company should pay for that
On the flip side if you are a remote employee who does not have a designated work site that’s asked to come to some random office to pick up a new laptop that should be on the clock.
The difference is control of the situation if you know where your designated work site is and choose to have a long commute to get there that is a personal choice, you don’t however have control over the random places that your work sends you like secondary job sites or another state.
Obviously there is no right or wrong answer to this as it’s all opinions but the way I see it is it’s bad for morale if a coworker got to work less than because they lived further away and others had to pick up their slack. Environmentally it’s worse because it encourages people to live further away and be even more car reliant.
There also are just better options.
If the goal is to reduce the total hours people have to work because 8 hours + 1 hour unpaid lunch + 1 hour of commuting eats away at people’s day then you could just lower everybody’s required work time by the average commuting time
If the goal is to pay people more you could just use the extra money you would use for paying for the commute and just pay your employees more
But you could add extra incentives like anyone who bikes/walks/takes public transit to work gets to leave extra early
As I mentioned before pay people more if they live within X distance from work so they don’t have to commute as much
Are they driving for work? Or driving for personal reason?
Neither they are driving to work. If they were visiting a client that would be driving for work but the time you spend outside of work is not for work.
Why is your time and your coworkers time so worthless to you? Not to mention the financial burden. And believe it when I say, if the CEO of your company has to travel more than 30 minutes one way they have it written in their contract that they are “reimbursed” for their time lost. But you? Eat the cost of not only your commute but your CEOs as well. Some even get a private jet to fly them to work and back every day.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/starbucks-new-boss-private-jet-b2600164.html
It’s literally just not a logical thing to do and the article you linked highlights exactly why it doesn’t make sense.
It encourages people to live further away from their jobs which increases commute time, increases traffic, and increases pollution
If your goal is to pay employees more then just pay them more but paying the employee who lives outside the city more because they chose to have a 2 hour commute when another coworker pays a premium to live 5 minutes from work is clearly unfair
If your goal is to have employees work less hours then just have everyone work less hours again why should some people work less than others just because they want to live far away
I think everyone should be paid more but this is the dumbest way to do it
It’s the rules of the game you’re mad at. Not the commuting equitably issue.
I am literally not mad at the rules of the game… I am saying the rules are fine which are already codified for when your are “on the clock”
I am not opposed to changing the rules to make the game better for everyone but giving Carlos an extra 2m/ game because he lives in Wyoming when everyone else lives 5 minutes from the stadium is just bullshit.
Equity is a very important issue with uncontrolled circumstances but commuting distance is mostly in control of the employee in which case equality makes more sense
I don’t think you understand… The only difference is there are those who expect and demand to paid for their time and money spent getting to work and those who don’t. There are those who accept getting the raw end of the work-life and financial balance, and those that don’t. If the CEO can demand, expect, and get compensation. So can the boots on the ground worker. Only real difference is that you don’t. That’s capitalism.
Saying that we should be able to do things because a CEO does is a shit argument.
We don’t need more people acting like CEOs who terribly pollute the planet…
The money that is going to the workers is fixed it is a zero sum game if they pay people more for commuting they aren’t going to just take a loss on their income.
In the case of the pilots and the flight attendants the difference is not them commuting from home but that they can be stuck waiting at an airport or even on a plane that isn’t departing that is completely out of their control. So if they normally get paid $50/hr for a 5 hour flight that under normal conditions involves 3 hours of unpaid airport time currently they would get $250 if they instead got 31/hr they would get paid the same for a normal flight but if there was a uncontrolled 2 hour delay they now get 310 instead which is 100% deserved
In the case of engineers if they have 10 engineers who have a budget of 5000/day why should the 9 that live 30 minutes away get paid $484 and the one that lives 2 hours away get paid 645 for not contributing anything extra?
Compensation should be increased! Work life balance should be increased! Doing it through paying commuting costs for office workers is a dumb way of doing it.
All your reasons for it are coming down to ad hominem attacks that I apparently just hate workers and I have said multiple times now that it has nothing to do with that and I want workers to be paid but the mechanism of paying them for commuting just doesn’t make logical sense
If you want to have a real conversation where you give real reasons why you think a commuting compensation is useful I would love to hear your reasons but if you are just going to keep insulting people who disagree then you can talk to yourself