Suppose there are two employees: Alice and Bob, who do the same job at the same factory. Alice has a 10 minute (20RT) commute, Bob commutes 35 minutes(70RT).
If you’re the owner of the factory, would you compensate them for their commutes? How would you do it?
Anything short of my commuting time being considered part of my working hours is a non-starter for me. I value the time I gain by not commuting a lot more than most employers do. If my day starts the moment I close my front door, then we can start talking about additional concessions.
My employer gives us a commuting payment based on the distance from home to work (paid per km) on days we go to the office. We get an additional €60 a month to cover our working from home costs.
Blowjobs
If we have to be hypothetical, let’s go wildYou’ve got union rep written all over your post.
I’m gonna be all over the union rep
I commute an hour, but I only do so because it’s cheaper to live where I do instead of in the city I work in. I’m already compensated.
If I wanted a short commute I would be paying for it.
Employees living far away is not something I would want to incentivize for so many reasons.
But that’s not what compensation for the commute would incentivize. I don’t understand why people think getting paid to drive to work would mean employees would spend most of the week driving. It would mean employers would only hire employees who live upstairs.
If someone enjoys driving more than their actual job, and they’re getting paid to do it, it’s arguably an incentive. At the very least, you’re no longer decentivizing the commute by paying for it.
Paying money for a behavior is an incentive for that behavior.
Does that mean every employee would choose to live far away to maximize their commuter mileage benefit? No.
Does that mean some barriers to living far away would be reduced, thus increasing odds that some employees would live further away, or that some prospective employees that live at distance would consider applying to this company over a company that doesn’t offer a commuter mileage benefit? Yes.
Companies also aren’t worried employees “would spend most of their weeks driving”. Most companies don’t include drive time as hours worked.
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I would think free time is still more valuable in most cases.
Never had an employer that cares about what I do with my free time nor how optimized it is.
The question is what a person might offer as an employer, not what benefit a person might like to have as an employee.
First: a company should pay at a minimum a wage that can afford housing nearby (probably within 15 minutes’ drive). The company should pay everyone for work hours + that round trip nearby commute time
If the company is paying that wage, then employees who live farther away are making a free choice to do so. They still get that round trip nearby commute time paid, but time beyond that is not paid. Or paid at some diminishing rate.
Companies should recognize a worker’s time list for the company’s benefit. But there has to be a balance because of the temptation to game the system.
Intentionally living farther away from your job doesn’t sound like such an appealing thing though because you are still wasting however much of your day having to drive to work. Like sure you get paid more but the pay is hardly ever worth more than the extra free time.
I would make sure they are both payed well enough that they can afford to live close to the factory. If they chose to live far away anyway, that is not my problem.
I would put then on the same shift so they eat lunch together. Soon they will fall in love, get married and move in together. Problem solved.
Half assed ideas.
Option 1) % of hourly pay rate, capped at an two hours for a total round trip (but flexible) + a stipend depending on mode of transportation. Could try to get receipts from workers and have a purser issue cash/credit on their next paycheck or issue re loadable debit cards that get filled at regular intervals. (So a card for paid public transit and fuel for combustion vehicles) If we’re working in a place that taxes employee wages, the more taxes the employer can carry the better on the workers.
Option 2) Everybody gets a debit card and a list of approved places/items to be purchased for the purposes of “commuting to work compensation”. Workers could be expected to keep as many receipts as possible to turn in weekly just to verify stuff.
Option 3) Some subcommittee tracks worker commute times and how they commute and every quarter or something a stipend is paid in a lump sum like a bonus or it is used to give a paycheck by paycheck payout.
Easiest idea would be like JohanSkullcrusher said, full hourly pay rate the second I get into my car to start driving. Though workers would wind up paying more in income taxes and there’d probably be some issues with workers getting different compensation, like somebody walking 10 minutes to work and somebody driving 1 hour to get to work are going to have significantly different income levels at the end of the year.
Let’s make generalizations to answer the bigger problem here.
Most jobs that people are talking about are in cities.
Some people choose to not live right in the middle of a city for various reasons, but still want that job. They may live in a nearby community, the edge of the city, a county or two over, etc.
Predatory companies like Amazon resolve this by telling someone like Ryan homes to build a few 300 house communities right next to their new warehouse, resolving the issue and making their own non-city town. Normal companies do not have this ability.
There has to be a balance.
Businesses need to not be involved in commute repayment. They should instead invest into their local communities to make them more desirable to live in.
“choose” is doing a lot of work there. Have you priced housing lately? The real “choice” I see is that companies “choose” their location such that their employees can’t afford to live nearby on the wages they’re earning, or the companies “choose” to pay employees to little in wages to afford to live nearby.
You could also say the employees choose to work for the company that’s not paying them enough. Of course they have constraints in how many jobs there are and how many other job seekers exist and which jobs they are qualified for… but then the problem complexity explodes to “how do we build a fair society” very quickly.
I would turn the company over to the workers so they can decode. Also prevents my death when a revolution inevitability occurs.
solidarity
It’s dependent on how competitive the job market is. You either pay the person more to get them to do it or you don’t. You set a value on their relative skills. Everything else comes out in the wash.
If you’re the owner of the factory, would you compensate them for their commutes? How would you do it?
absolutely, people’s workdays should start when they begin their commute. I don’t know off the top of my head, but some companies and government jobs already comp people for their travel expenses, just extend that to commutes.
i used to work for Amazon. in the morning, I’d drive to a parking lot a few miles from the warehouse. then I’d get on a shuttle bus which would drop me off at the warehouse. (not enough parking at the warehouse)
Jeffy B paid me for the shuttle ride to and from the warehouse AND paid the shuttle driver.
how does that work? do you clock in/out while on the shuttle or something?
yes, I’d clock in and out on the bus. Know where a municipal bus collects fare near the driver? they had a shift clock there to punch in and out.
A high static number, like $100/week. The people who live closer will get a little extra and that’s fine (a mild incentive)
This is how a lot of companies in my area do it. They might offer either a transit card, a parking pass, or a small extra cash bonus each month. Generally the transit card and parking passes are more valuable than the cash.
What do you mean compensate employees for their commutes? If I were a self-respecting factory owner, I would figure out how to get the municipality to scale back any public transit options so I could lease vehicles to my employees. They should be paying me to get to work, ha!
Spoken like a true businesstorian.
like a subscription!! yes!!!
they would pay you everyday to get to and from work. would it be a flat rate or by the length of commute? length in minutes? miles?
