Remote vs Hybrid vs On-Site - Where do you draw the line?

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 14:55

Lopéz said:
Is spending £1200 a year on getting to work and back a lot?

Depends on your salary, although those who do this kind of commute tend to be well paid.

On a closer to average salary, when you factor in other costs incurred on your vehicle to cover these distances etc, it would make a decent dent in your take home pay.

dlockers · 31 Oct 2024 at 15:00

Ayahuasca said:
Depends on your salary, although those who do this kind of commute tend to be well paid.

On a closer to average salary, when you factor in other costs incurred on your vehicle to cover these distances etc, it would make a decent dent in your take home pay.

Poor people get the bus or tube which will easily pass 1200

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 15:03

dlockers said:
Poor people get the bus or tube which will easily pass 1200

I think people are a bit too focused on London, and I wasn't talking about the poor.

The majority of office/on-site workers in the country use their own transport to get to work or car share with others. After your mortgage, buying, running and maintaining a car is usually the second biggest monthly expense for most people.

Transport Statistics Great Britain: 2022 Domestic Travel

www.gov.uk

jaybee · 31 Oct 2024 at 15:32

I don't think £1200 is a lot depending on any salary, anywhere if we are talking 5 days a week commuting.

People spending the daily cap every working day in London will often spend 2K annually in fares. Others will be more like £5 a day which is still £1200.
People commuting anywhere by car for 20 miles each way using a petrol car that does 40mpg, will also still most likely spend over £1200 in fuel alone.
Then you've got people that travel even further, less economical cars. People who have to spend 5K a year on a train season.

I wonder what the average commute cost in the UK was before COVID and now after?

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 15:45

£1200 may not seem like a lot, but if you make a fairer comparison by including all the costs of buying, running and maintaining a car, it soon starts to look like the cost of a train season ticket.

Lopéz · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:06

dlockers said:
Bargain - you are excluding the car cost though. And for folk that would need a 2nd car to enable this; that could be significant.

No, I'm not excluding it - I'm saying I don't think £1200 a year on fuel for committing is a lot. I know there are other running costs.

jaybee · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:13

Ayahuasca said:
£1200 may not seem like a lot, but if you make a fairer comparison by including all the costs of buying, running and maintaining a car, it soon starts to look like the cost of a train season ticket.

Depends on the commute. Car is almost always universally cheaper than commuting by train over time but it does depend on distance/location/parking costs and yes outright purchase of a car if you don't have one.

Over a 3 year period having to buy annual seasons, I could spend 18K on train travel. You could out right buy a lot of car for that including maintenance and running costs, and you'd still have a car at the end of the 3 year period.
With the train you'd have... hate and less hair.

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:18

jaybee said:
Over a 3 year period having to buy annual seasons, I could spend 18K on train travel.

That's a pretty extreme example, as £6K a year is the top end of what people spend on public transport.

As I said, people seem to be concentrating on London, where a car isn't even feasible for commuting to pretty much anywhere in the city itself.

jaybee · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:25

Ayahuasca said:
That's a pretty extreme example, as £6K a year is the top end of what people spend on public transport.

As I said earlier, people seem to be focusing on London.

I wouldn't call it extreme in London at all. People spend more. It's on the higher end though for sure. I won't ever go back to it personally, not due to cost, due to commuting 4/5 days a week in London and the toll it takes on you both mentally and physically. I'm hybrid now I mean.

I'm focusing on where I have experience of is all and just adding to discussion.

I know the country is not London.

MrRockliffe · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:31

Ayahuasca said:
You have to spend at least ~£1200 a year just to get to and from work. If it works for you that's fine but I'd have to be compensated well above what I could earn more locally to be wasting that much of my life sat in a car and paying for the pleasure. It's not just the cost of fuel, you'll also run up other costs more quickly if you're driving that many miles a week.

I don’t have to though - I choose to

And I would personally be happy to in a hybrid role

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:36

MrRockliffe said:
I don’t have to though - I choose to

And I would personally be happy to in a hybrid role

So it's not in fact a hybrid role i.e. you could work fully remote? That's a bit different.

MrRockliffe · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:37

Ayahuasca said:
So it's not in fact a hybrid role i.e. you could work fully remote? That's a bit different.

It’s hybrid if I choose it to be. I had the option of choosing my contract

Ayahuasca · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:41

MrRockliffe said:
It’s hybrid if I choose it to be. I had the option of choosing my contract

So did I. This thread seems to be more about fixed working arrangements where there is no choice.

SPG · 31 Oct 2024 at 16:51

I think it boils down to the commute.

If I was one of the unlucky ones where you was stuck in a car for over an hr to and from work I would want to be in the office 2 days a week max

Kenai · 31 Oct 2024 at 17:01

SPG said:
I think it boils down to the commute.

Definitely, even for those who might enjoy driving, if the commute is actually 'join the M4 at Bristol and drive to Slough' then that's of no excitement to anybody.

When your commute is through a variety of A and B roads through AONBs and the like, it can be genuinely enjoyable.

dowie · 31 Oct 2024 at 19:52

Ayahuasca said:
£1200 may not seem like a lot, but if you make a fairer comparison by including all the costs of buying, running and maintaining a car, it soon starts to look like the cost of a train season ticket.

I guess it depends partly on whether you'd have bought a car regardless.

If you'd have still bought a car then the additional costs are more just the extra depreciation and some extra on maintenance from the additional mileage.

Manbatius · 2 Nov 2024 at 18:21

I think Dowie's post on page 1 or 2 is what I think of the categories,
I do know it's a pain for me looking for work as I collect the kids 4 days a week....
Most jobs I look for just say Hybrid, but don't tell you what that means....

Currently 1 in office, 4 from home, not due to the above, just what work has asked.
It was funny, when they made mandatory one day in, they chose a Friday..... needless to say after 6 months this did not work very well. So it is now a Tuesday.

mid_gen · 4 Nov 2024 at 09:16

SPG said:
I think it boils down to the commute.

If I was one of the unlucky ones where you was stuck in a car for over an hr to and from work I would want to be in the office 2 days a week max

On a typical day in the office I'd spend 3-4 hours in the car. I was on 2 days a week in the office which was right at the limit of what I could put up with.

I've had 'the chat' with my boss now and agreed I'm going to be departing when the new 3 day a week policy comes in. There's no sign of any meaningful exceptions being made, suspect it's all a strategy to reduce headcount on the sly anyway. **** em.

SPG · 4 Nov 2024 at 09:22

mid_gen said:
On a typical day in the office I'd spend 3-4 hours in the car. I was on 2 days a week in the office which was right at the limit of what I could put up with.

I've had 'the chat' with my boss now and agreed I'm going to be departing when the new 3 day a week policy comes in. There's no sign of any meaningful exceptions being made, suspect it's all a strategy to reduce headcount on the sly anyway. **** em.

Owch, although to be fair I think the horse has bolted now, give it another 10-15 years when the people in favour of WFH are further up the food chain it should hopefully become the norm. But again its very industry and roll specific.

DanTheMan · 4 Nov 2024 at 09:57

I currently work 3 days in the office and 2 days WFH.

I like the routine of the office as it gets me out of the house and into the city centre. I can park for free on the outskirts of town and walk a mile to the office, which gets me energised for the day.

I enjoy the social side of the office but I can categorically say I'm less productive in the office compared to when at home.

Also, up until recently there was only 3 of us in Manchester that were doing the same work, so most of the time I'd arrive in the office to set on my own all day, as the others weren't in and there were no mandatory office days. This was absolutely pointless and really did feel like a box ticking exercise.

The biggest thing for me though is Flexi time. I would take 5 days in the office with Flexi time, over 100% WFH but with set hours. I'd like a different job but it would have to pay me significantly more to offset Flexi time and that just simply won't happen.

Most days, I do the school run in the morning, so I don't arrive in the office until 09:30. I can also leave to avoid rush hour, then log back in when at home. Being a parent, this makes a huge difference.

The caveat to this is that if I was childless or was happy to move my child to a different school, then I would 100% live somewhere much further away from a big city and would most likely look for a job with more WFH, so I didn't have to commute as frequently.