When you are sitting with 100 thousand of your closest friends in the linear parking lot laughingly know as a freeway, you may not realize the toll is taking on you.
The London Daily Mail newspaper reported on a study of 34,000 commuters in England and found long drive times increase stress and depression. It is good to know that a scientific study backs up a problem we already know.
But, the numbers are startling:
- Employees with long commutes were 33% more likely to suffer from depression
- Employees with long commutes were 12% more likely to have stress
- Most distressing of all – employees with long commutes are 46% more likely to get less than 7 hours of sleep each night
- More than a 30-minute commute to work and you lose a minimum of a week each year
These problems result in a less productive employee.
For workers that didn’t commute (think remote work), they were most productive.
There is an interesting side result that came from this study. Whether the employee worked in the office or remote, they were only effective if they didn’t have job flexibility. Having the freedom to shift their work schedule to accommodate doctors appointments, errands, sick children, etc. resulted in great productivity. Not having job freedom regardless of location resulted in low productivity.
There are many companies touting job freedom but I have seen few that actually allow it.
In a future blog post, I will discuss what true freedom is in the workplace.