Is commuting killing us? Seriously! Well maybe a little over dramatic, but I know a little piece of me; my soul, my well-being, dies every time I hear that “We are sorry to announce”. Are you sorry? Really? Because excuse me for saying so, but I didn’t think you gave a b******s as to the knock on effects your, “inconvenience” has to thousands of commuters at the end of their tether with national public travel services, oh yeah, not just TFL.

Delays, cancellations, strikes, fare hikes, lack of space and seating. How is your commute at the moment? Whether its boarding a train, tube or bus your happiness and life satisfaction instantly declines, the stale carriage air (‘eau de night before’) and the awkward closeness to your fellow passenger sucks the life right from you. Londoners take up a musical statue position to pin themselves down avoiding any embarrassing bumps, closeness or intimacy (!) with your neighbouring stranger. Must . . . be . . . able . . . to . . . read phone messages, with screen pressed against face. Protecting personal space with a spread-eagled paper. Anxiety levels creep up, blood pressure temporarily spikes, sneezes, coughs, back ache, legs ache, more like ball ache!??

The comfort of your own car also provides little solace, with rush hour traffic comes increased anger, resentment and bitterness to every other driver, cyclist and pedestrian. I’m a nice person really, but, get out of my wayyy!

It isn’t just a London thing either, despite having some of the shortest commutes in terms of total distance (London is also the second longest commute in terms of time) workers are priced out into the suburbs and commutes take longer. The more bang for your buck in property means you are heavily penalised with the cost of seasonal travel tickets reaching into thousands (zones 1-6 annual gold card up to £5000). But it’s simpler surely? Jumping on a train out to the suburbs, kill some time working on the train, reading a book, sure, if it’s on time, and not cancelled and you get a seat and you push as far back into your mind as possible the cost you are paying for this ‘privilege’.

For a majority of us we start and finish our time in the office, 09:00 – 18:00, but you could easily add 3 hours on top of your working day, dedicated to work, yet not actually working. A report by Ranstad Recruiters UK found that if UK workers valued the time they spend getting to work as highly as they value the time they spend at work, then the average commute would be worth £5,722.  This lost value represents 19.1% of their average annual salary.  Commuters are spending an average of 43 minutes – travelling 22 miles each way – and the total lost time is worth a staggering £148bn a year.

So commuting isn’t just a huge financial cost, it eats away at our time and even our health and well-being. Those working in London spend on average 277 hours in a year getting to and from work, say 13,870 hours in a life time, that’s a year and a half of our lives commuting. The East of England and the South East follows after London, with both averaging a commute time of 205 hours a year. More specifically that’s time away from the family (some of you may find that a blessing!), bed time stories missed, training and exercise sessions missed, time to help reach that goal you are forever chasing, time to get ahead of life and feel in control and on top of things, creativity time, leisure time or even time to sleep and relax (you remember what the latter is?). There’s plenty more to it; stress levels, mood, performance at work, even broken relationships!

So what do we intend to do about it? Aside from a good rant, we can make changes to improve the efficiency and quality of this dead time and huge expense.

Flexible work patterns, whether it’s working remotely, working from home or telecommunications is one very simple option. A Standford Univeristy Study reveals that flexibility in working from home boosts employee happiness and productivity. These remote workers were found to be 13% more productive, taking fewer sick days and enjoying a quieter, less stressful working environment than their commuting colleagues. People also experience less relationship conflict and a great sense of autonomy and job satisfaction.

So why, for example when the dreaded tube strikes grip London, do 75% of people still battle (literally!) into work, with a journey that can cause you to grind to a halt and takes 2 or 3 times longer than what it should. We are accepting greater flexibility but why still do we struggle with this ‘remote’ concept and insist on continuing with our commute, and despising it, given the technological environment we now live in which can support a remote set up?

I believe it’s a lack of control and trust. When Companies struggle with the idea of employee’s flexibility working remotely it’s because there is a perceived ‘loss of control’ over their workforce to actually do work, but this simply is not true. Working as a Virtual Assistant, is exactly the same role as a Personal/ Executive Assistant who works in house, the only exception being for the majority of the time I work remotely to the client. It’s because I work remotely that I make sure I do my absolute best to see to my clients wants and needs, so they have full trust and confidence in my ability to get the work done for them. Working remotely heightens individual’s awareness to do a better job! It all comes down to communication, trust and passion.

But the future is looking towards an increase in flexibility to work remotely. A survey of business owners by Virgin Media Business recently predicted that 60% of office-based employees will regularly work from home by 2022 and a separate survey by Office Angels found a third of employees think commuting will be unheard of by 2036.

So, be flexible and allow remote working. Here’s a piece of advice (usually from someone who has never been a serial commuter) “if you smile at the person next to you, it’s contagious and people automatically feel a lot happier”; the only thing that’s contagious here, are your germs, please don’t stand so close to me and stop smiling, psycho!?

Love you London.

Cass

Next article “The rise and success of working remotely”