From packed buses to standstill rush hour traffic, commuting is rife with inconveniences. Long commute times are linked to negative effects on sleep, productivity, and overall quality of life. Commuting Americans spend, on average, 52 minutes per day traveling to and from work — an increase of about 20% since the U.S. Census began collecting that data in 1980. Recently, ever-increasing housing costs within big cities have given rise to “super commuters” who travel more than 90 minutes each way, some even by plane!
Super commuters aside, a typical worker can expect to lose 408 days to travel time over the course of their career, so it’s no surprise commuting is the number one reason employees don’t want to return to the office full-time. Because of this reticence to in-person working, it’s more important than ever to create an experience that makes coming to the office worth employees’ time.
Assuage Employees’ Commuting Concerns
The more time people spend commuting, the less time they have for leisure, and research shows that satisfaction with leisure time decreases as an employee’s commute lengthens. Longer commute times have been linked to negative effects, running the gamut from lower back pain and stiff necks to high blood pressure, tension, anger, and fatigue. In light of these drawbacks, who can blame workers for wanting to remain remote?
As more organizations implement their return-to-office plans, employees are left questioning whether their office culture and environment are worth the contemptible commute and its consequences. So, what can HR leaders do to remedy this reluctance? The answer lies in a compromise that gets employees back in the office while still cutting down on commute times: a hybrid work schedule.
Hybrid work schedules are the best of both worlds — employees have the flexibility and convenience of working from home part of the week while benefiting from in-office advantages the rest of the week. In fact, a recent study revealed that organizations with the highest percentage of engaged workers were those that asked employees to be on site just two to three days per week. The lowest levels of engagement were seen in organizations requiring employees to be on site five days a week.
Enhance the Hybrid Workplace with Indoor Mapping Technology
Improved employee engagement benefits the business. To further improve those in-person days for employees, HR leaders are striving to invest in office experiences that justify employees’ commute times. Enter indoor mapping technology.
Indoor mapping technology helps cultivate an employee-centric environment by fostering collaboration and reducing wasted time — employees no longer need to wander through the office in search of a colleague or an open desk. Instead, an indoor mapping platform integrates with existing technologies to enable employees to find and book an open desk or locate a co-worker.
Beyond reserving resources and finding colleagues, an indoor map can be used for office layout overviews, wayfinding, and spatial optimization. Employees can use indoor maps to determine details about the office — from how many people a space will accommodate to what tools are available in each room. When this information is available through an indoor mapping platform, employees can maximize their time in the office.
Though many employees are reluctant to return to the office, introducing a hybrid work schedule is a proven way to improve engagement while still reducing commute time, and indoor mapping technology can help employees make the most of in-office days. By focusing on enhancing employee experiences, organizations can expect to see happier, more productive workers who help drive growth and benefit the bottom line.
Morten Brøgger has many years of leadership experience from multiple prominent SaaS businesses, including Wire, Huddle, and the globally leading Mobile Roaming Clearing company, MACH. Morten’s positions in international companies reflect several years he has spent in Switzerland, Luxembourg, and in recent years, the USA. As CEO of MapsPeople, he returns to a top position in a Danish-based company where he is the head of the market-leading provider of indoor mapping.
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