Americans have grown so fond of working from home that many are are willing to sacrifice pay for the privilege of skipping the office. Some workers said they're willing to take a pay cut -- with an average reduction of 18% -- to remain fully remote, Paul McDonald, a Robert Half senior executive director, told CBS News. Overall, roughly one in three workers who go into the office at least one day a week said they were willing to earn less for the opportunity to work remotely.
When you start calculating the cost of "going to work", you'll find that getting less money for WFH may even mean more money.
First, no travel cost. Whether you save money for the train ticket or the car use, gas, parking and toll fees and all that other cr-p that piles on, that's direct money in your pocket. And all of that with the risk of an accident or due to proximity with other people catching some disease, which may, depending on where you are, either directly cost you more money to get healthy again or at least means lost time you could have spent productive.
But what a lot of people overlook is the cost for the stuff you do through the day. Not least of which the cost for food and drinks. The coffee on the way to work, the price for lunch and maybe an evening snack... All these things cost money. It's not far fetched to say that 100 bucks a week is probably not enough for most.
During pandemic, people have noticed that, hey, wow, there's suddenly money left over at the end of the month. Because I had my coffee at home. Because I made my own lunch. Because there was no after-work gathering. Suddenly people noticed the hundreds of dollars they wasted on going to work.
And they are willing to use that as a bargaining chip to work from home. Because, well, if they get GANG-PRESSED back into the office, they don't have that money either.
With all the expenses for expensive offices, interiors and fridges full of kombucha gone, those savings could be paid to the employees as well.
Working at an office costs you money that you don't need to pay if you work from home. Travel cost, opportunity cost, food cost... That's the money people are willing to part with, because if they have to go to the office, they wouldn't have it anyway.