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How we work
The sky-high cost of returning to the office
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(Image credit: Getty)

By Sophia Epstein21st April 2022

After two years of remote work, spending a day in the office can be a shock to
the wallet – and rising costs are making it worse.

“It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns
again,” President Joe Biden said earlier this year. He’s not the only political
leader calling for workers to head back to the office. “Mother Nature does not
like working from home,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced late
last year, as he predicted a wholesale return to pre-pandemic commuting levels. 

It’s not surprising that political leaders want us back at our desks. Without
daily commutes and dining ‘al desko’, businesses of all types and sizes are
losing out financially. One day of commuting is worth £82m ($107m) to businesses
in the UK; in the US, workers spent between $2,000 and $5,000 (£1,536–£3,840) on
transport to work alone each year before the pandemic.  

But there’s a problem. Employees who haven’t had to budget for train tickets,
takeaway coffees or new office outfits for the past two years are now acutely
aware of how much it costs to spend a day at your desk. And, worse, these costs
are growing. Petrol prices are at an all-time high; transport fares have
increased, and food and other essentials are on an upwards trajectory. That
means an office day can hit the wallet hard. 

Some companies are offering financial and other incentives to tempt unhappy
commuters back. But, given how aware workers are now of exactly how much an
office day costs, it feels unlikely people will willingly revert to absorbing
office-day expenses like before.   

‘A quarter of my daily income’ 

Claire, a manager at a business events company in London, is certainly far more
conscious now of how much she’s spending on her days in the office.


> WHEN I FIRST WENT BACK TO THE OFFICE, I WAS SHOCKED. IT’S JUST CRAZY EXPENSIVE
> – UMUS

When she worked from home during the pandemic, she put the money she usually
spent on transport, takeaway lunches, office wear and after-work drinks into a
savings pot. “I think I saved something crazy like £6,000 in six months,” she
says. But when her employers reinstituted office days, the sudden change in her
outgoings came as a shock. 

To make matters worse, her return train ticket to work has risen from £35
pre-pandemic to almost £50. “Having a mortgage, the rise in utility bills,
council tax, income tax and the rising train fares, it’s just becoming
impossible,” she says. Claire’s employer has upped salaries to meet market rates
but, says Claire, “it’s really not enough”. 

Umus, a lecturer at a London university, experienced a similar post-pandemic
price shock. Their commute – a comparatively short distance on the underground –
costs £6.40 during rush hour. “When I first went back to the office, I was
shocked. It’s just crazy expensive,” says Umus. “People are always saying ‘you
can just cycle’, but it’s very ableist, everybody is not capable of cycling
seven miles every day.” 

At work, Umus finds that expenses accumulate. “I usually grab both breakfast and
lunch around work,” says Umus. “The cheapest option is Pret, and very easily,
one coffee, one little breakfast thing and lunch, ends up being £13, then I get
snacks from Tesco, which isn’t cheap either.” They’ve been working on a strict
budget, but still end up spending between £22 and £27 on food and transport
every office day. “That’s more than a quarter of what I make per day just to be
able to go into the office,” says Umus.

Lunches, coffees and snacks in the office can be expensive - especially compared
to a remote-work day with access to your own kitchen (Credit: Getty)

When Umus works from home, they prepare their own food – it’s easier with more
time and access to a full kitchen. “People say you can bring your own lunch [to
the office], but I have a baby at home. I just barely survive, I can't plan
lunches as well,” says Umus. “I feel like I should be able to afford a Pret
sandwich as a lecturer at [a university in] London, but it’s really pushing the
limits of my budget if I do it more than twice a week.” 

Soaring costs 

Umus isn’t the only one struggling to cover office-related costs. “Incomes of
all types, particularly wages, are just not keeping up with inflation,” says
James Smith, research director at London think-tank Resolution Foundation. 

According to the UK Office of National Statistics, while wages did technically
rise over the last tax year, when accounting for rising costs, workers actually
saw a 1% drop in pay. In the US, the Labor Department reports worker pay has
increased by 4% in the past year, well below the 7% increase in prices. In South
Africa, worker wages were frozen in 2020 and climbed 1.5% in 2021 – again, well
below the estimated inflation of 4.5%. 

As wages lag, transport costs are surging. In London, where public transport
dominates, fares on buses and the London Underground have seen the biggest rise
in a decade, to help recoup pandemic losses. Across the UK, rail costs are also
going up. In the United States, where the vast majority (over 80%) commute by
car, surging gas prices are keeping people from getting behind the wheel. A year
ago, petrol in the US cost $2.87 a gallon, now the average has gone up 50% to
$4.10, leaving many commuters struggling.


> IT'S GOTTEN TO THE POINT WHERE IF I WERE TO BE FORCED BACK INTO THE OFFICE
> FULL TIME, I LITERALLY CAN'T AFFORD TO GET THERE – TRACY BENSON

South Africa has seen similar increases. “Wages have been stagnant since the
beginning of 2020 and the petrol price just keeps going up and up,” says Tracy
Benson, an office manager in Johannesburg. Benson is currently alternating
remote and office days, but now South Africa has eased its pandemic rules a push
to get back to the office has begun. 

“It's gotten to the point where if I were to be forced back into the office full
time, I literally can't afford to get there, the petrol would cost me too much,”
says Benson. 

Subsidies, for some 

These rising costs mean that workers who can do their jobs from home are
understandably reluctant to head to the office unless they absolutely need to.
In Benson’s case, she’s just hoping her employer keeps allowing home working.
“I’m worried the office will push for a full return,” says Benson. “For me, it
would honestly mean finding a different job.” 

Some companies are cognisant of employees’ concerns and are offering practical
solutions aimed at alleviating costs related to office days. Media company
Bloomberg is offering its US staff a $75 daily commuting stipend, which they can
spend however they want. In the UK, consultancy PwC is giving commuters an extra
£1,000 to come into the office, while bank Goldman Sachs is offering free
breakfast and lunch to some workers. But these perks and stipends certainly
don’t extend to all companies – meaning people are not only being asked to give
up remote work but also spend more to do it.  

In many nations, the costs associated with getting to work are rising fast
(Credit: Getty)

Before the pandemic, people generally absorbed these costs without question. But
now they’ve seen the alternative, it’s not as simple as just ‘going back to
normal’ – especially if other people are getting better deals. 

“It’s an issue of fairness,” says Jean-Nicolas Reyt, assistant professor of
organisational behaviour at McGill. He explains that we determine fairness not
just based on what our colleagues are receiving, but also what other people
doing different jobs at different organisations are getting – so if one company
is subsidising their employees’ commutes, then workers elsewhere are likely to
want the same benefit. 

“People don't stay an unfair situation; they work less, or usually they quit,”
adds Reyt. “If some companies start giving people money to commute, this is
going to become the norm, the market will readjust.” Reyt encourages employers
to pick their battles. “CEOs talk to me as if the goal is to reduce all costs,”
he says, but an enforced back-to-office policy, without any perks, will likely
have unintended consequences for employee retention. “It’s not worth it to cut
corners. The overall costs are so much bigger than these savings.” 

Yet even as some workers discuss with their employers how often they’ll return
to the office and who will pay, the Resolution Foundation’s Smith points out
that those who have the option of working from home are still some of the most
fortunate. After all, knowledge workers and those on higher incomes were far
more likely to be able to work remotely during the pandemic than lower-income
workers, who will have had no choice but to attend their place of work each day
and absorb the related, rising costs. 

As Umus says: “I'm one of the lucky ones. So, I don't know how other people
manage.”   

Claire and Umus are using their middle names out of job-security concerns

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