Commuting can cost employees nearly $7,000 per year. Here’s why HR should care.

A new report is giving us another example of how in-office attendance mandates could be impacting employees.

US workers spend an average of $6,736 each year on their commutes, a September report from Resume.io, analyzing 36 of the US’s largest metropolitan areas, found. They also spend roughly 23 working days on their commutes, and an average of 17 days getting ready for in-person work. Meanwhile, total office visits in the US are continuing to reach post-pandemic highs.

What’s going on? “While the costs aren’t new, the costs may be greater now than they have been in recent years with inflation, driven by the conflict in the Middle East, higher energy costs,” said Mark Royal, a senior client partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry.

And employees might be more willing to pay the cost of a commute right now because they don’t have many other employment options, Royal told HR Brew.

Why should HR care? When employees perceive commute costs as unfair, employee engagement can take a hit, Royal said.

And, it’s already in decline: Employee engagement among US workers fell to 29% last month, its lowest level since 2011, a Gallup poll found.

This, coupled with increased AI usage—which has many workers feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and unable to deliver quality work, HR Brew previously reported—could create an engagement challenge for HR pros.

“It’s important to organizations to think about the extent to which employees are feeling good about how they’re being asked to work,” Royal said.

HR pros should take this opportunity to ensure employees understand why exactly they need to be in the office in the first place.

“Compliance with [RTO] mandates isn’t the same thing as full acceptance or support,” he said. “There’s an opportunity for organizations to continue to think about, and reinforce, and demonstrate the value for, both the organization and employees, of people being in the office more frequently.”