November 29, 2013
Rail fares and grind make London based staff yearn for flexible working, claims survey
Perhaps one of the least talked about factors driving the uptake of flexible working in the UK is the cost of getting into work. But a new survey commissioned by Citrix of 500 commuters in the capital claims that more than a fifth (22 percent) of London based employees are considering a job outside the city following the latest above-inflation increase in fares although the majority of the want-aways (79 percent) would stay in their current job if they could work from home at least once a week. Just under half (45 percent) would like their employer to offer flexible working, 58 percent feel they would be more productive if they didn’t have to commute, and 62 percent felt that flexible working would improve their quality of life. Ed: For those of us who already work outside London but get the occasional glimpse of the horror of commuting, those numbers are bafflingly low.
Why do we bother going to work? Good question.
February 13, 2014 @ 10:01 am
[…] The largest cost is travel, with an average of £785 per year, although averages can of course hide the extremes. The cost of commuting in London for example is now so prohibitive (and the journeys so frequently uncomfortable) that an increasing number of people yearn to escape the costly shackles of TfL one way or another, as we reported last November. […]