Half of all job seekers will reject jobs that involve more than a 60 minute commute, according to new research. So how can HR professionals keep attracting the cream of the talent? 

For most people, work is still as much a destination as an activity. Results from the 2011 UK Census recently revealed Britain’s workers travel an average of 9.32 miles (15km) to get to work – a rise from 8.3 miles (or 13.4 km) a decade earlier.

Not surprisingly, the time workers spend travelling to work has grown too. The average commute grew to a total of 211 hours per year (or more than one month’s full-time work), according to research by the TUC published in November 2014. Of all workers, tube/train-dependent Londoners have the longest travel times, averaging around one hour and 20 minutes. Last year those who travel by delay-ridden public transport saw their commute rise the most – by 14 extra hours per year, compared to seven for those who drive a car.

But could a revolt be underway? Many experts believe a tipping point has now been reached, especially amongst the young, with many now refusing to commute.

The 90-minute rule

“A 60-minute commute is now the maximum time almost half of candidates we surveyed would be happy to spend getting to work,” says Brian Matthews, Managing Partner at Manchester recruitment agency The Candidate. For 49% of candidates it polled, it’s not the quality of the job that matters, but whether it takes too long to get there.

“More dramatic than this,” he added, “is the fact only 9% of people said they would now commute to their place of work if it took more than an hour and a half.” That’s perilously close to Londoners’ average journey time.

“All the evidence shows that shorter commutes boost employee motivation, productivity and work-life balance.”

Phil Flaxton, CEO of Work Wise UK 

For HR Directors wanting to attract the cream of the talent, this will be a worry on many fronts. Not only will a sub-one hour catchment area reduce the pool of potential candidates, those facing increasing journey times are arriving more stressed and disengaged that their shorter-commute peers.

“With commuting times on the increase, identifying ways to reverse this trend should be a top priority for any employer,” says Phil Flaxton, CEO of Work Wise UK. He says: “Lengthy commuting is linked to the persistence of presenteeism in the British workplace. All the evidence shows that shorter commutes boost employee motivation, productivity and work-life balance.”

Bringing work home

Clare Newsome, Group Marketing and PR Manager at Computers Unlimited accepts she’s one of the new breed of non-commuters. “At the start of my career, I accepted a 90+ minute commute each way so I could land a job in my chosen field,” she says.

“After five years I’d had enough. I was fed up with early starts and late nights, especially as my career is in a distinctly non 9-5 industry. My season tickets were becoming obscene, and trains and tubes got ever more packed. Over the years I’ve tried to get my commute down further and further.”

Through a combination of strategic house moves and choosing jobs within a tighter catchment area of her home, Newsome says she’s now been able to walk to the last two of her jobs, and says she feels far better for it – she’s less stressed, and she says she even picks up less coughs and colds.

Now she’s recruiting her own team, Newsome says she’s noticed young workers are much less willing to put up with long treks to work. And she even admits a person’s commute could impact her own hiring decisions: “I’d never reject a great candidate with a lengthy commute outright – we’ve got great people in our business doing that every day,” she says. “But everyone needs to understand the implications. We always ask candidates to seriously consider their commute – they may have found it easy to get to the interview in the middle of the day, but what about in rush-hour, during a train-strike or when the M1 is shut again?”

What price flexible working?

Between such ‘anti-commuters,’ and other flexible- or home-workers, those who say they make a ‘regular commute’ is declining – from 86% in 2001 to 81% in 2011 according to Census data. Last year, to mark National Work from Home Day, the TUC announced more than 4 million people now regularly work from home; a rise of more than 62,000 in 12 months.

For HR Directors worried they may be missing out on top talent, Graham Long, Vice President of the enterprise business team at Samsung UK, is clear. Employers must help out, reducing commuting pains by being more accepting of flexible working: “Our own research reveals over a quarter of workers would opt for flexible working over a pay rise. With advancements in mobile technology, it is now possible for employees to work beyond the confines of the office, making working from home a choice that should be open to all rather than a select few.”

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