Inflation haunts workers as they return to the office

As security software company KnowBe4 weighed whether to require a return to the office, executives knew there would be a number of employee concerns. Less flexibility. More time in traffic.

Then, in recent months, a new set of concerns has emerged from this comeback: the rising cost of gasoline and food, especially near the company’s headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, one of the areas of the United States most affected by inflation.

Workers exchanged tips on the internal messaging system about where to find cheaper gas. The company tried to ease the transition by offering free snacks (pickles, Nutella). But some employees, in part disheartened by the expense of returning to the office, including dog sitters and day care, told their managers they preferred to continue working from home. In January, KnowBe4 informed its roughly 1,500 employees that most could remain remote indefinitely.

“If employers say, ‘Hey, yeah, you need to come to the office, spend that money on gas, eat at the office,’ people are going to say, ‘That’s too expensive,'” said Erika Lance, the company’s head of human resources. .

Employers’ plans to return to the office, already weighed down by concerns about the spread of the coronavirus and demands for an empowered workforce, are now colliding with inflation pressures. The cost of a daily routine — transport, coffee, food — is much higher than when the offices closed two years ago. Consumer prices were 8.5% higher last month than a year ago — the fastest inflation rate in 12 months since 1981. While office occupancy has reached its highest level since March 2020, above 40%, some workers experienced the shock of returning to the office.

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Becky Frankiewicz, US president of ManpowerGroup, a global recruiting agency with more than 4,500 offices. “We’re ready to get back to work, but can you afford that?”

Average gasoline prices in the United States hit $4.33 a gallon (3.78 liters) last month, compared with about $2.60 in 2019, according to the AAA. The Sweetgreen salad that is now $11.95 could have been $11.20 last year. A Potbelly sandwich, now for $7.65, once cost $7.20. A chilled latte at Dunkin’ can cost $3.99, up from $3.70. And with the job market still tight, employers are getting calls from workers asking for more flexibility or raises.

A talent shortage has raised wages, but not enough to keep up with inflation; wages grew 5.6% last year. Some employers said they planned to give raises, recognizing that their employees could easily be ripped off by other firms. OrderMyGear, for example, an e-commerce platform based in Dallas, another city hit hard by inflation, recently tripled the budget it had allocated for pay increases in previous years. Other companies said they still haven’t adjusted wages because they wait to see if inflation has cooled.

But for companies asking their employees to forgo the flexibility of remote work, the pressure to raise wages has increased.

“Remote work started as a security measure,” said Frankiewicz. “Now it’s a cost containment measure.”

She noted that some workers her company had hired are now looking for short commute times to manage costs, and some companies are offering fuel cards, transportation vouchers or ride-hailing options. ManpowerGroup received five times as many comments from employees saying that rising costs are affecting where and whether they would work as they did in the same period last year.

“It was, ‘I don’t want to do the commute,'” Frankiewicz continued. “Now it’s, ‘I can’t afford transportation’.”

Companies are trying to avoid the conflicting forces of inflation and the expense of returning to the office with attempts to make transportation and food more affordable. The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted in its recent Consumer Price Index that the price of food in the workplace had fallen even as meal prices had generally increased, likely a sign of “widespread free lunch programs” at companies.

Take OrderMyGear in Dallas, which recently told its 165 employees that by June many should start working in the office, at least part-time. Jaclyn Unruh, chief of staff, reminded employees that the company offered free passes for public transport, which about 10% of them use, as well as free parking and meals two or three times a week.

Chris Harris, 53, who manages a team at an advertising firm in Portland, Oregon that has encouraged, but not demanded, a return to the workplace, assures her team members that she understands their anguish over the expense of a routine. office. She recently went out to lunch and paid $12.50 for a donut. She grimaced at the memory of pre-Covid lunches, when she could spend $5 at a discount coffee shop that closed during the pandemic.

In a recent job role, Harris found himself receiving complaints from a colleague about the daily cost of going back to the office: “He would say, ‘Gee, between parking, gas and lunch, I’m paying $70 to go to work,'” he recalled. Is it over there. “It gets worse when you’ve been saving it for two years.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves