For most American workers who commute, it takes almost a full hour a day to get to and from the office – 26 minutes each way On average, 7.7 percent of workers spend two hours or more on the road.
Many people think of something when they commute work and waste of time. During the remote work wave arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic, several journalists noticed curiously that people were – could it be? – miss their commute.
A woman told The Washington Post that although she worked from home, she regularly sat in her car in the driveway at the end of the workday to buy some personal time and mark the transition from work to non-work related roles.
As management scholars exploring the intersection between people’s work and personal lives, we tried to understand what people were missing when their commutes suddenly disappeared.
In our recently published concept study, we argue that Commuting to work is a source of “liminal space” – a time free from home and work roles and an opportunity to unwind from work and switch mentally to home.
During the shift to remote work, many people have lost that built-in support for these important day-to-day processes. Without the ability to mentally shift gears, People experience role blurring, which can lead to stress. Without mentally detaching from work, People can experience burnout.
We believe the loss of this seat explains why many people have missed their commute.
commuting and border areas
In our study, we wanted to find out if commuting provides this time and space and what the impact is when it is no longer available.
We reviewed the research too commute, role transitionsAnd recovery of work to develop a model of a typical American worker’s boundary space for commuting.
We focused our research on two cognitive processes: psychological detachment from the work role – to mentally detach from the demands of work – and mental recovery from work – Recovery of mental energy expended during work.
Based on our review, we developed a model showing that the border space created by commuting created opportunities for detachment and recreation.
However, we also found that diurnal variations can affect whether this boundary space is amenable to detachment and recovery. Train commuters, for example, need to focus their attention on choosing their route, monitoring arrival or departure, and getting off at the correct stop, while car commuters need to consistently focus their attention on driving.
We found that, on the one hand, paying more attention to the commute means less attention that could be devoted to otherwise relaxing recreational activities like listening to music and podcasts. On the other hand, longer commutes could give people more time to detach and recover.
In an unpublished follow-up study we conducted ourselves, we studied the commuting of 80 university employees for a week to test our conceptual model.
Employees completed morning and evening surveys asking them about the characteristics of their commutes, whether they felt “switched off” and relaxed during their commute from work, and whether they felt emotionally drained when they got home.
Most workers in this study reported using the frontier of the commute to both mentally transition from work to the home role and to mentally recover from the demands of the workday. Our study also confirms that daily fluctuations in commuting predict ability to do so.
We found that on days with longer-than-average commutes, people reported greater levels of psychological detachment from work and were more relaxed during the commute. However, on days when the commute was more stressful than usual, they reported less psychological detachment from work and less relaxation during the commute.
create border space
Our findings suggest that remote workers may benefit from creating their own form of commuting to create a limited space for recovery and transition—such as at work. B. A 15-minute walk to mark the beginning and end of the workday.
Our preliminary findings are consistent with related research suggesting that those who have returned to work could potentially benefit from attempting to use their commute relax as much as possible.
To improve working distance and relaxation during commuting, commuters could try to avoid it brooding over the working day, and instead focus on personally fulfilling uses of commute time, such as B. Listen to music or podcasts or call a friend. Other forms of commuting, such as public transport or carpooling, can also provide opportunities to socialize.
Our data show that commuting stress impairs detachment and relaxation during commuting more than shorter or longer commutes. So some people might find it worth their time Take the “Panorama Route” home to avoid tense driving situations.
Matthew PiszczekAssistant Professor of Management, Wayne State University And Kristie McAlpineAssistant Professor of Management, Rutgers University
This article is republished by The conversation under a Creative Commons license. read this original article.
