Why your commute to work is good for you

Daniel Hambury
Melanie McDonagh28 September 2021
WEST END FINAL

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Well, aren’t we the lucky ones? Researchers from University College London have conducted a survey of 3,000 people to establish that commuting is good for you.

The conclusion contradicts the incendiary observation of a permanent secretary at the Department for Culture who declared that Zoom meetings help shy women and, personally, she loved having more time on her peleton and with her children. Those who didn’t have the benefit of an unsackable position warmly wished her well.

The truth is, as the researchers point out, the commute does something valuable: it establishes a useful boundary between your home and your work. “It can be used to switch one off and transition to the other, which can have a positive impact on cognitive performance, wellbeing and productivity,” they say. Besides, just being around other people, usually complete strangers, “generates more diverse experiences”.

Nearly half of respondents felt they were more productive in an office because they could talk to their colleagues without having to arrange a call. That makes sense. I wonder how many of the Government’s fails lately have been aggravated by civil servants working from home rather than from their departments, where they are able to compare notes with their colleagues and talk to ministers at will. Sometimes, we need to be around people.

The distance between our homes and our places of work isn’t, I think, just physical. It’s created by the language we use at work and the kind of dress we wear for it. So, formal work language, as in Dear Sirs and Yours faithfully, sets up a useful distinction between our work selves and our home selves which helps protect us from identifying too closely with work. The increasing informality of work diction — “Hey Melanie…Happy Tuesday!” — erodes that distinction. It’s fine when things go well; less cheerful when you’re calling in debts or sacking someone.

Then there’s work dress. We’ve heard a lot about the demise of the work suit, less about the case for it. And that is, it enables you literally to shed your work self when you get home. The work-life balance? It works best when there’s a gap between one and the other.

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