Conor Skehan: Why where we live matters when we think about the best workplaces

The biggest unexamined assumption is that everyone is talking about the same thing. Employers and land-use planners talk a lot about “working conditions” – oblivious to the point that they mean different things. Employers refer to conditions inside the workplace while planners refer to the surrounds.

Employees place the highest priority on the closeness of the workplace to home, followed by the nearby availability of cafes/restaurants, public transport and parking. These expressed preferences are at odds with the observed behaviour of employees, because usually those who live more than 30 minutes from their workplace eat at work, and drive alone rather than using public transport.

Concern about the provision of “quality-of-life factors” is high on the agenda of planners, employers and urban policy makers. By contrast, there seems to be little employee concern about the external “quality-of-life factors” such as access to nearby parks, cultural assets or entertainment. The main external factors are perceived to be personal safety, especially for women after dark, as well as access to shops during lunchtime.

As employees, many people are surprisingly passive and accepting about the implications of where they live. Commuting distances have many effects ranging from outright costs of time and travel to anxiety about reliability and punctuality. So why don’t people choose to live closer to their workplace?

Sunday Independent - Ireland's Best Employers 2024

According to CSO data, most Irish people now travel for an average of 30 minutes to work. In 2019, the last date for pan-European comparative data, the average EU commute time was 25 minutes, compared to Ireland’s 28 minute — so we were pretty typical in general terms, though we were different at two extremes.

In 2019, Ireland also had the highest proportion of its population who commuted for more than an hour. By contrast Ireland also reported one of the larger cohorts of people who have no commute time because of working from home.

The reasons for commuting are also relevant as home location can determine the cost of accommodation, the access and quality of schools, services and amenities as well as proximity to wider family supports — which can be a critical child-minding factor.​

Finally, there is the type of transport used for commuting. Surprisingly the CSO reported that walking is the second most popular way of getting to work, with walkers spending the least average time traveling (15 minutes). Only 3pc of workers commute by bike for an average of 23 minutes. Cars, which are used by almost two-thirds of all commuters, take an average of 30 minutes. Contrary to official aims and policies for commuter journeys, public transport is the slowest way to travel with buses taking an average journey time of 45 minutes while train, Dart or Luas took the longest with an average of 52 minutes.

There is a global upper limit of tolerance of 40 minutes for a one-way commute. Above this limit people eventually change jobs

These figures point to an imminent, ugly collision with reality for government policy which aims to achieve dramatic reductions in car transport, which is currently preferred by almost two-thirds of drivers and passengers.

On these figures, current policies and very large public spending programmes on cycling and walking infrastructure will only address the needs of less than 12pc of the workforce. There is a global upper limit of tolerance of 40 minutes for a one-way commute. Above this limit people eventually change jobs.

Dublin is now ranked among the world’s worst cities for congestion delays with an average speed at rush hour of 16kmh with average travel times per 10km of 29 minutes. This level of congestion costs Dublin drivers 158 hours per year of time lost.

On the basis of these figures, many Dublin drivers may be approaching the limits where people change and the city will lose jobs. This completely offsets any intangible benefits of an improved public realm as the city begins to haemorrhage the workers needed to sustain the urban economy.

For these reasons, many more people should consider location choices before job choices. Even lower-paid or sub-optimal jobs may offer better whole-of-life outcomes if measured in terms of housing availability and ­affordability, household budgets, family cohesion and overall quality of life.​

If only it were that simple. Many households have to juggle considerations about two careers when finding an optimum home location. Sophisticated, larger enterprises often need to take account of the available total workforce when selecting a location that will be suitable for the whole family unit. There needs to be equal and accessible employment opportunities for life partners, spouses and sometimes children. This availability of such choices is often the main reason that larger companies need to locate near larger settlements.

Choice of alternative work locations can be an equally wise consideration for employees. Even the most contented worker can feel the need to change employers to advance either vocationally or financially. This happens on average every five to seven years.

Working from home is best in terms of cost and the quality of life

Employee turnover, sometimes called “churn” by HR specialists, means that larger or more specialist companies need the assurance of a large, available and suitable workforce within a 30-40 minute travel distance. Analysis of the availability of such a workforce can yield a requirement multiplier of about three times the company’s typical or maximum projected headcount. There are very few places in the nation that can meet this need for larger companies.

On the basis of these considerations, working from home provides the best possible outcome in terms of cost and quality of life.

Irish employees are voting with their feet and their jobs in support of this. In EU figures from 2020, Ireland had the third-highest amount of people working from home (20pc), which was two-thirds higher than the EU average (12pc).

Will Ireland become a nation with two types of workplaces for those who can work from home and those who cannot or will not?

The workplace is where the future of Irish jobs lie.

Ireland’s 150 Best Employers 2024 will be revealed in the Irish Independent, print and online, Sunday, May 18