[aeturnum]

I agree that "in office" culture implicitly values informal, face-to-face interactions that happen "for free" if you are in office. The problem, in an increasingly globalized world, is that it's only "free" for the company - the employee commutes (and buys lunch, etc).

I also find the casual interactions in-office valuable - but I'm not going to "eat" the cost of enabling them for the good of the company. If someone actually offered me an in-office position that took the time I spent enabling those interactions seriously (i.e. compensated me for them) - I would be a lot more receptive to returning!

Instead, companies tend to want it both ways: they want their employees to donate the time to get the benefits of working in-office, then they want to use the same employees lower raw productivity stats to fire them down the line. I'm old enough to recognize such an obvious trap.

[midoridensha]

>The problem, in an increasingly globalized world, is that it's only "free" for the company - the employee commutes (and buys lunch, etc).

Maybe this needs to be changed then. Employers should be paying commuting expenses anyway: here in Japan, this is the norm. And large employers could also be providing free lunch as well.

[Larrikin]

Having a free zone between home and work was somewhat of a perk in Tokyo, but I don't know if you can really quantify it as a perk anymore now that WFH is common and you don't have to waste time on a crowded train.

Maybe pay a higher salary to compensate for time during the commute as well as the paid for PASMO.

[piva00]

In Brazil transportation and food allowances are also pretty common benefits (at least for office workers). Back when I worked there it was transitioning from paper tickets to cards.

It's so common to the point where an employer not offering those are seen as extremely cheap ones that you should avoid.

[jgraettinger1]

This is what cost-of-living salary adjustments are intended to address.

[aeturnum]

In conversations I've have, cost-of-living is generally described as a way of adjusting your pay to "keep up" with overall inflation. I've never had a conversation about how onerous it is to get into the office and how expectations or compensation might be adjusted in response.