Central Coast resident Rebecca Segalla commutes into her office in Surry Hills in Sydney once a week for her media job. The 37-year-old solo mum told Yahoo Finance the drive took five hours there and back and cost her $100 a day, with $40 spent on fuel and $60 on tolls.
“Just the tolls alone for one day from the Central Coast to the city and back is $64.90. It’s horrendous,” Segalla said.
“The cost of tolls is horrific, the cost of fuel is horrific. Parking, if I can’t find a car space near my office, the closest Wilson car park is around $60 a day.
“If you add that as well, it’s costing hundreds of dollars to go into the office in one day and then you work out the cost of childcare to put your child in daycare so you can work and then what salary you are making for that day.”
Segalla has lived on the Central Coast and commuted to Sydney for years, firstly taking the train into the city and later driving after becoming a parent to her three-year-old daughter.
“That’s mostly due to the unreliable train network because I can’t be late to pick up my daughter from daycare because when you’re late, they charge you an after-hours fee,” she said.
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Segalla recently shared a day in the life when she works from the office and revealed the huge time and cost involved. ·Source: Instagram/Supplied
Segalla recently shared a video showing a day in her life when she worked from the office.
She shared that she left home at 7am to drop her daughter off at daycare before heading into the city.
She arrived at the office at around 10am and left just after 3pm so she could pick her daughter up by 5:30pm.
She then arrived back home at 6pm and headed into the “parent second shift” with “dinner, bath, story time and bedtime” with her daughter.
She said it would "absolutely exhaust" her if she had to do this every day.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton rejected suggestions that return-to-office orders would disadvantage women and added there were “plenty of job sharing arrangements” for women who could not be in the office five days a week.
The Labor government has thrown its support behind WFH, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accusing Dutton of being “out of touch” and noting working from home had a “range of advantages” including less time commuting and workforce participation, particularly for women.
Labor analysis found that workers would be about $4,976 worse off per year if they were forced back to the office between three and five days a week.
Costs were even higher in Sydney and Melbourne, with workers facing a yearly hit of $5,789 and $5,529 respectively if forced back to the office.
Commuters would also spend an extra two hours in the car each week, or more than 97 hours a year, if work-from-home arrangements ended.
More than one in three employees are currently working from home to some degree.
On average, they are working nearly 19 hours a week at home, or about two days a week. On average, commutes are 30.5 minutes one-way.
Robert Half research found nearly two in five Aussie employers had mandated five days a week in the office for staff.
Segalla said she thinks a push to return to the office full-time would set women backwards within their careers and within their finances.
“Being a solo parent myself with one income, it’s extremely tough on the best of days,” she told Yahoo Finance.
“So I feel like it’s just going backwards and I don’t know how people could afford it, really, because it’s going to become a huge cost within a family’s budget.”
Segalla said heading into the office was already a "big cost", along with rent and childcare costs.
Segalla said she was "lucky" her employer was understanding of the pressures working mum's faced. ·Source: Supplied
Segalla said she felt “very fortunate” to have a supportive employer and direct managers who empathised with being a working parent and allowed her to work from home.
“I am very lucky in comparison to other companies that I have seen that are enforcing three or four days per week into the office,” she said.
“If my workplace was to mandate four days in the office, I’d definitely have to reassess my situation because that’s just not financially viable to do that.”
She said it came down to employers trusting employees to manage their own workload as an adult, which could be a major concern for bigger companies.
Teleperformance Australia Vice President Gavin Shipman said communication was key for remote workers, along with having the right software and tools.
“Mandating a full return to the office for all employees risks a backward step in performance," Shipman told Yahoo Finance.
"The pandemic reshaped how people work, and expectations around flexibility have fundamentally shifted.
"Forcing everyone back without acknowledging these changes can lead to disengagement, lower morale, and even higher attrition. Instead, businesses need to focus on outcomes, not just presence."
