As return-to-office policies gained steam over the last few years, many HR professionals have been left questioning the cost to employee retention and attraction. Apart from those impacts, new research sheds light on just how much RTO is actually costing employees.

In a survey of 1,000 American workers, Resume.io found that working in an office costs them an average of $6,736 per year, or 9.3% of their average salary. Costs jump to over $16,500 for working parents who pay for childcare.

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Where are the costs coming from?

Commuting to and from work, including public transit and money spent on gas, contributes the most to the costs. As gas prices have surged in recent months, pressure has built for employers to walk back RTO policies to reduce the burden on commuting employees.

Resume.io found that 53% of those surveyed said costs associated with working in an office have gone up over the past year, while less than 6% say that costs have gone down.

"With return-to-office mandates now covering most U.S employers," researchers write, "going to work has quietly become one of the biggest costs in a lot of people's budgets. With fuel up more than a quarter on last year, transit fares have risen in almost every major city and the day you spend in the office comes with a price tag before you've even done a minute of work."

Other cost drivers are meals, parking, coffee and other drinks, and work-specific clothing.

The quantifiable costs included in the survey don't take into account time lost to commuting. The survey found that the average worker spends 184 hours a year commuting, equal to 23 full work days. Workers also spend nearly 45 extra minutes a day getting ready to go into the office, or another 17 work days.

"Put together," researchers write, "that's 40 working days a year spent traveling to work and getting ready for it, before a single task gets done."

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