At a time when well-being and work-life balance are becoming increasingly important, travel time has a major impact on employee retention. What all employees have in common is that they increasingly dislike their morning and evening commutes. Studies and reports show that shorter commute times lead to employees working longer for a company.
The impact of commuting has a major influence on employee retention. Travel time is now an increasingly important factor, as most job seekers prefer travel time over the company when looking for a new job. In addition, job seekers worldwide have turned down a dream job because they found the travel time too long. A commute time of more than 90 minutes per day to get to work and back home leads workers to look for a new opportunity closer to home. The same is true for the many employers who lose their dream employees based on location and commute time alone. With increased migration to cities and never-ending traffic woes, travel times to the office are expected to increase in the coming years.
Long daily commutes affect workers physically and mentally and contribute to stress, depression, and anxiety. For years, people in India’s major cities have taken long commutes to work, spending nearly 2 to 3 hours on their daily commute – and still do. For years, job platforms have remained stuck in the old traditional approaches and have never thought about how they can help solve one of the biggest problems faced by job seekers. A survey by Ernst and Young shows that nine out of ten workers want flexibility in terms of where they work, and when given the choice, 40% of workers surveyed choose a work location closer to public transportation
For more than a decade we have been hearing about work-life balance and employee wellbeing as one of the most important corporate agendas, but we have seen little action in this area. At a time when well-being and work-life balance are becoming increasingly important, travel time to and from work is becoming a bigger and bigger annoyance for employees. So big, in fact, that it not only leads to unhappy and unproductive employees but even to them leaving your company.
Employers are busy filling their vacancies and have never really looked at how these daily long commutes affect their employees, which in turn is one of the main reasons for low productivity. The other reason for low talent retention is long commutes and burnouts. A shorter commute makes employees happy, and stay longer in the company and thus reduces the cost of recruitment and new hires. As per the data from the Air Quality Index (AQI), daily long commutes also add to pressure on the public infrastructure and add to the ever-increasing pollution affecting the health of employees in metro cities.
In light of the increasing attrition of workers due to work-life balance issues caused by longer commute times, Indian HRTech start-up InRadius has launched a job search platform that enables workers to find their dream jobs in major cities close to their homes, reducing the unproductive long hours they spend commuting to work every day. Currently, the platform is operational in Mumbai (including Mumbai metropolitan areas), Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Delhi NCR, and plans to expand its operations to all major Indian metropolitan cities in the next 9 months.
“Through InRadius, we are committed to revolutionizing the job search experience and empowering individuals to find opportunities closer to their homes. Our goal is to create a positive impact on people’s lives by reducing long commutes and achieving a better work-life balance. We are excited about our ambitious targets and confident in our team’s expertise to make a meaningful difference in the job market,” said Darshan Vyas, Founder & CEO of InRadius.
InRadius aims to reach 1 million registered jobseekers, onboard over 2000 companies, and have 10,000 active jobs on its platform by the end of March 2024. Looking to the future, InRadius has set long-term goals that encompass its vision of transforming the job search landscape and promoting work-life balance. These goals include becoming the first choice for Indians looking for a job close to home, being the preferred talent search platform for start-ups and SMEs, and addressing the problem of long commutes to work globally.
InRadius primarily targets professionals who face long commutes every day, young professionals looking for a job close to home, and companies that value a better work-life balance. InRadius wants to be perceived by its key stakeholders as a company that is revolutionizing the job and talent search and profoundly changing people’s lives by reducing commute times, easing the burden on public infrastructure, and lowering carbon emissions at the same time.
– SURESH RATHOD
