Working from Home Increases Your Hourly Rate
If you’re a salaried worker, have you ever asked yourself how much your hourly rate really is? Let’s imagine someone who earns R$ 4,000.00 net and works in an office or any other location. If this person works 40 hours a week, and a month has 4 weeks, they work 160 hours per month. Their hourly rate would be R$ 25, as 4000 divided by 160 equals 25. However, I disagree with this R$ 25 per hour rate—in my opinion, it’s actually less.
Time Spent Commuting
In my view, this person’s hourly rate is lower because they spend time commuting to work—they don’t teleport to their workplace. Let’s assume they spend 1 hour going and 1 hour returning. That’s 2 hours spent in traffic every day. And this is an optimistic scenario; if you live in a big city like São Paulo, you probably spend even more time commuting.
If we factor in this commuting time, and this person works 5 days a week, they spend at least 40 hours per month in traffic. Since a month has 4 weeks, and they work 20 days in total, 20 times 2 equals 40.
So, this person spends 160 hours working and another 40 hours commuting. We can conclude that they spend 200 hours per month on work-related activities. Although these 40 hours are not spent actually working, they are still time spent because of work. Wouldn’t you agree? I like to think of these hours in traffic as time invested in working.
The True Value of Your Hourly Rate
Now, let’s divide this total of 200 hours by their salary of R$ 4,000. The result is R$ 20. It dropped from R$ 25 to R$ 20. From this perspective, the person’s hourly rate has decreased. And that’s without even considering the money spent on transportation and food. If we factored in those expenses, the hourly rate would be even lower, since working on-site means spending more on commuting and meals than you would if you prepared your food at home.
Had you ever thought about it this way?
Is It Worth Switching to On-Site Work Even If You Earn More?
When you take all these variables into account, even if you’re earning more money by working on-site, it might still not be worth trading remote work for in-office work. The net money in your account might look higher, but you had to sacrifice more of your life’s time for that extra amount. It’s up to you, your situation, and your perspective to decide if it’s truly worth it or not.
That’s why, in my opinion, working from home indirectly increases your hourly rate. It’s a huge privilege to have this work arrangement. You gain more quality of life, which consequently brings other benefits that, once again, lead to a higher hourly rate. Of course, there are downsides to working remotely too, and I might explore that in a future post.