The hidden toll of commuting: How and when stress travels from the road to the workplace

While commuting stress has received increasing attention, prior research has primarily focused on its physical and mental impacts on individuals. In contrast, limited work has examined how commuting stress affects employee performance or the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Drawing on the work-home resources model, the present study investigates how commuting stress affects employees’ work productivity. Using a time-lagged survey design with three waves of data collected from 340 full-time employees, we examined both in-role and extra-role performance outcomes. Results from path analyses revealed that commuting stress diminishes employees’ in-role and extra-role performance by increasing negative emotional experience. Moreover, emotional regulation served as a buffering resource that attenuated these adverse effects. These findings advance the commuting literature by demonstrating how commuting stress affects work outcomes and by highlighting emotional mechanisms that help reduce its adverse impact.