While it is nice to have a work around identified in the General Caster tool, I believe this should really be a Monday.com native feature given how useful it would be. Even an internal workaround would be great!
How about allowing an automation to copy the value in a formula column cell to a number column cell? Something like when time tracking is updated, copy the value from my time remaining formula to a number column.
Then I could use that number column in automations.
This is just one idea of a work-around. Not ideal, but it would help.