Mode and Mood: How Commuter Experience Impacts Employee Morale

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Research on how commuters’ mode commute choices impact employee mood and morale validates a lot of what HR professionals have known intuitively for years. When you add it all up, it’s clear that the commute has a major impact on employee engagement, productivity, and social cohesion among coworkers. In the current job market with hybrid teams and return-to-office strategies still forming, commuter engagement is a critical element of your workplace strategy.

How the Commute Impacts Employee Engagement 

Your best people are expensive to replace. Most pros in employee transportation have seen the survey conducted by Robert Half in 2018 that found that nearly a quarter of workers have quit a job because of a bad commute. New research in 2021 by the same firm confirmed that post-pandemic commuting decisions will need to balance an even more complex set of concerns. Here are some of their surprising findings:

  • Employers that expect to return to pre-pandemic commuting status quo risk losing even more people. More than a third of employees currently working remotely say they would quit if forced to return to the office full-time.
  • A fully remote work arrangement isn’t working for everyone either. Around half of all employees surveyed want a more flexible hybrid work arrangement.
  • Your people miss the social aspect of coming to the office. Significant numbers of employees said being fully remote was hurting their relationships with coworkers and that lack of visibility was negatively impacting their career advancement.

Even if they stay, the a stressful commute can impact employees’ morale and productivity when they get to the office. While some research has shown that the commute can be a useful transition between home and work, surveys of the same groups mentioned above found that before the pandemic 50% of employees said that traveling to work was “stressful.”

How does all this commute stress impact employee engagement and productivity?

  • Long commutes often affect the total amount of sleep employees get, leaving them too exhausted to bring their best selves to work.
  • The commute can cut into time that could otherwise be spent on exercising or another healthy hobby.
  • Driving in traffic not only wastes time, it can be frustrating and unpredictable, leaving employees feeling a lack of control over their lives.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, health and safety have also emerged as key factors impacting how employees feel about their commutes.

Mode Choice Impacts Commute Stress

The good news for those who have to commute is that mode choice can make a difference. A poll from Arlington, Virginia’s Mobility Lab revealed insights about how commute choices, including carpooling, transit, biking and walking can affect employees’ mood and wellbeing. Let’s take a look at what these new polls and studies have to say about transportation modes and commuter moods.

Researchers found that those who choose active modes of commuting like biking and walking had the highest rates of satisfaction with their commutes (92%). Bus and rail commuters were right behind, at 74% and 68% respectively.

For carpoolers, it turns out commute satisfaction is closely tied to vehicle access. A majority of respondents who did not have full access to a personal vehicle said they were happy with their carpool commute.

Another study, by Portland State University reported similar findings when tying commute mode to feelings of well-being. As the paper published in the Journal of Transport & Health c put it,”people who bike and walk to work are happier with their commutes and are relatively unaffected by traffic congestion compared to car and bus commuters.”

The study analyzed a focus group of commuters based on factors including age, commute mode, income level, education level, income, vehicle availability, race and ethnicity, and other specific demographic factors. Controlling for these variables, the study highlights a few significant points:

  • Biking and walking have the strongest associations with well-being;
  • Efficient public transit like light rail came in close behind an active commute; and
  • Interaction with traffic congestion is correlated with lower levels of well-being.

For bus commutes, the express bus scored much higher in terms of well-being effects than the local bus – which is impacted more by traffic. While this study didn’t break down carpooling in the same way, intuition should tell you that we might see a similar effect when carpooling offers perks of bypassing gridlock in the HOV lane.

How Can Employers Help? 

Seeing this data, employers should consider how they can help commuters shift away from more stressful routines. Changing commuter behavior is possible. There are a handful of proven strategies that employers can adopt to engage commuters and help them make smarter decisions that benefit their morale and well-being. Here are some examples:

  • Providing employees personalized commute support
  • Shifting to daily choice for parking and offering cash-out
  • Gamifying and rewarding smart commute choices
  • Subsidizing active and shared commutes (if you made parking free you’re already subsidizing driving)
  • Helping employees create social connections around commuting (not just for carpooling!)
  • Using data about how employees commute to improve transportation offerings

There is never a bad time to improve commuting, but as employers make plans for a post-COVID-19 workplace, they have a unique opportunity. Leveraging the fresh start effect can boost engagement and maximize the impact of any program.

Improve Commuter Experience for a More Engaged Workforce

The RideAmigos team helps organizations of all sizes scale these strategies to enhance the commuter experience. Get started today by discussing your needs with one of our experts.

Research Points Back to Old-Fashioned TDM

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The fresh-start effect and a personal touch are key to influencing a commuter’s choices.  By combining them and creating new fresh-starts we may be able to break through strong commuting habits and reduce the number of cars on the road.

Every day workers around the world use single occupancy vehicles to commute to and from work, driving energy use from the transport sector. For most workers, their commute is the most dreaded part of their day.  Even so, commuting habits remain some of the most difficult to change.  Daily habits create strong default behaviors that are difficult for commuters to overcome, and in some cases, bad policy continues to enable bad decision making.  Luckily for everyone, employers and governments are dedicating more resources to helping commuters to commute smarter and are engaging with researchers to identify strategies to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home. Piecing together insights from behavioral science research as well as best practices in transportation demand management (TDM), could offer us a roadmap to successfully reducing the use of single occupancy vehicles while also helping commuters dread their mornings a little less.

How big of a problem is the daily commute?

The burden of the daily commute is a reality for millions of people around the world.  In the United States alone, the average commuter spends nearly an hour of their day in transit and 75% of those are driving alone in cars.  The negative impact on commuters creates unhappy workers and has even led nearly a third of commuters to quit their jobs over their commute.  

Beyond the individual, these commuting habits have negative externalities for the organizations that these commuters work for as well as their surrounding communities.  Companies struggle with employee turnover and low morale caused by poor commutes, and spend a lot of money trying to make commuting easier, often by providing free parking to all employees.  The communities that these commuters originate from as well as those that house the organizations, face increased congestion and air quality issues.  In fact, nearly a quarter of global energy-related CO2 emissions come from transportation.

Why is commute behavior so hard to change?

With all of the negative externalities associated with the commute, and in particular with the drive alone commute, companies and governments across the world have begun to try to convince drivers to leave their cars at home and take advantage of alternative commuting options.  As previously noted, the most effective strategies involve appropriately pricing the use of the car to the user.  This could include anything from charging market price for parking, to congestion pricing on roadways or in city centers.  However, although these strategies are proven effective, they are usually not practically feasible, particularly in the United States where car culture and the affordability of gasoline drives most transport decisions.  As a result, employers and governments have turned to offering positive incentives for the use of available alternative modes, and are increasingly experimenting with the concept of ‘nudging’ to encourage commuters out of their vehicles.

Reliance on personal vehicles is a deeply ingrained default behavior, particularly in the United States, and as a result is incredibly difficult to encourage commuters to shift away from.  Additionally, though nudges have been shown to be effective with regard to one-off behaviors, such as voting, they are less proven as approaches to shifting habitual behaviors such as commuting and various basic nudges have proven ineffective at shifting commuter behavior.  

So, what DOES work?

One strategy, however, that has shown some promise with regard to influencing commu choices is to employ nudges that leverage the fresh-start effect.  This is based on a theory that individuals are more apt to alter their behavior during moments of change, such as starting a new job or relocating their home.  In fact, Transportation Demand Management (TDM) professionals have used the fresh-start effect for years by introducing employees to transportation options during new employee orientation or onboarding and helping individuals overcome perceived barriers to using alternatives for commuting.  

This approach also requires a very personalized application of trip and commute mode planning.  A recent set of experiments demonstrate some promise for a scaled/automated version of this personalized experience can have an impact on user mode choice during their commute.  The experiment, conducted by a team from the Center for Advanced Hindsight and the City of Durham, in collaboration with RideAmigos, created a personalized trip-plan for commuters to North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC.  This trip-plan was shared directly with two groups of student commuters via email, while an additional group served as a control.  The findings, based on self-report survey data, show a statistically significant mode shift of greater than five percent during the survey period.  

Putting it all together

With these two positive data points, it would be pertinent to consider how a scaled, personalized model could be applied more effectively and during fresh-start periods.  Further, given the shifting realities of commuting, with more employees working from home some of the time and/or often travelling to and from different locations it may be possible to create fresh-start periods more frequently.  Historically, TDM professionals have focused on fully or predominantly shifting a commuter from one mode to another.  With increasing commute flexibility, the focus should be on shifting a substantial subset of the commuting population on any given day, rather than trying to convince specific commuters to fully change how they get to and from work.  This is an easier task, and from the commuter perspective, more sustainable in the long run as it maintains their ability to handle unforeseen situations that may arise and require that they drive to work.  

Want to Learn More? 

If you are interested in applying science-based approaches to the commute, or are looking for technology to support innovative research, contact RideAmigos here, or reach out directly. 

About the author: 

Corey Tucker is the Director of Innovation at RideAmigos. With nearly 10 years of experience in transportation, most focused on transportation demand management (TDM), and a strong background in transportation and behavioral science research, Corey is focused on bringing innovation to the TDM industry.  Since joining RideAmigos, Corey has helped numerous clients in designing and refining their TDM programs.  Building on this experience, she spearheaded research efforts with universities and agencies across the country with the goal of establishing the best approaches to leveraging behavioral science to influence how people commute. Corey’s dedication to research keeps her focused on evidence-based decision making and product development. She has a track record of developing and strong public-private partnerships with universities and agencies to solve common problems, and she leads efforts to embed the insights learned in these engagements to enhance the RideAmigos product suite. 

The great thing about starting fresh

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If you’re an experienced employee transportation program leader, you probably know a lot about which strategies are effective and which ones aren’t. In recent years, behavioral science has been helping to clarify why certain things just work. One of the interesting presentations from CommuteCon 2020 examined new commuter initiatives through the lens of behavioral science, highlighting findings you’ll want to know about as you ramp up to launch yours. One principal that can be applied anywhere is the “fresh start effect.”

What is the fresh start effect?

People tend to take strong action in pursuit of a new goal in response to an outside prompt or time-based landmark. Researchers call this the “fresh start effect.”  These temporal markers can include significant changes in a person’s life: moving to a new city, changing homes, or changing jobs mark excellent examples.

  • New Year’s resolutions
  • Anniversaries of events
  • New work schedule
  • New work location
  • Restarting the commute after working remotely
  • “I’ll start next month”
  • “I’ll start on Monday”
  • “I’ll start after my birthday”

Employers can also help commuters create their own fresh starts. For example, a bike challenge may motivate some employees to try cycling for the first time. When a new cyclist has a positive experience, that’s a great time to encourage them to commit to a long-term change.

Timing matters when it comes to new commuter programs

Researchers note that people often commit to new behaviors with more energy and focus when a “fresh start” event prompts them to do so. This fascinating behavioral phenomenon highlights strategic benefits for commuter engagement. If you can take advantage of a “fresh start effect,” you can significantly boost the likelihood of creating new habits. Position your programs to take effect after a long holiday, when the month turns over, or when the season changes. Emphasize the change and appeal to personal reasons commuters might have for wanting to make a coincidental change themselves.

Don’t miss your biggest fresh starts

A campus move or a shift from remote work to a hybrid work arrangement may represent a major fresh start opportunity for large groups of your employees. Many organizations are timing big changes in parking and transportation options to coincide with these transitions, when employees are more open to doing things differently. This is making huge upgrades to the commuter experience possible without disrupting routines.

To hear more about research on timing and other factors in creating behavior change, check out this ten-minute talk from Jessica Roberts of Alta Planning at CommuteCon 2020. Then connect with us to discuss how you can take advantage of the fresh start effect to make commuting less stressful and more sustainable.

Exploring Change in Transportation Demand Management

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The past year has been one of the most challenging in memory for many in the transportation demand management industry. Widespread workplace shutdowns erased tens of millions of jobs in the United States alone, leaving highways, transit hubs, bus networks, and subway stations eerily silent. The pandemic’s protracted course has only added to the uncertainty, with the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel continuing to blink in and out as we head toward the seventh annual CommuteCon in April 2021.

Yet, despite these challenges, the past year has also been a catalyst for great change: the traditional workplace might never be the same after months of mass telecommuting, and shifting priorities have inspired many to seriously rethink the way we get around. At the same time, safer and healthier ways to access shared transportation have found the spotlight, while a transition in federal governance signaled intriguing policy changes.

CommuteCon 2021 will examine the lessons we learned in 2020 and look ahead to where these changes might lead the transportation demand management industry in 2021 and beyond. We are in the midst of transformative and regenerative change, and here’s a sneak peek at how the upcoming edition of CommuteCon will advance the unfolding conversation.

Transportation demand management policy appears headed for a new era

The new presidential administration appears committed to enacting major policy changes that stand to have a transformative impact on the way people get around. These include:

  • Ambitious targets for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT), including a proposal to supplement or replace the gas tax with a VMT tax
  • Shared transportation investment models that get state and local officials more involved
  • Minimizing or getting rid of municipal parking requirements, signaling an expected decrease in the number of cars requiring parking in the future
  • A likely shift toward more public transit and mass commuter solutions

It’s still too early to predict exactly where these policy ideas will end up, but CommuteCon’s expert panelists will offer their insights.

Shifting priorities are redefining the TDM landscape

One of the most profound and important concepts currently regenerating the transportation demand management landscape is not directly related to emissions, infrastructure, or support for certain modes at the expense of others. Instead, it has to do with the very philosophies that underlie and inform transportation demand management strategies. This concept is widely known as transportation equity (or transit equity).

Transportation equity grows from the principle that transportation access is a public good and a public right, and should equally serve people of all classes, races, and socioeconomic standing. Transportation leads to opportunity, and equity-focused policies strive to make those opportunities more readily available to everyone.

What matters to commuters in the COVID-19 age?

Health and safety have rocketed to the forefront as top concerns of commuters in the time of COVID-19, but transportation demand management professionals are also looking at other important priorities. These include:

  • Increased workplace flexibility
  • The rise of hybrid onsite/offsite working
  • No more parking defaults

As commuter priorities shift, transportation demand management strategies will need to shift as well. A near-term direction is just beginning to take shape, and our presenters will weigh in with their thoughts on where things may be heading.

Will traditional commuting ever come back?

One of the most intriguing aspects of the current debate centers on whether commuting as we knew it will ever be the same again. Some transportation demand management insiders believe daily commuting will quickly return to normal, while others think it has changed forever and will never go back to the way it used to be.

CommuteCon 2021 presenters will explore this and many other uncertainties about how things will play out in the months and years ahead.

Answers are still emerging and CommuteCon is a forum for continued conversation

Above all else, CommuteCon 2021 will serve as a safe and engaging place for professionals to exchange ideas about transportation demand management strategies and policies for a post-COVID world. Our goal is to inspire an impactful, insightful, and ongoing discussion around these and other key issues facing the TDM community in this unprecedented time.

Join us at CommuteCon 2021 for a fascinating glimpse into the future of transportation demand management. Sign up for the CommuteCon mailing list  to get registration and speaker updates.

Reflecting on 2020 & Looking Ahead

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At RideAmigos we are on a mission to change the way the world commutes for good by empowering everyone to make smarter transportation choices; and we partner with some of the most innovative employers and government agencies to do it. 

Over the years, agencies and employers have used RideAmigos to help commuters choose an alternative to driving alone over 25 million times and eliminated 237 million pounds of CO2.

Looking back on the past year, we are so proud of how our partners each rose to meet the challenges brought by the pandemic, economic crisis, and continued reckoning with access and inequities in our mobility ecosystem.  

Setting New Precedents

Overall in 2020, commuters used RideAmigos to report working remotely more than a million times in connection with employer or regional programs. They also logged just as many active trips, such as biking or walking, either to work or just to get outside. 

Before the pandemic set in, agencies and employers using RideAmigos were replacing over half a million SOV trips per month in 2020 with active trips, remote work or shared modes. 

Also in 2020 RideAmigos was part of a team that received an Association for Commuter Transportation Excellence in Research Award. The award recognized work with the City of Durham and Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight to bring a personalized commute plan pilot to scale and through this helped organizations achieve a mode shift of up to 10%.

Taking Action in a Crisis

When the COVID-19 crisis began, agencies and employers used RideAmigos to communicate safe commuting guidelines. They also responded to changing circumstances with rapid adjustments to incentive programs.

As the pandemic continued our clients began to reimagine commuter engagement strategies. This included: 

  • Launching programs to engage a hybrid workforce of remote and essential onsite employees.
  • Creating opportunities for community members who may have been unemployed or furloughed to stay engaged and learn about alternatives to driving alone.
  • Challenging employees and the public to build new habits by biking-to-anywhere 

2020 was a difficult year for the world and our community of transportation demand management (TDM) professionals was no exception. But we also came together in exciting ways. CommuteCon, always a virtual event, saw over 1,500 people join in. The April 2020 event was timed perfectly, providing a forum to discuss the unprecedented challenges and unique opportunities brought about by the pandemic. 

Looking Ahead 

We are continuing to work with our amazing customers as they reimagine the future with a reimagined commute experience for essential workers, future returns to the office, or hybrid work arrangements with smart parking management, subsidies and incentives, and other proven commuter behavior change programs.

We are continuously reinvesting in our products, and working to bring the latest insights from research into technology to our clients to create a better more sustainable commute experience. 

2021 promises to be a year of transformational and regenerative change. We’re looking forward to working together to harness this moment to make an even greater positive impact on our communities and the planet. If you are interested in learning more about how commuter engagement can support your evolving workplace, contact us to get started.

UBIT Taxes on Transportation Fringe Benefits Have Been Repealed. Here’s What it Means for Your Business.

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In 2018, the federal government made some changes to its Unrelated Business Income Tax (UBIT) policies. The changes required businesses to pay taxes on certain transportation fringe benefits offered to employees.

The UBIT changes were not popular, and they forced millions of businesses to remit payments on employee perks related to parking and public transportation benefits. American businesses were significantly impacted, and the new UBIT policies had negative effects on commuter programs.

Thanks in part to lobbyist advocacy, the government recently agreed to repeal its UBIT taxes on transportation fringe benefits. Here’s how the changes break down, and how they might affect you.

What did the UBIT taxes on transportation fringe benefits cover?

The 2018 changes that introduced UBIT taxes on transportation fringe benefits required companies to pay taxes on benefits related to parking and public transit. For example, companies that covered parking costs or offered free transit passes to commuters had to pay taxes on those expenditures, which were previously tax-free.

As a result, many companies saw their UBIT-related tax bills rise by as much as 21%.

What has changed?

In December 2019, the federal government repealed its UBIT taxes on transportation fringe benefits in response to pressure from businesses and lobby groups. The taxes were very unpopular and were negatively impacting employers’ commuter policies.

How are businesses affected by the changes?

The tax code change is retroactive to 2018, meaning that the companies that paid them qualify for refunds if they are exempt from these taxes under the new rules. If your company paid these taxes and is now exempt from them, be sure to notify your taxation, finance, and legal departments as you are entitled to have your tax payments on transportation fringe benefits returned to you.

About us

RideAmigos is a leading provider of powerful TDM software solutions and organizational commuter strategies. To learn more about how we help businesses of all sizes make life easier for commuters, get started today.

“Replacing” Your Commute During the COVID Pandemic

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Sure, commuting takes up a lot of time, and it can be stressful. But even so, many people find themselves missing the comfort of routine now that they’ve been relieved of their daily commutes in favor of teleworking.

Here are some creative and interesting rituals newly minted telecommuters are using to stay sane, connected, and productive in the face of this abrupt change:

Video coffee dates

When we started asking around the office, one of our team members said, “I’ve started having some morning video coffee dates with friends, providing a ritual and giving some personal interaction as I start my day.” Sounds like a great way to stay connected!

Vary your surroundings

One respondent offered, “I’ve been switching rooms every other day with my partner to change things up.” Another noted, “Going to a different physical space [to work] is a super helpful practice.”

Different scenery adds variation, which can be psychologically important to people who aren’t used to sameness and monotony.

Meditation

This was an interesting response: “I replaced commuting with meditating in the back yard for a few minutes to get started in the morning. Then, after work, I do a workout outside to tell my body ‘I’m done.'” This bookends the day with mental and physical breaks.

Get a pet

One emphatic respondent insisted: “If you don’t already have one, get a furry friend because they give you a great excuse to take five or ten minutes to give them the attention they want (and deserve!). Having something else that needs you is a great way to break up the day.”

Another pet owner added: “My dogs are very good at telling time, and every day they know when it’s dinnertime and that I should stop working and feed them. They’re very persistent, and help keep me accountable to healthy scheduling.”

Hop on a bike

“I’ve replaced bike commuting with post-work riding,” said one new telecommuter. “I usually pick a part of town to ride to and explore it.”

Another cycling enthusiast added: “I love exploring neighborhoods and nearby areas I had no idea existed. It’s become a vital way to separate myself from work and connect to the world around me in a way I never expected.”

All that, and it’s fantastic exercise!

What’s your work from home ritual?

What are you doing to create a new routine, break up your work day, and separate work time and personal time? We want to know! Tell us in the comments.

Telecommuting During COVID-19: Technology Solutions for WFH Productivity

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The novel coronavirus pandemic has forced sudden, major changes to the way companies do business. Many organizations have switched to mass telecommuting during COVID-19 in a bid to stay productive, creating a new set of challenges. A large number of companies are scrambling to figure out how to maintain productivity in the new working environment, so we’ve put together a list of tools that can help. This is not comprehensive but a good place to start!

Telecommuting during COVID-19: Meeting face-to-face

Hopefully we’re all getting in on the occasional virtual watercooler chat with our teams via Zoom. While it is getting a lot of press these days, and Microsoft’s Teams also enjoys a dominant position in the virtual meeting space, they are certainly not the only game in town when it comes to voice-based productivity tools. Services like Google Meet, Blue Jeans and GoToMeeting also deliver great face-to-face functionality, making them excellent solutions for productivity, team bonding and remote collaboration.

Instant messaging tools with group chat features are a strong alternative, and may be preferable in some cases. Text-based applications make it just as easy to get quick answers to critical questions as teams work remotely. Software development groups with contributors scattered across the globe are used to working this way, and they have excellent insights and recommendations.

Screen sharing

Screen-sharing apps offer an easy and effective solutions when employees need troubleshooting assistance, or when team members need to simultaneously view slide decks, documents, presentations, and the like. Computer World magazine recently featured its top picks for 15 easy-to-use screen sharing apps for businesses. Many of the reviewed solutions on this list support free trials or free-to-use versions with limited features.

Communication and social networking tools

Some enterprise productivity solutions take a page out of the social media playbook, creating online spaces where connected team members can share updates, files, links, and information in a news feed-style interface. These enterprise social networking platforms make making telecommuting during COVID-19 a more seamless experience.

Slack has always been a great tool for remote teams. While it also makes the chat platform list, its wide variety of enterprise integrations it makes a versatile platform for all kinds of collaboration and connection when large portions of the workforce are shifting to work from home.

For a more traditional social media platform, Microsoft’s Yammer has carved out a unique niche. If you need this kind of functionality, it’s well worth a look.

Team management and feedback

One of the hardest things about remote work is the distance between managers and direct reports. With the dramatic shift to working from home at scale, many experts have taken note of the unique challenges this can pose and there is lots of good advice out there for how to rethink remote management – like this article from the Harvard Business Review.

15Five and other similar tools can help facilitate productive one-on-ones. And, of course, recognition tools like bonus.ly can allow anyone in an organization to amplify praise for a colleague’s hard work through micro-bonuses and public announcements.

Online document sharing

Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, Box and many other free and open-access alternatives have ushered in a new area of remote collaboration. These solutions allow team members to create, share, edit, and collaborate on documents in real time, using a system built around access permissions to ensure only authorized individuals are able to edit files. Contributors can add comments to facilitate discussions and revisions, and everything is cloud-based so secure storage is never an issue.

Virtual office software

People teams in need of comprehensive, fully functional solutions for telecommuting during COVID-19 can also consider virtual office software. These complete platforms aim to recreate the office experience digitally, with functions that support:

  • Face-to-face communications
  • Collaboration on documents and projects
  • Time management, time tracking, and attendance tools

Sococo is a trailblazer in the virtual office software space. You can also explore these free alternatives if you’re only planning to support temporary telecommuting during COVID-19.

RideAmigos is here to help

The unprecedented crisis surrounding the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has created unexpected challenges for many businesses, and the RideAmigos team is here to offer all the help we can. Through our blog, you can learn more about telecommuting and access further resources, and our partners can also help in valuable ways. Check out:

If you’re a RideAmigos customer or partner, we would also like to take this opportunity to share details of our COVID-19 response. Our entire team remains at your disposal if you need any further assistance or insights on how to manage telecommuting during COVID-19 as we all work together to get through this challenging time. Please contact us if we can assist you in any way.

Make Commuter Engagement Your Business

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The way YOUR people get to work is YOUR business. More and more senior executives are realizing the truth: if you have employees, the commute is an important business concern. The old ways of thinking about parking facilities, long, stressful commutes, and their impact on corporate sustainability are costing employers money and valuable employees.

Let’s start with the issue of employee parking. Whether the employer owns facilities or is providing spaces for employees in some other way, employee parking is not free. A 2012 report found the average cost across twelve U.S. cities to build a single above ground parking space to be $24,000. And, this does not account for the time wasted by employees searching for a good spot, tax liability for parking as a benefit, or the opportunity cost of using valuable land to build more and more parking to meet rising demand. Employers can’t afford to chalk this up to business as usual.

Then there’s employee retention. A 2018 survey by global human resource consulting firm, Robert Half found that more than one in five workers has left a job because of a bad commute and the problem is worsening in some of the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. This is not just disruptive — when considering a variety of factors associated with losing and replacing an employee, this can cost businesses between 50-200% of the person’s salary depending on his or her role. Particularly in this labor market, employers have good reason to start paying attention to how the commute might be affecting morale, engagement and attrition.

Last but not least, corporate sustainability strategies that don’t include commuter engagement are missing a huge opportunity. Nearly 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from transportation, including commuting. Whether a business identifies being green is a key part of its brand or it simply has to meet the requirements of a development agreement or local regulations, there are real costs to missing the mark. On the other hand, making commuters part of the solution has tangible benefits to the corporate and employer brand, employee engagement, and community relations. Investors and shareholders care about sustainability and so does top talent.

Operations, human resources and corporate sustainability leaders each are already working to address these challenges. It’s time to break down the silos dividing parking management, human capital management and corporate sustainability. At the center of all of these mandates is a smart commuter engagement strategy. Forward-thinking employers that implement effective commuter engagement relieve pressure on facilities, increase employee engagement and retention, and boost corporate sustainability — differentiating themselves from the competition as an employer of choice for top talent.

Provide Access to Options and Information

The foundation of most successful commuter programs is understanding your employees — where do they live, what are their transportation options, and what are their commute preferences.

As with any other business decision, knowing the details helps employers better understand the problem and the full range of potential solutions. Employers that are serious about helping commuters make better choices begin by collecting data about how their employees get to work and what other options may be available to them.

In many cases, providing transit passes, carpool and vanpool programs, cyclist-friendly facilities, and even subsidizing high-occupancy shuttles are much more cost-effective solutions and provide better value to employees. And, when offered the choice, certain employees will prefer these options to sitting in traffic alone and searching for spaces in sprawling parking lots or level after level of an indoor garage.

Inspire Them to Try Something New

What if employees are not quick to adopt alternatives to driving alone? Offering an incentive to try something new is a great way to break through the natural bias toward sticking with familiar habits. Real monetary rewards work, and bigger incentives are more effective. But combining incentives with other strategies can make each dollar go further.

Paid time off is a highly valued employee benefit. The City of Austin — which has been listed among the Forbes Top Employers and Best Workplaces for Commuters — was able to reduce 1.33 Million employee drive alone trips in six months with an administrative leave incentive. This kind of incentive is a great option for organizations that want to incentivize employees with a meaningful benefit that doesn’t increase taxable income.

Of course, it is not helpful to simply pay someone to do something for a period of time if they’ll stop once the incentive is gone. Smartly designed incentives give commuters time to form new habits. Commute.org in San Mateo County, California had great success — increasing carpool trips fourfold — by offering a repeatable incentive, coupled with its ongoing rewards program.

Make Costs (and Benefits) More Personal

An even more effective strategy to change the way employees think about their commute is to actually show them the money and let them decide how to spend it. Employers can do this either by letting commuters keep the cost of their daily or monthly parking if they opt not to use it, or granting them the funds and deducting the cost of parking from their balance if they choose to use it.

These parking cash-out programs leverage the same feelings associated with paying for parking while still supporting it as an employee benefit. Daily cash-out options give employees flexibility to make daily decisions about how to get to work, while a monthly or quarterly cash-out structure plays to the concept of loss aversion by putting money in employees hands and letting them choose how to spend it. This results in employees thinking much differently about the value of parking versus other ways they could spend the money.

The most flexible programs — ones that offer daily and long-term options — are especially effective because they appeal to a broader range of employees. Sonos in Santa Barbara, California did just that, and reduced parking demand by 25%.

Engage Employees and Reinforce Smart Choices

Even parking cash-out and really attractive incentives may miss important keys to inspiring employees to adopt and maintain smarter commute habits. There are two major factors that employer commuter programs should not overlook: ongoing engagement and intrinsic motivation.

While a big incentive may motivate them to try something new, it is still important to give employees a reason to continue the habit. Allowing them to earn points toward smaller rewards over time, or even chances at larger ones, will ensure that they are motivated to make smart choices whenever possible.

Another way to continue driving participation is to challenge employees periodically. Challenges and gamification are proven to catalyze behavior change and there is evidence that, when done right they can create lasting change. Encouraging team participation increases the social aspect of a challenge — building community and helping employees make lasting connections — while allowing them to earn and track personal achievements and milestones leverages their own internal drive to succeed.

Finally, and often overlooked, is the good feeling employees get when they understand the positive impact of their smart commute choices. When you show them their unique carbon footprint reduction, health benefits and savings versus driving alone, you help make the commute a source of pride rather than a burden. In the big picture, showing employees that they are contributing not only to their own health and well-being but to the corporate sustainability mission and a better planet can increase engagement and productivity.

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Just as transportation options, employee preferences and business objectives vary widely, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Identifying the right mix of programs for your workforce is the first step, and it can change over time and across the geographies in which you operate.

Running programs like these successfully doesn’t have to be daunting. At RideAmigos we see them work for hundreds of employers across the country – made possible when committed transportation heroes at all levels of an organization have the right tools and partners. To get started, consider reaching out to your local transportation management association (TMA) or regional commuter program, sign up for our Commuter Tips newsletter and, when you’re ready, contact us about the value of a future-proof hub for all of your commuter mobility programs.