Active Transportation
What are the benefits to me as an employer?
You can increase employee productivity through the promotion of walking and biking to work as employees can get to work relaxed and ready to work. With strong employee participation, you can realize reduced parking needs at the workplace along with other benefits of a healthier workforce. You can be seen as good stewards of the environment to potential employees by promoting alternative modes of transportation to get to work; it provides you with a recruiting advantage.
What can my company do?
- Provide incentives and/or an awards program to encourage and recognize employees that walk or bike to work. Incentives or awards could include additional vacation time, free breakfast or lunch once a month, financial-based rewards or a club card that provides discounts from local merchants.
- Make sure there is free and secure bicycle parking.
- Provide on-site showers and lockers so that employees can freshen up before starting their workday.
- Encourage employees to live closer to work so that they can take advantage of biking or walking options.
- Offer employees a Guaranteed Ride Home benefit. This can be accomplished relatively inexpensively by simply paying for cab fare when an emergency or sickness arises. In reality, Guaranteed Rides Home are not often used by employees and the cost of providing this security is minimal.
- Check with your HR department or accountant about recent federal tax code changes offering deductions for monthly bicycle allowances up to $20/month.
Case Study: REI, Salt Lake City, Utah
REI's program encourages commuters to get to work by biking, walking and other means of shared transportation. Program incentives include store discounts and recognition awards, which have increased staff participation to 1/3 during the summer months.
Source: Human Resource Department, REI
Case Study: City of Palo Alto, California
The City of Palo Alto, California offers an Employee Commute Program that consists of Commuter Checks for employees that commute using alternative modes of transportation. Full-time employees eligible for benefits must use an alternative mode for their commute at least 60% of the time in order to qualify for the program. Employees that walk or bicycle to work are given a $20 monthly cash incentive (taxable) for their commute mode. Employees that are not benefits eligible who use an alternate commute mode are encouraged to turn in a commute log and enter a drawing to win a prize each month.
Source: http://www.bestworkplaces.org/about/success.htm#p
Case Study: Wyeth Biopharma, Andover, Massachussets
Wyeth BioPharma has one of the largest biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing capacities in the world. With over 2,400 employees, it currently offers one of the most generous commuter benefits in the state. These benefits include on-site facilities to accommodate bicycle and walking commuters (e.g. showers, cafeteria, dry cleaning, lockers) and free emergency ride home for all commuters, to ensure they are not stranded at work in case of emergencies and unsafe weather conditions for walking/bicycling.
Source: ActiveTransportation.org
Weblinks
www.activetransportation.org -- Active Transportation
www.slcbikecollective.org -- Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective