Commuting Options
Positive commuting options and supports can reduce business expenses while helping to attract and retain desirable employees, get them to work on time, and improve their health, morale and productivity. You can lessen stress and expenses for your employees, while building employee camaraderie and reducing the need for employee parking.
Supporting forward-looking commuting options can even enhance your business’s reputation as a leader of the cleaner, greener economy of the future. Check out the commuting options below, then see how to make the most of them through Employer Opportunities and the Commuter Tax Incentive.
Alternatives to driving alone
- Walking or bicycling to work carries a host of health benefits, mitigating short and long term illness-related losses, and improving responses to stress in the workplace.
- Ridesharing, another word for carpooling, can build camaraderie among workers, and decrease transportation-related absences. Employees who aren’t driving can make better use of travel time, arriving more relaxed and ready, or wrapping up loose ends on the way home.
- Vanpooling is a new option for longer commutes that can be money-saving, efficient and morale-boosting among employees. Our local vanpool company, VPSI, will provide a reliable, passenger van for a group of 7 to 15 employees who agree to ride together and pay by the month.
- Bus commuting may be an inexpensive and convenient option for your employees, depending on where you are located, and combines well with walking and bicycling.
Reducing commutes
- Coordinate with transit: By shifting work schedules to align with available bus service, you can expand the diversity of your talent pool, help employees keep more of their paycheck, and enable workers to make better use of their commute.
- Compress the work week: By allowing employees to work four longer days in a week, or eight longer days in two weeks, they skip an entire commute and come in refreshed after a long weekend. You can make this a standard option, or simply allow some employees to try it, some of the time.
- Teleworking: Working at an office at home or closer to home, is a growing trend, as companies find teleworking employees easy to manage and performing as well or better as they do on location. This forward-looking strategy can help employees make better use of their time, and increase job satisfaction. For more on teleworking, see the press release by the National Science Foundation or more information at bestworkplaces.org.
Way2Go and enacting win-win commuter options
To explore the benefits of and opportunities to support these win-win commuter options, including how Way2Go can help you meet your goals, see more on Employer Opportunities and the Commuter Tax Benefit.
* See these articles on the benefits of exercise by the Mayo clinic and the New York Times.
