Carpooling is a scheme that has waxed and waned over the years but, these days, its benefits are highly needed. What are they and why should your company consider implementing a carpooling program?
Corporate Carpooling
It’s not just about giving a friend a lift, either. Carpooling is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace, thanks to the many advantages it brings. In fact, more Americans carpool to and from work than take public transport or walk!
Here are some of the most important and noteworthy benefits of carpooling!
Benefits Of Carpooling For Employees
First, let’s start with individual people. This is where we often see the biggest benefits of carpooling as, even without corporate motivation, this is an initiative well known for bringing value in numerous ways.
Reduced Stress
Not everybody enjoys driving. For those that do it for purely necessary purposes, dealing with the act of driving, paired with traffic and congestion, is nothing short of stressful. Carpooling can often eliminate this stress, as each individual is either driving much less frequently, or not at all!
More Social
The average American can spends around 26 minutes commuting, rising to 40 minutes in the most congested or problematic cities. That’s an awful long time to spend alone.
Carpooling, then, helps bring people together. This includes colleagues that might not have otherwise met, or even existing team members. Not only does this socializing help reduce the boredom, loneliness and stress of long commutes, it also helps to encourage networking and improve friendships.
It’s also worth noting that, as carpooling is based on practical factors like location and direction from the office, this is the sort of networking that readily transcends team or hierarchal boundaries.
Improved Punctuality
When you drive to work on your own, it’s very easy to give yourself ‘just five more minutes’ and end up late for work. When you know your coworker will arrive at a set time to pick you up, however, you have a much stronger motivation to be on time!
Reduces Fuel Consumption
Fuel is expensive and, for many drivers, it’s a necessary price for using a vehicle to get to work. Naturally, carpooling means more people are using any given vehicle and, as a result, the costs get spread out amongst more people. In short, everyone saves.
Reduced Vehicle Requirements
Many couples and families often own multiple cars, simply because people need to go in different directions in the morning. Consequently, this means they are wasting money on vehicles that often go unused the rest of the time.
With carpooling, this need for additional vehicles is eliminated. This doesn’t just save fuel costs – it saves entire maintenance, insurance and tax costs as well!
Access To HOV Lanes
In many states, High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and facilities are used to reward vehicles with a better use of occupancy. In other words, these specialized lanes can only be used by cars with 2, 3 or more people, depending on the exact requirements of each lane.
Currently, it’s estimated there are around 3,000 miles of such lanes. If this applies to your work area, carpooling can enable access to the HOV lane and the faster journey times that come as a result!
Corporate Rewards
Finally – at least for employees – using a corporate carpooling scheme means the company can add its own incentives! Whether its cost savings, Integration and networking or reduced congestion, these added incentives only help to improve the corporate benefits of carpooling. With the right platform, carpooling is easy to set-up and these incentives simply serve to kickstart and motivate employees to take part! Read more about carpool incentive programs.
Benefits Of Carpooling For Companies
Of course, if employees benefit, so too does the company – and not just because of a happier workforce! Here are a few additional carpooling advantages to consider!
Better Company Branding & Image
Today’s workers are increasingly eco-friendly and environmentally conscious – a factor that often impacts how they view the business they work for and even the jobs they actively apply for.
Companies need to show that they care. Encouraging a carpool scheme goes a great way to doing this, as it takes physical action to help both the company and the employees green efforts.
Reduce Parking Stress
It’s a common problem, wherever you go, that most offices seldom have enough spaces in their parking lots. When everyone drives a vehicle to work, this demand can often become horrendous. Surely it’s better to encourage less driving than to constantly have to expand parking spaces?
Carpooling, naturally, is the perfect answer to this. It’s also ideal for companies based in city centers or small premises, where space will always be at a premium.
Easier Expansion
On a similar note, expansion is also difficult when parking is an issue. If every employee needs their own space, companies have increased expenses associated with every new recruit.
Thankfully, again, carpooling helps eliminate this. With new employees added to the carpooling scheme, the demand or new spaces is drastically cut down.
Punctuality Leads To Efficiency
When carpooling, everybody needs to be on time on the way in to work. As such, people who are otherwise not punctual now have an obligation to their coworkers to be ready. To put this another way, carpooling motivates people to be on time for each other.
How does this benefit the business? When employees are punctual, work starts faster. Meetings aren’t delated because certain people are late and entire teams don’t wait around for the late-runners to arrive, all of which improves the wider organization.
