Carpool programs good for environment, solve parking woes, reduce stress
Every day it’s a fight. It doesn’t matter how early you leave, or how late, whether you take the highway, the toll road or the residential streets, you still get to work 40 minutes late.
You come in stressed, drained, straining to keep your frayed nerves in check. Your boss, who drives in from the other side of town, is also late coming in. As he recounts a road rage incident he has just witnessed, you find yourself wondering:
Commuting — isn’t it an HR issue?
“To do your work you have to first get to work,” is how Andrée Henri puts it. And if getting to work has become a costly, time-consuming and stress-inducing exercise, as it is in major urban centres across Canada, wouldn’t it benefit organizations to ease the commuting burden on employees?
Henri’s job at the Agence Métropolitain de Transport, the Montreal-area transportation agency, is to help employers set up commuting programs for workers.
One of her early projects was with Bombardier, which, after a spate of hiring in 2001, was facing a severe shortage of parking space, especially at its three locations in the Montreal suburb of Dorval.
“Where we’re located is near the airport, so it was very difficult for us to expand our parking facilities. We had to look for ways to reduce the number of vehicles to lower the demand for parking, which is still free at Bombardier,” said Jessica Fournier, the Bombardier employee in charge of transportation services.
With help from Henri’s office, the transportation and aerospace company set up a carpooling program and attached incentives. Parking spaces close to company facilities were set aside for people who carpool. To allay fears of being stranded, Bombardier gives carpoolers taxi chits — four a year — so they can take off on an emergency errand any time. A limited number of chits are also handed out to public transit users and cyclists in case the bus doesn’t show up or bicycles break down.
Some 500 carpool teams have been organized at Bombardier, which employs 11,000 people at five locations in and around Montreal. Altogether, the programs saved Bombardier from having to build 600 parking spaces, said Henri, who puts the cost of each spot at $1,500.
“There’s the environmental side as well. But there’s also a question of image. People see Bombardier taking an interest in their lifestyle, in how they get to work,” said Fournier. “Employees see that we really work hard to be of service to them.”
It doesn’t cost much for Bombardier to maintain the program, said Fournier, adding that only 20 per cent of the available taxi chits get used. The carpool program requires some administrative work, but once people have signed up indicating their hours and the neighbourhood they’re commuting from, it’s up to employees to arrange the rides among themselves. Hence, while the commuting programs rank top on Fournier’s list of responsibilities, they certainly don’t take up 40 hours a week to tend to, she said.
In most urban centres, employers that can’t set aside a full-time employee to set up and run a carpooling service may wish to turn to an outside service. For example, Commuter Connections, a not-for-profit organization, will set up an information table, gather names and set up a database of potential carpoolers, which it then maintains. The cost to the organization is $1,700 a year.
Recently, Commuter Connections struck a deal with the city of Calgary for the latter to bear the fee. More than a dozen organizations signed up, including the Calgary-based utility, Enmax. Of the company’s 3,000 workers, only 30 registered, and even fewer managed to find suitable commuters to carpool with.
David Lawlor, who’s in charge of the program, said there may be a few reasons for the low participation rate. First, Enmax employees have varying shifts and second, many are required to travel from location to location during the work day. Finally, the company is located in industrial areas, so it’s not easy for people to pop out to a dry cleaner or a grocery store during their lunch hours.
Still, Lawlor appreciates the program because “people can use it once a week or twice a week. It’s not like there are three or four people packing a car every day, but sometimes people just don’t want to drive. And if you know the people you’re going with, it’s actually fun. It’s certainly a way to get to know a colleague who lives in your neighbourhood.”
A variation on carpooling is vanpooling, which puts people together in groups of eight for better cost-efficiency. In the Vancouver area, the Jack Bell Foundation, also a non-profit organization, runs a vanpool service with its fleet of 115 vehicles. The cost to each commuter, to cover gas, maintenance and insurance, would not make vanpooling advantageous for people who have access to mass transit systems. But for people who travel more than 40 kilometres a day to and from work, vanpooling is much cheaper than taking a car, said fleet manager John Forin.
“Canadian cities cannot sustain this level of congestion for much longer. And employers are recognizing absenteeism, efficiency and productivity are all connected with modes of transportation.”
The problem with vanpools, said Forin, is if any member drops out — due to a change of address or a change in work hours, for example — the person’s share has to be distributed among the remaining vanpoolers in the group.
“People are very cost-conscious,” said Forin, and the loss of one participant may be enough to unravel an arrangement. A seat subsidy from an employer, therefore, becomes important to keep this kind of program going, Forin added.
At this stage, employers offering commuting programs don’t seem to be sticklers for numbers. They’re not yet tying such metrics as level of absenteeism, tardiness, or productivity to the usage of commuting programs, but according to some, they don’t need to.
“Employees think it’s important for Nortel Networks to act as a role model. They want to work for a leader, and that doesn’t mean just technological leadership; it’s leadership in issues that matter to the community and that matter to employees,” said Brenda Valois, spokesperson for Nortel, which offers transit fare subsidies, as well as a ride-share matching service.
A year ago, when the company polled workers on the commuting program, 70 per cent said it made Nortel more attractive to work for.
At Environment Canada, which is spearheading an effort to make commuting programs available to all federal public-sector employees, the motivating factors are both the environment and the need to be an employer of choice, said Berny Latreille, director of environmental affairs.
“It’s taking employees longer and longer to get to work. It’s becoming a greater part of their work day, the amount of time they spend commuting. And more employees coming into our workforce are younger and have healthier habits. We find more of them want to cycle or use an active means of transportation, whether that’s running or rollerblading. We want to make sure we can support those choices as well.”
At another high-tech firm, Montreal-based CGI, it’s also the health arguments that drove a year-old program to buy 10 bicycles and make them available to employees.
“People are really happy with it. They use it mostly in the summer, but they’ll borrow a bicycle over the noon hour to go for a ride or to go meet someone. And if people have to run errands, it certainly takes less time on a bike than in a car,” said Julie Godin, the kinesiologist and HR staffer in charge of the program.
“We drive people so hard at work, it’s important to also offer them a service where they can take a break, work out their stress and come back more alert and more productive.”
For more on HR and employee commutes, see the related articles link below.
You come in stressed, drained, straining to keep your frayed nerves in check. Your boss, who drives in from the other side of town, is also late coming in. As he recounts a road rage incident he has just witnessed, you find yourself wondering:
Commuting — isn’t it an HR issue?
“To do your work you have to first get to work,” is how Andrée Henri puts it. And if getting to work has become a costly, time-consuming and stress-inducing exercise, as it is in major urban centres across Canada, wouldn’t it benefit organizations to ease the commuting burden on employees?
Henri’s job at the Agence Métropolitain de Transport, the Montreal-area transportation agency, is to help employers set up commuting programs for workers.
One of her early projects was with Bombardier, which, after a spate of hiring in 2001, was facing a severe shortage of parking space, especially at its three locations in the Montreal suburb of Dorval.
“Where we’re located is near the airport, so it was very difficult for us to expand our parking facilities. We had to look for ways to reduce the number of vehicles to lower the demand for parking, which is still free at Bombardier,” said Jessica Fournier, the Bombardier employee in charge of transportation services.
With help from Henri’s office, the transportation and aerospace company set up a carpooling program and attached incentives. Parking spaces close to company facilities were set aside for people who carpool. To allay fears of being stranded, Bombardier gives carpoolers taxi chits — four a year — so they can take off on an emergency errand any time. A limited number of chits are also handed out to public transit users and cyclists in case the bus doesn’t show up or bicycles break down.
Some 500 carpool teams have been organized at Bombardier, which employs 11,000 people at five locations in and around Montreal. Altogether, the programs saved Bombardier from having to build 600 parking spaces, said Henri, who puts the cost of each spot at $1,500.
“There’s the environmental side as well. But there’s also a question of image. People see Bombardier taking an interest in their lifestyle, in how they get to work,” said Fournier. “Employees see that we really work hard to be of service to them.”
It doesn’t cost much for Bombardier to maintain the program, said Fournier, adding that only 20 per cent of the available taxi chits get used. The carpool program requires some administrative work, but once people have signed up indicating their hours and the neighbourhood they’re commuting from, it’s up to employees to arrange the rides among themselves. Hence, while the commuting programs rank top on Fournier’s list of responsibilities, they certainly don’t take up 40 hours a week to tend to, she said.
In most urban centres, employers that can’t set aside a full-time employee to set up and run a carpooling service may wish to turn to an outside service. For example, Commuter Connections, a not-for-profit organization, will set up an information table, gather names and set up a database of potential carpoolers, which it then maintains. The cost to the organization is $1,700 a year.
Recently, Commuter Connections struck a deal with the city of Calgary for the latter to bear the fee. More than a dozen organizations signed up, including the Calgary-based utility, Enmax. Of the company’s 3,000 workers, only 30 registered, and even fewer managed to find suitable commuters to carpool with.
David Lawlor, who’s in charge of the program, said there may be a few reasons for the low participation rate. First, Enmax employees have varying shifts and second, many are required to travel from location to location during the work day. Finally, the company is located in industrial areas, so it’s not easy for people to pop out to a dry cleaner or a grocery store during their lunch hours.
Still, Lawlor appreciates the program because “people can use it once a week or twice a week. It’s not like there are three or four people packing a car every day, but sometimes people just don’t want to drive. And if you know the people you’re going with, it’s actually fun. It’s certainly a way to get to know a colleague who lives in your neighbourhood.”
A variation on carpooling is vanpooling, which puts people together in groups of eight for better cost-efficiency. In the Vancouver area, the Jack Bell Foundation, also a non-profit organization, runs a vanpool service with its fleet of 115 vehicles. The cost to each commuter, to cover gas, maintenance and insurance, would not make vanpooling advantageous for people who have access to mass transit systems. But for people who travel more than 40 kilometres a day to and from work, vanpooling is much cheaper than taking a car, said fleet manager John Forin.
“Canadian cities cannot sustain this level of congestion for much longer. And employers are recognizing absenteeism, efficiency and productivity are all connected with modes of transportation.”
The problem with vanpools, said Forin, is if any member drops out — due to a change of address or a change in work hours, for example — the person’s share has to be distributed among the remaining vanpoolers in the group.
“People are very cost-conscious,” said Forin, and the loss of one participant may be enough to unravel an arrangement. A seat subsidy from an employer, therefore, becomes important to keep this kind of program going, Forin added.
At this stage, employers offering commuting programs don’t seem to be sticklers for numbers. They’re not yet tying such metrics as level of absenteeism, tardiness, or productivity to the usage of commuting programs, but according to some, they don’t need to.
“Employees think it’s important for Nortel Networks to act as a role model. They want to work for a leader, and that doesn’t mean just technological leadership; it’s leadership in issues that matter to the community and that matter to employees,” said Brenda Valois, spokesperson for Nortel, which offers transit fare subsidies, as well as a ride-share matching service.
A year ago, when the company polled workers on the commuting program, 70 per cent said it made Nortel more attractive to work for.
At Environment Canada, which is spearheading an effort to make commuting programs available to all federal public-sector employees, the motivating factors are both the environment and the need to be an employer of choice, said Berny Latreille, director of environmental affairs.
“It’s taking employees longer and longer to get to work. It’s becoming a greater part of their work day, the amount of time they spend commuting. And more employees coming into our workforce are younger and have healthier habits. We find more of them want to cycle or use an active means of transportation, whether that’s running or rollerblading. We want to make sure we can support those choices as well.”
At another high-tech firm, Montreal-based CGI, it’s also the health arguments that drove a year-old program to buy 10 bicycles and make them available to employees.
“People are really happy with it. They use it mostly in the summer, but they’ll borrow a bicycle over the noon hour to go for a ride or to go meet someone. And if people have to run errands, it certainly takes less time on a bike than in a car,” said Julie Godin, the kinesiologist and HR staffer in charge of the program.
“We drive people so hard at work, it’s important to also offer them a service where they can take a break, work out their stress and come back more alert and more productive.”
For more on HR and employee commutes, see the related articles link below.
