by Lina Martinez
Not every employee suffers a long commute to work, but for those that do, it becomes an integral part of their work life and can introduce some rather nasty side effects on some occasions. Commute stress comes in many different forms such as the costs involved, the length of time and also the issues experienced mid-commute such as closures, train diversions and even cancelled public transportation. Not only does it affect the mood of your employees, but it also reduces the productivity of your business if they can't make it into work that day.
As a result, you’ll want to try and provide some commute-related benefits to your employees to give them a more comfortable work life. In this article, we’re going to explain a couple of examples and the benefits they offer.
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Providing financial support for expensive commutes
Commuting can be an incredibly expensive consideration for your employees especially if they live far away and need to take a long-distance train. This can be even more concerning when there are ticket price rises or if there are regular issues such as weather-related diversions which could mean that your employees arrive at work late.
While it might seem like an unnecessary expense to some business owners, being able to provide support for an important member of staff by paying for their commute is a much more affordable option than potentially training a new member of staff or finding someone with the same level of skill and qualifications. It’s likely a very small cost to pay in order to get that employee to work more consistently and reliably since they won’t have the stress of commute fees to worry about. Even if you don’t pay the entire cost of their commute, offering some money to help lessen the load is always appreciated.
Offering assistance with driving
Whether it’s an app or notification system to alert employees about road conditions or even a bit of help paying their petrol fees, there’s plenty of ways to make it easier for employees to drive to work. Parking spaces are also important, but this is a non-issue if you have a lot of space in your office premises. However, you might find that this can cost you some money if you need to reserve parking spaces in a shared office environment.
Either way, any assistance with driving is greatly appreciated by employees and can even introduce lift sharing or carpooling opportunities between employees. It creates an incentive for people to drive to work and can also help improve their teamwork capabilities and communication by encouraging them to work together.
Remote work opportunities
Lastly, while it’s not exactly a commuter benefit, it’s something that can help your employees stay active even if they can’t make it into work. Remote work is something that needs to be enabled by your technology and workflow, but once it can be used, it creates a completely new way for your employees to be productive despite their commute challenges.
Hopefully, this article has shown some of the benefits that come with providing commuter benefits to your employees.
