Organizations all over the world are making deeper investments in developing a successful employee engagement strategy. Post-pandemic labor market trends have shifted heavily in favor of employees seeking to improve their work-life balance. Workforce members are also actively seeking to engage with professional opportunities that match their personal values.
Given these trends, employers are searching for new ways to engage their employees in order to:
- Reduce turnover rates
- Lower recruitment and hiring costs
- Retain top-performing talent
Commuting has multiple important points of contact with employee engagement strategy. Yet, the commute remains a largely overlooked piece of the engagement puzzle. Employers looking to realize the aforementioned benefits stand to make major gains by prioritizing commuting as an engagement issue.Â
Pave Commute is an award winning program recognition and rewards program that seamlessly integrates with your organization’s employee engagement strategy. It serves as a powerful adjunct tool for implementing multiple strategies proven to engage employees.
Recognizing and rewarding positive employee contributions
Employees who feel valued are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs and loyal to their employers. Businesses have known this for a long time, but applying the concept to commuting is a relatively novel concept.
Commuter challenges and rewards programs both offer unique opportunities to recognize employee contributions to sustainability. Challenge programs have a more public-facing element since they typically operate on an organization-wide level.
Rewards programs allow commuters to earn perks and prizes by logging sustainable commutes. They are more personal, but still forge strong connections with employees who value the feeling of being recognized for their efforts.Â
Making the workplace fun
Commuter challenges and rewards programs also introduce a welcome element of fun to the workplace. They stoke friendly competition, gamify commuting, and ultimately elicit greater success from your employee engagement strategy.
Employers can also emphasize the enjoyment opportunities that come from making more sustainable transportation choices. For example, shifting from a solo drive to public transportation or ridesharing can allow commuters to engage more readily in fun or productive activities.
- Reading or research
- Watching video content
- Getting a jump on email or administrative tasks
- Having voice or video calls with loved ones
- Playing games or doing puzzles
Each of these activities holds the potential to introduce more levity and enjoyment to the work day, which can be a boon to employee engagement.
Building a healthier work-life balance
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered an abrupt, widespread shift to remote work. Many workforce participants quickly discovered the work-life balance benefits of working from home. As the pandemic abated, a sizable majority of workforce members expressed a strong desire to carry on their offsite arrangements.
Building stronger organizational support for remote or hybrid work represents an essential aspect of post-pandemic employee engagement strategy. Remote and hybrid work also has the added advantage of removing commuters from transportation infrastructure entirely. As the saying goes, the best commute is one that’s never made in the first place.
Supporting employees' personal values and goals
Research increasingly reveals that today’s job-seekers have a strong preference for employers who share their values:
- A 2022 Qualtrix survey found that 54% of U.S. workers would accept a pay cut to work for an employer whose values closely match their own
- The same Qualtrix poll reported that 56% of job-seekers would not even consider a job offer from a company whose perceived values conflict with their personal values
- LinkedIn research from 2023 found that 68% of European professionals would prefer to work for an employer that shares their values Â
Many individuals—including experts and laypeople alike—consider climate change and the environment to be the defining social issues of our time. Incorporating sustainability into your employee engagement strategy sends a strong, positive message about organizational values.Â
It can also help your business attract and retain the best available employees, which leads to competitive advantages.
Include employees in your organizational sustainability mission
As an element of your employee engagement strategy, sustainability is likely to resonate with a significant cross-section of your people team.
The underlying message is likely to have a stronger impact if you pair it with tools that empower employees to make a quantifiable difference.
This is one area where the Pave Commute App can have a direct impact. The platform is replete with tools that help commuters get recognized for smart, sustainable choices on their commute while tracking the positive impacts of those choices.
This puts hard data at your commuter base’s fingertips, driving their engagement and encouraging their long-term commitment to sustainability.
Forging stronger social connections
Well-established approaches to employee engagement strategy note the critical importance of fostering stronger social ties among your people team. Ridesharing programs offer employers a great opportunity for team members to socialize, network, and forge closer collegial relationships.
Importantly, ridesharing programs can also dramatically reduce the feelings of isolation that so often arise in people who make daily solo drives to and from work. These mental health benefits can have a strong and positive impact on employee wellness, both in and out of the workplace.
Prioritizing employee wellness
Speaking of wellness, employer organizations can also advance their employee engagement strategy by building in stronger supports for active commuting. Active commuting options include activities like walking, jogging, rollerblading, or cycling to work.
Employers can encourage active commuting by:
- Offering facilities where active commuters can shower, change, and store their active wear while at work
- Setting up secure on-site bicycle lock-up areas
- Establishing a “guaranteed ride home” program so active commuters have immediate access to alternative transportation in the event of bad weather or an emergency
Supports for active commuters can form an integral part of a broader employee wellness program that might also include:
- Adding mental health resources to the healthcare benefits included in employee compensation packages
- Creating a lineup of healthier in-house food and drink optionsÂ
- Offering subsidized or free gym memberships to employees, or building an on-site fitness center if space and resources allow
Importantly, healthier workforces can cut costs for employers in addition to building a happier workforce. As an organization’s people team becomes healthier, they tend to post lower rates of illness-related absenteeism. Improved organization-wide health can also result in less spending on health-related benefits.
Make life easier for commuters as part of your organization's employee engagement strategy
The daily commute is an under-appreciated opportunity to boost employee engagement. When employers connect it to the company’s values and encourage everyone to celebrate smart choices, employees report feeling more engaged.
Pave Commute is a sustainable commuting recognition and rewards program that helps employers achieve these benefits cost-effectively and with little additional effort. Get started today by trying Pave Commute free with your whole team for 30 days!
See what users have to say:
"I cycle to work every day and use Pave Commute for that. I love my "old-timer" - an old Puch bike without gears - because I have to go slowly on my joyful ride. The fact that I not only commute sustainably, but also get rewarded for it, makes me especially happy. "
"Neither rain nor snow can keep me and my loyal bike from our daily commute. And with Pave Commute, there's even a little reward for that!"
"I'm just as fast by public transport as I am by motorcycle. I can relax, work and let the day fade out. Thanks to neoom and Pave Commute, it's even easier for me to do the right thing for the environment."
"I use Pave Commute because I want to contribute to sustainability and hope to no longer have to bike alone 😄"
"Relaxed into work by bus & Pave Commute. 😊 On top I get rewarded by hali, that's great!"
"I wanted to set an example for biking to work right from the beginning. My motivation has grown so much that I now use the bike for my commute as often as possible."
"I cycle to work every day and use Pave Commute for that. I love my "old-timer" - an old Puch bike without gears - because I have to go slowly on my joyful ride. The fact that I not only commute sustainably, but also get rewarded for it, makes me especially happy. "
"Neither rain nor snow can keep me and my loyal bike from our daily commute. And with Pave Commute, there's even a little reward for that!"
"I'm just as fast by public transport as I am by motorcycle. I can relax, work and let the day fade out. Thanks to neoom and Pave Commute, it's even easier for me to do the right thing for the environment."
"I use Pave Commute because I want to contribute to sustainability and hope to no longer have to bike alone 😄"
"Relaxed into work by bus & Pave Commute. 😊 On top I get rewarded by hali, that's great!"
"I wanted to set an example for biking to work right from the beginning. My motivation has grown so much that I now use the bike for my commute as often as possible."
