Career Spotlight: New benefit: help with commuting costs
A growing number of companies are taking dramatic actions to reduce the impact of soaring gasoline costs on their workers. Such as: giving bonuses to workers who buy hybrid or other gas-saving vehicles for their commute.
That's an increasingly valuable benefit for workers suffering from this year's 50 percent increase in gas prices. Just do the numbers: The average worker commutes 33 miles between work and home each day. Since the average car gets about 24 miles per gallon, commuting workers who can find gas at, say, $2.75 a gallon are now spending $1.23 more in gas per day than they were a year ago. And Hurricane Rita could push gas prices, and workers' commuting costs, even higher.
Timberland, which launched a $3,000 rebate on hybrid cars for its workers early this year as a bid to reduce pollution, initially experienced only mild interest–perhaps one or two applications a month, says Betsy Blaisdell, manager of environmental stewardship. But that has changed in the past several weeks. The boot maker, based in Stratham, N.H., received six applications from workers in the first three weeks of September, she says. In addition, it has been fielding a spike in calls from other employers asking for advice as they prepare to launch similar programs, she says.
Some companies are encouraging commuting workers to think outside the hybrid box. Patagonia is giving up to $2,000 to workers who buy hybrids or alternative fuel cars. Coley Malloy, a public-relations coordinator for the outdoor gear company, bought a 1984 diesel Mercedes station wagon and had it retrofitted to run on recycled vegetable oil. The company grant paid most of the $2,500 retrofitting costs. And Malloy, who drives to surf beaches on weekends, has cut her gas bills down from $300 to about $70 a month. She still has to buy about one tank of diesel a month—and pays $1.50 a gallon to a local businessman who collects used vegetable oil from fast-food joints and filters it for her. In the past several weeks, she's been getting "a ton of questions" from coworkers newly interested in the cheaper fuel. "It is a lot of work to get the oil and maintain the car," she admits. But it's also fun. Whenever she drives by a big gas-guzzling suv, "I rev my engine and let them smell the tacos."
Perhaps most promising of all: Some employers are finding that the incentives help out the company as well as the environment and workers. Over the past two years, Hyperion, a Silicon Valley software company, has handed out $5,000 grants to 75 workers who've bought cars that get at least 45 miles per gallon. And the company is bracing for even stronger interest from both employees and other companies, especially if Hurricane Rita drives gas prices up further, says company spokesperson Bob Schettino. Hyperion's executives encourage their counterparts at other companies to adopt a similar benefit, mainly to reduce pollution. But they also stress enlightened self-interest. Hyperion has discovered that the grants improve morale and have been a terrific recruiting tool.
"We have people who come to us and say, 'I really like what you guys are doing. I want to look at job opportunities at your company,'" Schettino says. It seems this is an employee benefit that can create good corporate car-ma.