What your peers are doing: Commuter benefits
August 21, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Attracting talent, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views
Rising gas prices are making it harder for some companies to recruit and keep top performers. What are employers doing about it?
A recent study of companies in one state may shed some light on national trends.
The Minnesota Employers Association recently did a survey of what new benefits employers are offering to help employees cope with commuting costs. The most common choices:
- Condensed weeks — 18.8% of companies are offering compressed schedules, and 5.5% have programs in the works.
- Telecommuting — 18.6% let some workers stay home, while 5.1% are planning to start.
- Gas cards — 9% of companies hand out gas station gift cards to reward high performance; 8% say they will soon.
- Car pooling — 8.4% have a program in place to help workers find car pool buddies, and 4.9% are planning some kind of help.
- Public Transit help — 6.9% subsidize public transportation, while 1.4% have plans in the works.
- Pre-tax accounts — 6.1% of employers sponsor pre-tax spending on public transit (1.4% have it planned).
- Fuel subsidies — 2.7% actually pay for some or all of the fuel employees use to get to and from work.
Let us know if you’ve done anything to combat the rise in fuel prices by leaving a comment below.
Tags: benefits, car pool, commuting, fuel, gas, pre-tax, public transportation
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Re: Commuter benefits - how exactly does the “pre-tax accounts” work for public transit? Is this something approved by the IRS and where might I find more information?
thanks
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Our company instituted a program of combining car pooling with the gas card.
We split the geographic locations up into Zones. Zone #1 received a $25.00 gas
card if the car pooled with another person at least 4 times a week, to and from
work. The other was zone #2 they received a $10.00 gas card for car pooling.
The zones were figured out by the amount of miles traveled. Not only does this
help with the rising gas cost but its also green. Now there are less cars on the
road due to the car pooling. I am part of our car pool and it has saved me an
average of $120.00 in the cost of gas and then I am given $50 towards the gas
I do buy so my total savings per month is $170.00. Its great and our employers
were wise to offer it. With 12 employees in Zone 1 it helps to retain our good workers who drive quite a distance to get to work and at $4:00 plus a gallon it was
becoming a burden.