From the nightly news to the employee break room, one of the hottest topics right now is how the cost of gas keeps going up, and with the crisis in the Middle East continuing to escalate, there is no end in sight. Employees are feeling the pain of rising gas prices and some may be turning to their employers for help. When it comes to employer options for helping workers deal with gas costs, much attention has been paid to nontraditional work arrangements like telecommuting, compressed workweeks, and job sharing. Unfortunately, those simply aren’t options for some employers.
So what do you do if you need your employees at work for every scheduled shift? From a bank that needs tellers staffing their posts from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to manufacturers that must have employees on site to do their work, there are ways those employers can help relieve some of the pain their employees are feeling at the gas pump.
First, make sure your employees know about their options. Sarah Hulsey, an HR practitioner from Illinois, says, “I think it is important that we educate employees as to what their options are and what programs are available to them. Publicize websites that show cheap gas prices (gasbuddy.com), encourage employees to take advantage of pretax deductions that help their net paycheck, facilitate ride-sharing/public transit, and educate them on budgeting.”
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Tips for taking the bite out of gas prices for employees
Here are some suggestions for helping employees with rising gas prices:
- Designate special parking for employees who carpool. This special recognition shows your support for carpooling and, depending on the size of your parking lot, could be enough motivation to get employees talking and participating in carpooling.
- Put up a “ride board” (a bulletin board where employees can put up notes looking for someone to carpool with) in the break room. Announce that you’ve put it up and explain what it is for in a companywide e-mail.
- Organize carpools (making it more of an HR function) in the office or even by contacting other nearby workplaces to see if their employees want to carpool.
- To make a direct hit on gas costs, consider the power of the gas card. This year instead of the holiday turkey or other traditional holiday gifts, you could consider handing out gas cards. Hulsey says, “Our company holds many contests throughout the year, whether for correctly guessing the score of the Bears/Packers game (Bears always lose) or being the employee who racks up the most ‘activity points’ in our wellness challenge.” Gas cards would be great “prizes” for such contests.
- Work with your city or county to arrange for special employee pricing for public transit or give vouchers. If you need inspiration (for yourself or wary public transportation officials), check out Miami-Dade Transit’s Corporate Discount Program and the University of Colorado’s RTD EcoPass Program.
- Allow slight schedule shifts if that will allow employees to use public transportation. For example, if the bus runs by your company at 9:15 a.m., but the shift starts at 9 a.m., try to find a way to let those employees who want to ride the bus start their shift at 9:30 am. “This is something we do for our employees who live in the suburbs and commute into the city,” Hulsey says. “They appreciate the flexibility and cost/time savings of taking the train, and the company reaps the benefit of always knowing when your employee will arrive for work since trains are on a set schedule.” You should also consider this as an option for someone who wants to participate in a carpool with someone in another company or department that has a different start time.
- Promote the availability of pretax money for public transportation or biking. Like health savings accounts or 401(k)s, employees can use pretax money for a transit pass or expenses associated with riding a bike to work (buying the bike, maintenance, storage). According to the IRS, employees are generally allowed up to $120 per month of pretax money for transit passes and/or commuter highway vehicle transportation. Employees who ride their bike to and from work can get up to $20 each month they meet certain qualifications. For more information, go to the IRS’s explanation of transportation/commuting benefits for 2011.
- Hire a van or bus to pick up/take home employees.
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Imaginative alternatives to help with employee gas costs
If you are looking to go even further, an innovate idea that comes with positive health and environmental benefits is bike sharing. But beware: there are maintenance costs and liability dangers with a bike sharing program. As an alternative option, Boyd Byers, a partner in the law firm Foulston Siefkin LLP and editor of Kansas Employment Law Letter, suggests reaching out to local retailers that sell bikes to see if you can work out a special discount for employees. Also, if you encourage employees to ride their bikes, make sure you have adequate bike racks, perhaps even an indoor bike storage area, to accommodate those who do decide to pedal instead of drive.
And for those employers that are really looking for a unique idea, you could consider reimbursing employees for gas money — if they turn their cars into moving advertisements for your company. In 2001, Jobing.com began a program that “picks up the tab for 100% of employee fuel costs — whether personal or business-related” — when employees have their cars “wrapped with a special vinyl cover, turning them into eye-catching mobile billboards,” according to the company’s website. Even CEO and Founder Aaron Matos drives a wrapped car. To participate in the program, employees must pass a defensive driving class, maintain a good driving record, and agree to annual reviews while driving a vehicle with Jobing.com advertisements.
Byers warns that employers should be careful when considering this type of idea, asking: “Do you trust their driving and other habits enough that you want them publicly representing the company 24/7 in this way?” He also suggests an agreement up front making clear that the vehicle is not a company car and not being driven on company business to prevent the company from being sued in case an advertising vehicle gets in an accident.
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Here to stay
It appears that rising oil prices will continue to be an issue in 2011 with some experts predicting gas at $5 a gallon by the end of the year. Civil unrest in the Middle East and the devastation in Japan have sent gas prices soaring in recent weeks. On Monday, oil was at more than $103 a barrel, and according to a Capital Economics a report, “The prolonged loss of Libyan oil could push prices all the way up to the highs above $140 seen in 2008.”
According to MSN Auto, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline on Monday was $3.549 — a 25 percent increase over the average of $2.820 this time last year. As the burden of gas prices only gets heavier, now is the perfect time to consider one or more of these programs.
Byers has a final word of caution for employers. Some methods for helping employees out with the costs of gas “constitute remuneration for work, and if so [it] would have to be reported as taxable income to the employee,” and that can include gas cards in certain situations.
While all these suggestions are laudable, perhaps it would help employees if businesses wrote their Congressional representatives and demanded this administration follow a court order telling them to lift the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Aside from the millions per day lost in taxes to offset our skyrocketing national debt, we lose millions of barrels per day that could be sold to the U.S. market. More oil means lower prices. Simple economics is not this administration’s strong suit, but businesses should be able to make a strong case since they know how competition works.
Hey,
Here is a novel idea. How about a good old fashion pay raise to help pay for the gas.
It’s not rocket science that management salaries are increasing while workers wages are either remaining flat or are decreasing.
The gap between the two is continuing to increase. Workers no longer feel like their companies most valuable asset because they are only told as much through empty window dressing rah rah banter from their HR and management teams.