Many of us may be thinking about cutting out fatty foods or joining a gym in January – or not. Alternatively, if the New Year is when you revisit employee business travel and adopt a few new good habits, here are some ideas for the coming months:
1. Review your travel policy to work around Clean Air Zones
Make sure employees can travel in to CAZ or low-emission zones without incurring costs to the business – and understand the difference between the cities to ensure your teams stay mobile efficiently.
Examine how Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) options could provide more sustainable alternatives by enabling employees to combine public transport, cycling, walking and low-emission car club vehicles to keep their business journeys as CAZ-friendly as possible. MaaS solutions may help to complement the company car, as one size doesn’t fit all.
2. Analyse travel data to tackle grey fleet
The BVRLA’s report into grey fleet showed how many billions UK organisations spend on mileage reimbursement.
Grey fleet is often costly, inefficient, requires considerable admin resource and means older, higher-emission cars without the latest safety features are being used on company business.
Work with your fleet or rental provider to dive deep into your journey data and crunch the numbers to see where your people travel for work as well as when, how and why. That data typically allows fleets to identify better, cheaper, more effective alternatives.
3. Ensure continuity of service
When company cars are off the road for servicing, maintenance or for repair after an accident, it can adversely affect productivity, customer service and the bottom line. Maximising the operational efficiency of your suppliers’ industry relationships can reduce that downtime.
Examine how well your fleet management and accident management services combine to ensure employee access to onward mobility. Whether you insource or outsource, it’s vitally important to manage those services and keep people mobile when their own car is unavailable.
4. Increase employee choice and provide 24/7 access to mobility
Today’s mobility apps and booking platforms help guide employees through the wide array of transport options to make the best choice based on the requirements of each trip, using live data to extend choice and ensure availability as required.
Enterprise’s solution – ETD – is a compliance and demand management tool that guides the employee through journey assessment, enabling employees to choose the right vehicle from our fleet of 100,000+ cars, many available 24/7 on-street or at a local Enterprise branch.
Managed employee car clubs and rental solutions are enabling many public sector bodies to reduce employee mileage dramatically. Combined with new technologies that make it easier to pick the perfect travel options for any journey, they make it easier for any business to keep its employee travel resolutions.
Adrian Bewley is assistant vice president of business mobility in the UK and Ireland for Enterprise Rent-A-Car