Do you know where your current and future employees live, how long it takes them to commute to and from your workplace, and your staff's transportation pain points? Most companies don't collect or use this data, and these businesses are missing out on key metrics for future-proofing their workforce during a historically tight labor market.
However, that's starting to shift. Now, HR professionals and corporate leaders are embracing the power of employee commuting data as part of an overarching mission to turn data into powerful predictions. "Predictive analytics powered by this data can optimize hiring cycles, increase employee retention rates, and refine training needs," points out Forbes business analyst Anna Frazzetto. Commuting data, specifically, impacts key business decisions like recruitment and office expansions.
1. Make Job Advertising and Recruitment More Effective
There's a global labor shortage, and analysts predict that problem won't go away anytime soon. In a national poll of job recruiters and HR professionals, 46% of recruiters project that expanding the geographic candidate pool is the first step most businesses will need to take to address staff issues.
Unfortunately, marketing an in-person job position outside of your organization's immediate geographic area can be tricky if candidates aren't sure of how they'll get to work. Meanwhile, you can't tailor employee benefits to make these open positions more attractive to commuters if you don't know where candidates live and what their potential modes of transportation are.
If you have this data, you can provide commuter and travel benefits that boost your current staff's loyalty and job satisfaction. You'll also support better employee work-life balance, which an increasing number of workers prioritize, and make it easier to recruit workers who may otherwise not apply to a job position if they believe getting to work is too difficult or costly. These novel hiring and recruiting strategies are all necessary if you want to overcome labor shortages.
Take the example of a company in Louisville, KY. The shift schedules and rural location for this nationally recognized food manufacturer caused the company to struggle with recruitment, with nearly a quarter of its open positions chronically unfilled.
They harnessed the power of SHARE Mobility's improved Commuter Analysis software. With this cutting-edge tool, you can:
- Get a high-level overview of the transportation options and commuter data in your geographic area in the employers' area
- Access easy-to-understand demographic information
- Analyze your employees' data to get detailed breakdowns of key commuter patterns, including average commute time, distance to the nearest public transit stop, and more
Using this commuter data from SHARE, the company was able to pinpoint nearby population centers to prioritize for talent recruitment. Then, they rolled out targeted advertising in these job markets which highlighted the company's commuter transportation benefits, also offered in partnership with SHARE. Within a year, the business saw noticeable gains in recruitment (92 open jobs filled), boosted employee retention rates, and experienced overall enhancements in worker engagement and productivity (including a $12.9 million boost in productivity).
2. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint and Boost Your Green Reputation
The majority of consumers want to buy from companies that prioritize environmental sustainability. This doesn't just apply to individual consumers—in manufacturing and other B2B industries, 85% of businesses are investing in sustainability, but most of their customers still say they're not doing enough. Employees also care and want their leaders to do more about their workplace's environmental impact.
Studies have found your employees' commute may be one of the biggest contributors to your business's carbon footprint.
Through improved commuting data collection, your company can get actionable insights to reduce its carbon footprint and promote a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle for staff and the local community. For example, if you find that most of your staff are in single-occupancy cars but live in geographic clusters, implementing an employee commuter shuttle can address their commuting pain points while taking a significant number of cars off the road.
With SHARE Mobility's Commuter Analysis providing you with a deeper understanding of your employees' commutes, along with the potential CO2 savings between different modes of transportation, you can meet your corporate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. All while also delivering green-friendly transportation benefits and services that improve employee retention, engagement, and recruitment.
3. Optimize Business Expansion and Corporate Strategy
On an organizational level, analyzing employee commuter data with SHARE Mobility's Commuter Analysis can provide valuable insights across multiple aspects of business operations:
- Support accessibility in the workplace: Nearly a quarter of employees have some form of visible or hidden disability, and include some of the most productive and motivated workers on the market. Many traditional forms of commuting are not accessible to these workers. You would only know how this impacts your organization if you're reviewing the right employee demographic and commuter data—and companies who invest in commuter benefits like an ADA-compliant employee shuttle see immediate business benefits, including increased profit and higher productivity.
- Optimize parking and facility operations: Gaining insights into employee commuting data and travel patterns empowers your operations team. For instance, you'll be able to better allocate parking spots and manage traffic congestion—data may even reveal whether investments in new parking structures are necessary—and optimize facilities planning, such as structuring energy use and cleaning schedules around when the majority of your employees are on site.
- Choose when and where to expand: If you're doing expansion planning, commuter data helps identify location suitability and market expansion insights when evaluating new office sites or satellite work locations.
- Contingency planning and risk mitigation: Seasonal commuter data can help you plan around weather impacts, such as proactively adjusting working hours or creating remote work strategies for high-impact periods. This applies to all forms of transportation disruptions, including transit disruptions where you'll need to develop and communicate backup commuting options like ride-sharing.
"Businesses must recognize how to better utilize their HR data," advises Forbes' Frazzetto. "Using predictive analytics and technology... lead[s] to improved recruitment, better employee retention, and more inclusive hiring practices. [With the right data, you'll achieve] a competitive edge in the talent management landscape."
Harness the Power of SHARE's Travel Data Today
All of SHARE Mobility's innovative ridesharing solutions and employee commuter solutions for businesses are driven by real-time data, and our Commuter Analysis tool broadens that with even more actionable insights. Book a call with our team today to learn how to better understand your employees' commutes and use this data to future-proof your workforce.
