Do your employees travel more than 10 miles to and from the office each day? If so, you probably know long commutes can drain employees’ energy, enthusiasm, and pocketbooks. Long commutes put employees at risk for burnout, making them 2.6 times more likely to leave your company. They can also cause health problems such as high blood pressure and decreased levels of happiness. Fortunately, businesses can offset the harmful effects of long commutes with programs to help make long-distance working less stressful.

With the rise of transportation demand management requirements cities are passing , employers need to take more and more measures to lower their drive-alone rate. Most cities put the burden on employers to offer better commuter benefits, continuously educate employees about what’s being offered, and actively updating TDM plans to fit requirements.

Being in a coworking space is an exciting time for young companies. In what’s often the company’s first office space, everyone is working and grinding to get their business off the ground and established. The free cold brew and beer on tap is also a nice touch – but we digress. While it can be exciting to be in a coworking office, the early startup time is always stressful, and commutes shouldn’t be an added pain.

Parking is expensive. Not just for commuters, but for employers and developers as well. As Donald Shoup says, even when parking seems free, it’s never actually free. To attract potential talent, employers will offer free parking, that they’re actually paying hundreds of dollars a month for themselves. But what happens when employees don’t have to drive and can spend a fraction of the cost of a parking space on alternative forms of commuting – like the metro or bus? 

The process of commuting is rarely an amazing experience. Sitting through multiple stops before reaching your destination adds a lot of time to an already-long commute, not to mention the hiccups that come with traffic and congestion. But for employees who get to work by way of public transit, the heart of the commute isn’t always the problem. Getting to and from the bus stop or metro station is a challenge – also known as the first- and last-mile problem.

The growth of a company is largely categorized into five stages. Progressing from the developmental stage, followed by the startup stage, into growth, then expansion, finished with the maturity stage. A sign of company growth – aside from revenue and profit – is the size of your workforce. The more success a company has, the more the need for hiring employees grows. One of the most important things you can keep in mind during company growth is employee commutes.

For any young company, growing out of office space is a good problem to have. Hiring new employees means you need to have enough space to comfortably fit everyone. With our growth over the past six to eight months, our office was getting a little cramped!