While companies are tightening their belts to tackle the myriad disruptions happening around the world — surging inflation, an energy crisis, and ongoing supply chain shortages, to name a few — there is one factor making matters even worse: some employees are not willing to stay. Gartner reports that voluntary employee turnover in the US jumped to an all-time high in 2022 — nearly 40 million people quitting their jobs, accounting for 20% of all workers.
Avoidable turnover seriously costs employers. According to Gallup, companies spend up to two times of a worker’s annual salary to find their replacement. Both recruiting costs and opportunity costs, like knowledge loss, the time spent looking for a new hire, and the lost productivity before new hires are on-boarded, are factored into the spending. Hospitals are experiencing a particularly high turnout cost, where turnover for a registered nurse carries $46,100 on average, resulting in the hospital losing $5.2M-$9M per year. And noticeably, among all reasons for voluntary terminations voted by staff in over 3,000 hospitals across the country, inconvenient commuting was ranked as one of the top 10.
The federal reserve’s 2021 Economic Well-Being research reveals a similar trend for employees’ preferred work patterns: the top reason which holds employees back from going back to the workplace is time spent on commuting, as cited by 89% of respondents in a survey. To retain talent, a better commuting experience is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have.
While many companies are offering more flexible work policies — across location, working hours and days worked — they should be aware that these benefits can be more meaningful when paired with transportation perks that accommodate employees’ changing work patterns. As Harvard Business Review argues, a shared, shorter commute can strengthen all of the flexible work benefits that employers outline, and take the stress out of getting to work for employees. A shared experience onboard provides a critical opportunity for employees to reconnect with "all the purposes that working taps into,” which helps improve work productivity and job satisfaction.
Companies across the country are now leveraging a more flexible transportation service to relieve the pain of commuting, and have seen huge successes. Performance data from Brookfield Asset Management shuttle service, an employer-subsidized microtransit program, shows this stress-free commute option greatly enhances employees’ commuting experience. 76% of survey respondents said they would be “very disappointed” if the service were to end. A similar trend can also be found on the other side of the country: 72% of users of Via2G, a similar microtransit service running with Google headquarters in California, requested at least 2 trips and 81% of those who completed one trip decided to take another.
It’s clear that a shared microtransit service well accommodate employees’ commuting needs. Looking to learn more and launch a corporate shuttle program yourself? We’d love to talk!
