Workforce Transportation Habits

With over 43000 employees, it is impossible to avoid the impact on the local transportation system. As an organization, it is imperative to avoid hampering of transportation by finding a lasting solution to this problem. The purpose of this memo is to present a comprehensive solution to the transportation problem. Using sound data on the workforce transportation habits, I will present an analysis of the four possible solutions. I will then use these presentations to show the most viable and applicable solution.

Employee Carpool Habits

Most of the employees rarely use carpooling services to get to work. As seen in Figure 1, 64% of all employees totaling to 28018 never use carpooling while only 23% (10138) employees confess to always relying to this mode of transportation. Around 2% (983) of the employees randomly use the service while 11% utilize this mode of transportation on certain days. From this data, it is evident that a great percentage of the employees do not prefer carpooling. In fact, most of them would prefer to be a part of a different transportation system.

Use of Public Transportation

 As seen in Figure 2, over 50% (23556) of the employees utilize public transportation to get to and from work. 28% (12053) of these employees say they never use public transportation and they would probably prefer a different means of transport. 13% (5862) randomly use public transport while 5% utilize this form of transport on certain days of the week. From this data, public transport is among the most common mode of conveyance that most employees use to get to work and back to their homes. When compared to carpooling, employees use public mode of transportation more than any other thus making it highly significant. For this reason, it is necessary to work on improving this mode of transport.

Effect of Potential Improvement to Public Transportation

This data was collected from 41% of the total employees. From Figure 3, 46% (8294) employees would still prefer to use other means of transport. According to them, nothing would ever encourage them to utilize public transportation.41% (7285) employees would use more public transportation if it would reduce the time used in commuting. Another 31% say they would use this mode of transportation if they had to pay subsidized fares. Still, over 50% of the employees would prefer public transportation from this data.

Is Telecommuting An Option?

42% (18601 employees are of the opinion that telecommuting is not an option as presented in Figure 4. Only 8% (3460) of all employees feel that telecommuting is necessary every day of the week. 30% (12918) are of the opinion that telecommuting can work on random days while 20% (8521) believe that this mode of transportation would work well on several days a week. A culmination of this data indicates that over half the number of employees would also consider telecommuting even if on certain days only.

Recommendations

From the data above, less than half of the total number of employees prefers carpooling. On the other hand, more than 50% of all employees prefer the use of public transportation and telecommuting. For this reason, it is necessary for the company to concentrate on these two modes of transportation than any other. I would suggest that the company should find ways of making telecommuting possible and ensuring that there are subsidized fares for public transportation in order to encourage more employees to utilize this mode of conveyance.

Solution 1: Improve the ability of employees to work from home

Telecommuting is an option for most employees because over half of them would use this form of conveyance if it is possible. There are those employees who prefer to make this an occasional thing while there are those who believe it can work all the time (Amigoni & Gurvis, 2009). It is feasible to ensure that more employees can work from home especially when they are not always in direct contact with the client or they are needed physically at the office (Ravi et al., 2007). In this way, the organization is in a better position to solve the current transportation problem. Using this technique, there will be more public service vehicles to ferry the remaining employees to and from work. Additionally, the company is in a better position to save on space and other resources. A high number of employees utilize more space and resources such as water. Telecommuting will go a long way in helping the organization save on the expenses paid for some of these resources.

Solution 2: Subsidizing public transportation fares

Over 50% of employees utilize public transportation as per the data collected. Additionally, 31% said they would utilize this mode of transportation if the fares were subsidized. This implies that some of the employees require some form of motivation to utilize public transportation. I would suggest that the company should focus on improving public transportation and especially through the reduction of fares. One way of achieving this is to liaise with the owners of public transport services so that they can ferry employees to and from work at a lower cost (Sparberg, 2015). Alternatively, the company can offer employees slightly higher allowances for public transportation. As a result, the employees will not be forced to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for public transportation.

The company has a high number of employees and this places a lot of strain on the transportation. Over half the number of employees use public transport and some would prefer to telecommute. It is evident that telecommuting and public transport are some of the most reasonable methods to solve the existing issue related to conveyance. Possible solutions are to subsidize fares and to increase the possibilities of employees to telework. In lieu to this, I would like to invite you Ms. Suarez to discuss further recommendations of this report.

References

Amigoni, M., & Gurvis, S. (2009). Managing the telecommuting employee: set goals, monitor progress, and maximize profit and productivity. New York: Adams Media.

Ravi, S., Gajendran, D., & Harrison, A. (2007). The good, the bad, and the unknown about telecommuting: Meta-analysis of psychological mediators and individual consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92 (6), 1524.

Sparberg, A. J. (2015). From a nickel to a token the journey from board oftransportation to MTA. Chicago: Empire State Editions.