The perfect crossover between mobility and HR. That's how we could define our guest on the 5th episode of our podcast "Kilowatt Hour. Pieter Nobels is Reward Services Director at PWC Belgium. During our 'Pedal Power' event, he made a strong case for a mobility budget for all. We were so convinced by his presentation that we invited him again for a podcast episode!
1h20 minutes in commuting time
"Today, the average Belgian spends about 1 hour and 20 minutes on his/her commute. Just over one eighth of the working day serves to go to the workplace" .
All the more reason to consider mobility an essential building block of a reward policy. The more pleasant you make that experience, the better. It is therefore incumbent on employers to think about the mobility of their employees.
Pre-COVID file heaviness
Telecommuting is the new normal. But unfortunately, we have also returned to the old normal rather quickly. Today in Flanders, we exceeded the record for the number of hours of traffic congestion before the COVID pandemic.
Traffic jams cause stress and waste of time. Time is precious to us and we can miss stress like a toothache. So good mobility can inject into the quality of our daily lives. But what solutions are there?
Potential for alternative transportation
And yet it's not all doom and gloom, because opportunities lurk around the corner. Today, more than 50% of all commuting trips under five kilometers are made by car. These trips are made by bicycle, public transport or a combination of all of these.
Mobility budget for all
What are the solutions? The federal mobility budget has everything to be a gamechanger. Unfortunately, it only applies to people who have a company car (or are at least entitled to one).
Why not open up the mobility budget to all employees and let everyone think consciously about their own mobility? Thus the gist of Pieter's argument.
Uitsmijter
What's next? So what specifically would Pieter propose? We present him with 2 use cases. Pieter as prime minister and pieter as CEO.
- Premier Nobels: Broaden the mobility budget and as a government continue to encourage alternative mobility such as public transport, shared mobility and other initiatives, broadening the supply
- CEO Nobels: Listen to your people, look at your environment. Create an engaging experience for your employees. Involve them in the mobility plan. If you don't include your people, the adoption rate of your plan will also continue to underperform. And that's 2 losses.
Bike leasing?
Inspired to create a mobility plan? Looking for a partner to start shaping your cycling policy? We're here to help! Send us a message and we'll cycle(badumm-tss) you through the possibilities.
