What Questions to Ask on an Employee Transportation Survey

Methods

• If you are interested in the environmental impact of your employees' collective transportation needs, ask about the methods they use to get to and from work. Ask about the use of public transportation, if they ride to work with another employee or family member and about non-motorized ways. If you find that a majority of employees are biking or walking to work, you may be able to reduce the size of your parking lot to make room for an addition; if employees are driving individually to work, you may be able to create programs designed to reduce their eco-footprint.

Time

• Get a sense of the amount of time employees spend in transit each day with specific survey questions. Ask about the length of their commute, the amount of time they spend traveling to and from meetings and time spent on business trips. Organize questions by time period: daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, depending on the type of information you are looking to get. The answers to these questions can help you understand if extensive commutes are likely to cause burnout or stress in your employees, or if they are spending a great deal of unproductive time getting to and from work activities.

Cost

• Transportation costs can be a significant concern for employees, particularly if gas prices are up or the economy is seeing a downturn. Get an idea of the money each employee must spend to get to and from the office each day. Ask questions about the approximate amount of mileage and time reimbursement employees get each week or month; you may find that daily business travel is costing your company a great deal of money, for example, and choose to switch to a digital meeting system to interact with clients.

Solutions

• To keep your employees happy and increase job satisfaction, you might consider setting up a collective transportation program that uses a shuttle to get people to work. To gauge interest in this type of program, use survey questions that touch on different possibilities: carpooling, a bus system or a bike-to-work campaign. Consider also asking about employees' interest in a program if there were financial rewards or other incentives.