Editor:
On the heels of Bike to Work Week, employers should be asking what they can do to join the party.
Employees who bike to work are more productive and take fewer sick days than their driving colleagues. These are material results that should entice forward-looking workplaces to support biking to work. One easy way to do this is to provide snacks and prizes for people who make the effort to bike during the week. Temporary and secure bike parking would also make a difference.
There are creative strategies to encourage a healthy team through cycling. One of these is to have an Emergency Ride Home (ERH) program. The ERH provides the comfort of knowing that if something goes wrong, an employee who biked to work can get a taxi ride home covered by the company. It’s a tiny amount of money that provides great peace of mind, especially to parents who might have to pick up a sick kid at school.
But what if we go a step further and not only bike to work but bike to meetings during the day? For shorter distances, it can take less time than driving. Employees subsidize driving here by paying for mileage. What if an employer decided that biking to 10 meetings earned you a bike tune-up? The health benefits are a good reason to encourage biking to meetings even if it takes an extra five minutes. Meetings might be more fun if we show up after taking a breath of fresh air.
Raphael Shay, Gibsons
