The benefits of creating a bike-friendly workplace
If you are an employer or manager, there are myriad benefits to fostering a cycle-friendly workplace:
- Employee health and productivity.
People who ride to work are fit, healthy and motivated, and take significantly fewer sick days than other employees. Exercise improves focus and concentration, which in turn improves productivity
- Parking
- Workplaces with strong cycling cultures can benefit from investing less in providing employee parking, since fewer spaces are needed. The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne converted 19 unneeded parking spaces into an Active Travel Zone which includes bike parking and end-of-trip facilities such as showers and lockers.
- Employees who spend less on public or commercial parking facilities will be happy at having more disposable income.
- Transport costs and times
- Workplaces that encourage the use of bicycles for work travel can save on their transport budgets.
- Bicycle travel times are more predictable during peak hours than other transport modes, meaning your employees will turn up to work and meetings on time while their car-bound counterparts are stuck in traffic.
- Project an environmentally friendly image
Promoting a cycle-friendly workplace can help you reduce your carbon footprint and project an environmentally friendly image for your business or organisation. As well as impressing clients and counterparts, this is something in which your employees can take pride and satisfaction. This is particularly important for Milennials, who will make up the bulk of the workforce in the coming decade.
- Build your workplace’s “social capital”
- Healthy cycling participation rates drastically improve the livability and vitality of cities. By contributing to this trend, you are helping to turn your city into a cosmopolitan and desirable place to live, in turn attracting talented and creative people.
- The social networks that fellow cyclists naturally form, and their engagement with and knowledge of the city as cyclists, can in turn become resources for your business.
– By Ashley Carruthers
