Corporate carsharing: (virtual) key to employee satisfaction

Corporate carsharing is oftentimes referred to as an evolution in shared fleet management. A lot of non-mobility businesses rely on sharing their vehicle fleet internally with their employees. However, the traditional method of corporate fleet sharing has very high operational needs, low efficiency and causes significant inconvenience and discomfort to employees and managers. Implementing pool sharing software allows a business to increase employee satisfaction, reduce financial and human resources costs of fleet management, and improve the quality and efficiency of the fleet.

Traditional corporate car sharing

In traditional corporate carsharing, fleets are managed manually, by a fleet or pool manager. Employees have to make reservations using direct contact or email, pick up keys and return them to the fleet manager or facility security. Often, it is unpredictable which vehicles will be available at what time and in peak moments employees are channeled to traditional car rental services – requiring employees to go off-site, rent a vehicle, and then file their expenses with the company. A lot of hustle just to do their job. 

Along with requiring significant human resources and causing employee dissatisfaction, companies suffer from underutilized vehicles, parked most of the time, while in peak hours there are no cars available – a serious inefficiency issue. Supervision of vehicle damage and other associated responsibilities (like traffic fines) is almost impossible as the car keys change hands during the day oftentimes without the involvement of a fleet manager. 

So the traditional model, although a first step towards improving utilization rates, can be responsible for inconveniencing everybody – the company operates inefficiently, requires additional manpower and causes employee dissatisfaction.

Benefits of  pool sharing software

These factors are easily mitigated by pool sharing software. The software automates all operational management tasks from reservation to return of vehicles, increasing fleet utilization, decreasing costs and improving employee satisfaction. 

Increasing employee satisfaction

The biggest benefit of switching to carsharing software, as opposed to traditional management, is employee satisfaction. By automating car reservation and return, and increasing supervision of car damages through a mobile application, employees can more easily access cars, do not have a need to go to third-party services to rent a vehicle, are able to predict when the vehicles will be available. They are also protected from liability for damages that they haven’t induced on the fleet. 

Another important benefit for employees is the ability to rent corporate vehicles outside of work hours. With traditional fleet management methods, it is incredibly difficult to manage vehicles outside of work hours, however, through adopting a pool sharing solution, businesses are able to rent their vehicles to employees over the weekends, as well as, for transportation to and from work. This results in higher revenue from the fleet, tax benefits for business and employees, as such travels can be tax-deductible and, most importantly, increased employee satisfaction with their mobility needs. 

Cost reduction and increasing revenue

Along with increasing employee satisfaction, there are numerous benefits that a business can have when using carsharing software. The software can help managers optimize fleet size through increasing efficiency of reservations and returns of vehicles and proper management and predictability of trips. Alternatively, managers will be able to fulfill more reservations using pool assets, reducing third-party service costs (rent-a-car, taxis or public transportation).

Using carsharing software results in better health of the fleet and its utilization only for specific work purposes. Employees are more attentive to use the vehicles only for work purposes, to take better care of each car, as individual accountability and attributability of damages are increased, as well as 24/7 monitoring of vehicle status. This usually results in significant in savings in fuel and maintenance costs. 

Utilization of car sharing software results in healthier accounting as costs can easily be allocated to the correct cost center – individual projects within the business get more accurate information on their travel costs, proper documentation from the software of these costs, which enables them to make better budgeting predictions for the next project. 

Obstacles to implementing carsharing software

There are some obstacles when switching from traditional corporate fleet management to corporate carsharing software. One of most-cited is a need for new hardware. Companies that already use telematics hardware don’t usually face such an obstacle depending on the type of hardware that they are already using. However, in some cases, when a traditional corporate fleet sharing is based on manual operations, new hardware might be required to be installed in vehicles, to enable remote access and vehicle control. 

The costs associated with hardware installation are very easily mitigated by the subsequent savings. Additionally, in some cases, companies can also use hardware leasing. Depending on the size of the corporate fleet and the company itself, businesses are often able to lease hardware that goes into their fleet and distribute the initial costs associated with the implementation of the new carsharing hardware and software over time. 

If a business is already using fleet management hardware, all is required is a hardware-agnostic software service that works with various types of hardware. For example, Mobiag solutions are hardware agnostic and can be connected to most of the existing fleet management hardware. Not having to switch to a different hardware model significantly decreases the initial costs of starting corporate carsharing.

Implementation of corporate car sharing service is essential today for businesses that own and operate a pooled fleet. Carsharing software can offer a significant increase in employee satisfaction, fleet health improvement, tax benefits, cost reduction and increase in revenue. Missing out on these opportunities is not just leaving money on the table, but ignoring that satisfaction of employees is a key long term issue for organizations.

If you have any question regarding starting your own corporate car-sharing service or need support in selecting fleet management hardware, do not hesitate to contact us!