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Employer Spotlight
The Mills Corporation
The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC)
Georgia Power/Southern Company
Bank of America
University of Washington
The Mills Corporation
Located near the Rosslyn Metrorail station, The Mills Corporation office serves as the headquarters for the company's national operations. (You may know The Mills Corporation for its innovative retail malls, the closest being Potomac Mills.) The Mills Corporation is a world-renowned company that has redefined the retail and entertainment experience in the United States. To continue providing its customers and tenants with successful Mills shopping malls, The Mills Corporation must recruit and retain dedicated, experienced staff.
Faced with increasing traffic congestion, long commutes, and a competitive job market, The Mills Corporation is concerned about easing and improving its employees' commutes. In March 2000, The Mills Corporation began exploring ways in which it could help its employees get to work more easily. The first step was to call Arlington Transportation Partners (ATP) to learn about the different transportation benefits it could offer its employees. After careful consideration, The Mills Corporation chose to offer a pretax Metrochek program. It chose the pretax Metrochek option for the following reasons: - It is easy to implement; ATP walks employers through every step.
- It is easy to administer, requiring only 2-4 hours of staff time per month.
- Because it is a pretax payroll deduction, it does not cost the company anything except staff time, and the company actually saves on payroll taxes.
- A large portion of the workforce can use the benefit because Metrochek can be used on most of the region's transit providers.
Metrochek helps The Mills Corporation continue its good corporate neighbor image because by encouraging its employees to use transit, it is reducing air pollution and traffic congestion.
To encourage employee participation in the pretax Metrochek program, The Mills Corporation asked that ATP assist in conducting two Metrochek benefit orientation sessions for its employees. These sessions proved successful and The Mills Corporation implemented the pretax Metrochek program in July of 2000. Currently, 80 of The Mills Corporation's 275 employees take advantage the $105-per-month transit benefit.
"Our Metrochek Benefit Program is a wonderful tax-free benefit and a big hit for our employees at the corporate office. Once we got it off the ground with the help of Katie Sihler and ATP, it was easy to maintain. With the help of ATP, we will continue to educate ourselves and our employees regarding all available transportation benefits and environmental transportation issues."
- Lois Glasgow, Benefits Administrator, The Mills Corporation
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The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC)
Situation: The Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC) has two worksites in Arlington, employing over 270 employees. ARC arose out of the deregulation of the airline industry in the United States and anti-trust considerations and was established as a close corporation in 1984. ARC became concerned with transportation management due to increased absenteeism, retention issues, and the length of commuting for its employees.  The Programs: ARC worked closely with Arlington Transportation Partners to develop and implement its "Commuter Choices" program. Commuter Choices includes commuter benefits such as alternative work schedules, pre-tax Metrochek, Guaranteed Ride Home, and pre-tax parking benefits for all of its employees. ARC actively participates in community events such as bike tours, and AIDS walks to help promote good health, and alternative commuting. Additionally, to further reduce emissions from commuting, the company teleconferences staff meetings, and offer training programs via Internet. ARC has also made a commitment to locate their offices near transit stations, and currently both ARC locations are served by Metrobus routes, and two regional bike trails.
Among the commuter benefits programs ARC currently offers are: - Pretax parking
- Pretax Metrochek
- Bike racks/lockers/showers
- Alternative work schedules
- Guaranteed Ride Home
- Presentations during new hire orientations
ARC promotes these programs as follows: - Reminder e-mails sent out to employees about the program and commuter surveys.
- Program advertising to potential job applicants during job fairs, in job advertisements and during the interview process.
The Benefits: Currently, 164 employees (59.9%) participate in Commuter Choices, which ARC estimates to have resulted in a reduction of 108 daily vehicle trips. By offering Commuter Choices, ARC has witnessed reduced parking, better traffic flow around the work site, lower absenteeism, and increased morale by employees. Commuter Choices also serves as an effective employee recruitment and retention tool. Looking Ahead: ARC looks to expand employee participation in the Commuter Choice program. They are looking into offering more telework options as well. Case study based on April 2001 interview with Ms. Tracy Williams, Human Resource Manager.
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Georgia Power/Southern Company
Seeing an opportunity to make a difference in the Atlanta area, Georgia Power/Southern Company (GP) designed a comprehensive program that includes many commuter options for its employees: telework, downtown shuttles, transit benefits, and even electric cars-- to name just a few choices available. From January to June 2000, GP employees saved an average of 1 million miles a month by not driving to and from work alone.
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Bank of America
Bank of America's BEAT program relates the size of financial rewards to the contribution employees' commute choices make in reducing pollution emissions. Participants earn points based on the number of days they choose a greener commuting option, such as telecommuting, carpools, vanpools, rail, bus, walking, or bicycling. The lower the emissions levels, the larger the reward. Using an electronic recording system, the earned point values are placed in personalized MasterCard Debit Card accounts and may be used worldwide just like a bank card. Employees also may earn vouchers that are redeemable for bus and rail passes.
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University of Washington
At the University of Washington, 82 percent of students and 65 percent of staff participate in the U-PASS program. Since the program was implemented, the percentage of employees driving alone has decreased while the use of more environmentally friendly transportation has increased. Total campus ridership on the metropolitan transit system has grown by 68 percent from 4.7 million to 7.8 million annual trips, carpool permits are up by 50 percent, and vanpools have increased from 8 to 28.
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