Businesses with mobile employees usually have a more or less significant fleet of company cars that, if not used properly, could have some really bad consequences for mobile employees and the company itself.
It’s imperative to design an education and awareness policy so remote workers, who regularly drive company cars, may had a safe driving and legal behavior that doesn’t compromise their security and protect third parties’ safety.
Equally, the implementation of an appropriate behavior behind the wheel will allow us a significant saving in traffic fines and fuel expenses in addition to reinforcing our brand image and the company’s reputation due to a committed and responsible management.
Recommendations for business whose employees use company cars
How to get ensure safe and profitable driving
Obviously, we are not a company Road Safety dedicated, but the fact is that the budget line that takes traffic fines each year combined with the scares of some incidents caused by our drivers, make us reconsider and realize that if we invest a little time in adopting a series of tics, we’ll save a good capital on penalties and fuel and our mobile employees will gain in safety behind the wheel of the company car. How? Follow our recommendations and you’ll get it soon enough:
- Schedule safe car trips
Our mobile employees work all day going back and forth in the company car. The most correct thing to do is to have a control staff section in charge of assigning and controlling the routes daily or weekly.
It is very important to be realistic in this planning, taking into account schedules and distances. We must consider delivery stops, rest patterns, traffic-jams, traffic black spots locations… All of this influence on the time spent to attend a visit and should be planned in the schedule of each car trip.
- Avoid incentives that increase speed driving the company car
We must be aware that one of the characteristics of the mobile employee’s job is that they run from one client to another. The lack of time, the need to cover their visits or reach an emergency place, almost requires the increase in speed driving.
Starting out from this premise which already entails its risks, we should never encouraged the increase of speed while driving as a weapon to close more visits or serve more customers. With this behavior we would only increase the risk and endanger the safety. In any case, this procedure would be a drag on our reputation as a responsible company.
- Evaluate the potential of each driver
The mere fact of having the driver’s license doesn’t make us prepared drivers. That’s why it’s vital to evaluate whether our employees are well-trained to go behind the wheel of a company car. In fact, this should be an insurmountable issue when conducting the staff selection process. Then, over time, it’s good to introduce some type of test that will mark us the correct level periodically. An unfit driver puts his life and the lives of others at risk.
- Promoting ecological driving
This measure will not only allow us to enter the hall of fame of sustainable and responsible companies, it’ll also bring us major savings in fuel consumption. It’s important to instill this feeling in the mobile employee and make them want, while in the company car, to make an eco-responsible, more efficient and committed way of driving.
- Have appropriate vehicles
Of course, we cannot be convincing our drivers to be “educated” behind wheel while our vehicles are not in immaculate condition. In this sense it’s important to monitor the vehicle maintenance, which is responsibility of the company.
In addition, company cars tend to be larger and more powerful than privately owned ones. Higher performance car drivers are more prone to increase speed, having speeding violations.
For this reason, employers must ensure that the operating characteristics of the vehicles coincide with the competence level of their drivers. When choosing fleets of vehicles, try to offer a selection that includes smaller, safe and manageable vehicles and make sure that the staff understands that they can pay much less taxes by choosing one of them.
