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Getting The Most From Your Work Commute

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Hello. How ‘bout that ride in.

Every weekday morning, millions of Americans take to their cars and head to work. According to a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, workers from the 30 largest U.S. cities spend an average of 4.33 hours commuting to and from work each week. Those working in New York City lament the longest work drive in the nation at 6.65 hours per week. That’s a lot of time on the road that can leave motorists and their employers paying a heavy toll.

Mental Health

Ever been stuck in traffic and taken a quick look at the faces of your fellow drivers? Well, stop! Keep your eyes on the road. That’s how accidents happen.

Now, ever been a passenger in a car and observed the drivers’ expressions while in traffic? You might notice a lot of grimaced or yelling faces mixed with dejection, boredom, anger, and anxiety. Sure, there are smiling and laughing faces, but those are few and far between. The majority of drivers are stressed, and they’re taking it with them to work.

The University of Montreal’s School of Industrial Relations found that commute times of more than 20 minutes can lead to “professional burnout” for many employees–disillusionment, cynicism, and general unhappiness with their workplace. And a study from the U.K.’s Office of National Statistics found that commuters, when compared to non-commuters:

  • felt less satisfied with their lives,
  • rated their daily activities as less worthwhile,
  • reported less happiness and higher anxiety than non-commuters.

Mental and physical health will often, if not always, impact one another. So it should come as no surprise that employees who face long, stressful commutes, also suffer from physical ailments.

Physical Health

A 2012 report by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  found that greater commuting distances are associated with decreased cardiorespiratory fitness, increased weight, and other indicators of metabolic risk. Additionally, the cramped quarters of a car present the perfect setting for back and neck pain. This is to say nothing of the spikes in blood pressure that may occur thanks to:

  • That guy who cut you off
  • That guy who’s driving too slow
  • That guy who doesn’t use a signal
  • That guy who’s tailgating

Yeah, you know those guys. They’re a real pain.

Strategies to Overcome the Effects of Long Work Commutes

Fortunately, a long daily commute doesn’t have to be a life sentence of pain and stress. By realizing that long commutes can be hazardous to your physical and mental health, employees and employers can be proactive in combating the negative outcomes–and maybe even add some positive ones.

What Employers Can Do

Telecommuting: In addition to cutting down or eliminating commutes, telecommuting has been shown to increase employee productivity, retention, and satisfaction, according to a study in the Harvard Business Review. For those reasons and others, telecommuting is a rising trend among employers in the United States, where nearly 24% of workers state that they work some hours from home (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011).

Flexible Work Arrangements (FWA): Often times, work commutes cause employees stress and anxiety because some days they are challenged to fit everything into the day. Whether it be doctor’s appointments, childcare, volunteer commitments, or car maintenance, these commuters are feeling the time crunch –and that 20-minute traffic delay doesn’t help.

Employers who offer employees flexibility to work where and when they prefer also provide them with the autonomy to manage their daily schedules in the most effective manner. As with telecommuting, research has shown that productivity and absenteeism are positively impacted by a FWA (SHRM, 2014)

Fitness Space/Classes: Employers can seek to provide employees with resources to alleviate stress too. This can be as simple as providing a quiet room for meditation or, at larger office spaces, access to a fitness facility. Professionals–for mental or physical health–can be invited in to teach crash courses in stress-relieving techniques, such as yoga, mindfulness, meditation, tai chi, or high-intensity cardio workouts.

What Employees Can Do

Change Your Perspective: Before getting into the car, realize that more than likely you will encounter traffic, delays, and idiot-drivers. By simply taking the time to set realistic expectations for your drive, you’ll be less likely to become stressed by delays and the antics of your fellow-drivers.

Podcast or Audio Books: Get a jump on your workday by listening to a podcast for professional/personal development. Or, if you can’t find the time to read for pleasure, why not spend your commute listening to a book? These approaches will have you looking forward to your commute, and the delays may not seem so bad.

Mindfulness: There are many resources available for practicing mindfulness. If you are not familiar with the practice, read up on it and consider using your commute as an opportunity to practice it. In essence, you will seek to be present in the moment of driving–not using past experiences to explain the present, or worrying about future, possible outcomes that may result from the present–just relaxed, with your attention on the drive. You’ll arrive to work fresh and stress-free.

Getting The Most From Your Work Commute

Commuting to and from work is a necessity for most employees. And although more and more employers are offering telecommuting as an option, it is not likely that your work commute will completely go away anytime soon. To combat the negative impact of commuting to work, both employers and employees must take a proactive approach to managing employee stress inside and outside the workplace.

Eliminating unnecessary employee stress is one of the best ways for organizations to retain employees; it’s also one of the best ways to hire them. ExactHire offers hiring technology that eliminates stress for HR Departments and provides job applicants with a transparent, seamless, stress-free experience from application to onboarding.

Image credit: Los Angeles Traffic by Luke Jones(contact)

Grow Employer Brand Loyalty, Engage Employees in Continual Improvement

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Taking concepts of brand management and applying them to employee management is an effective strategy for attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. Previously, we’ve covered the concept of “employer brand” and how it relates to “consumer brand”. Today, we’ll look at the concept of “employer brand loyalty” and how an organization can strengthen it by implementing a continual improvement plan that engages employees.

Consumer Brand Loyalty Vs. Employer Brand Loyalty

Simply put, “consumer brand loyalty” is the phenomena wherein consumers choose to exclusively purchase a product or service from one business, or brand , over a long period of time. Sometimes this is because the quality of the product or service is perceived to be better, sometimes it’s because the brand provides an intangible benefit, such as prestige, fashion, righteousness, or a sense of belonging. The bottom line is that the consumer’s purchasing decision is based on factors that are not limited to price ($$$).

Similarly, “employer brand loyalty” describes an employee’s choice to exclusively contract with an employer over a long period of time for reasons beyond salary ($$$). Employee perceptions of the employer also play a significant role in the development of employer brand loyalty. In fact, many of the intangible benefits that convince a consumer to remain loyal to a brand, can be the same reasons why an employee remains loyal to an employer brand–prestige, fashion, righteousness, a sense of belonging.

…the big difference between consumer and employer brand loyalty??

Consumer brand loyalty is based on how the brand treats the consumer. Employees are, themselves, the employer brand, so their loyalty is based on how they treat one another. This means that in addition to gathering feedback from consumers on products or services, businesses must provide opportunities for employees to provide feedback on their experience. The continual improvement process is a perfect chance to do both.

Continual Improvement

Continual improvement is a concept that is understood by most of today’s successful businesses. These businesses know that operating at optimal levels on Day 1 is nearly impossible, and so smart owners plan for continual improvements that will ensure sustained growth and profitability. In improving a consumer brand, this can be illustrated by adding features to a product in order to address customer complaints. For an employer brand, an example could be investing in new technologies to automate tedious tasks and increase process efficiency.

Making informed changes to existing processes in order to increase efficiency in operations is at the heart of continual improvement. But, often times, decision-makers are blind to process inefficiencies that plague daily operations because they are not close enough to the processes. And although process inefficiency may seem of little importance in regard to consumers, it will take a toll on employees. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the low morale of employees begins to impact customers and the consumer brand.

Therefore, it is vital to understand that the strength of employer brand loyalty and consumer brand loyalty are connected; in order to achieve high levels of both, a business must engage customers, as well as employees, in the improvement process. Again, no one expects all operations to hum in the early days of a business. Mistakes are made, unexpected challenges occur, and resources are often limited; however, if lessons are not learned and shared, then those mistakes and setbacks can begin to define an organization and its employer brand–“The people are nice, the product is good, but the place is dysfunctional.”

Gaining The Employee Perspective and Buy-in

It is important to have a plan in place that provides employees with a formal channel through which they can suggest improvements. This can be as simple as a drop box (real or virtual), or it can be a standing topic at department meetings. Regardless of the chosen channel, it must be easy to submit and receive suggestions, and each suggestion should receive a genuine response.

Engaging employees in the improvement of processes is just one way to strengthen employer brand loyalty. Employees can also contribute ideas for improvements to other areas of your business such as workspace, marketing collateral, customer support, communications, and even janitorial service. This is not to say that every decision for improvement must go through the entire organization, but empowered employees who are given a voice, and whose voice is listened to, will be your brand’s most loyal advocates.

5 Steps to Improve Employment Brand Loyalty

  1. Develop a continual improvement plan that engages your employees
  2. Provide a quick and easy way for employees to suggest improvements at anytime and to provide feedback on specific issues
  3. Respond to all suggestions and feedback for improvement with next-steps and a time frame for completion
  4. Upon implementing improvements, recognize the source of the idea and its benefit
  5. Maintain a running log of improvements that can be celebrated at year-end

ExactHire provides hiring technology for small to medium-sized organizations. Our SaaS solutions include HireCentric ATS and OnboardCentric which can streamline your hiring and onboarding processes, while providing an exceptional experience for new employees. To learn more about how you can enhance your hiring process through the use of our software, contact us today!

5 Steps To Assess Employer Brand For Small Biz Owners

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As a leader of a small business, you are likely familiar with the importance of brand as it relates to your business’s profitability and growth. Your consumer brand represents who you are as a business to your customers and prospective customers; this includes how you stand apart from similar businesses, and what your goals are in delivering your product or service. A bad brand is a bad business; where one goes, the other will quickly follow–most business owners understand this.

But what about your employer brand? What is this, and how does it affect the health of your business?

Your employer brand is essentially the same as your consumer brand; however, an employer brand represents who you are as a business to your employees and prospective employees. In other words, your consumer brand makes and fulfills (hopefully) a promise to individuals with the goal of gaining their continued business, and an employer brand makes and fulfills (hopefully) a promise to individuals with the goal of gaining and keeping their talent through employment.

Your Employer Brand Right Now

Though the word “brand” is sometimes cast in a negative light, building a brand is a universal practice for businesses–even if it’s not realized by the business itself. Negative connotations associated with brand likely come to mind when we confuse it with the marketing strategies and tactics used to promote the brand. So putting aside marketing strategies and tactics–logos, slogans, messaging, materials, advertisements, et al.– consider these three questions as a quick and dirty way to assess your employer brand:

(Note: These can be used to assess your consumer brand, too, with a few tweaks.)
  • What is the purpose of our business?
  • How is working at our business different than other businesses with similar purposes?
  • How do people feel about our business before, during, and after working here?

By answering these questions and, more importantly, asking your employees to answer these questions, you will have the building blocks of your employer brand. It is vital that you complete this before creating a strategy to strengthen and grow your brand. If your brand (what you are) is not in alignment with your brand marketing (what you are promising to be), then you will be misleading your job applicants and laying the groundwork for a bad brand image–that means low sales for your business, and low morale/high turnover for your employees.

5 Steps to Assess Your Employer Brand

  1. Develop a brief survey to determine the essence of your current brand using the three questions above
  2. Distribute the survey to all employees and business stakeholders in a way that allows for anonymous responses
  3. Collect and compile the responses to identify common brand perceptions
  4. Identify perceptions that are negative or threatening to your business
  5. Incorporate the assessment insights into a prioritized continual improvement plan

ExactHire provides hiring technology for small to medium-sized organizations. Our SaaS solutions include HireCentric ATS and OnboardCentric which can streamline your hiring and onboarding processes, while providing an exceptional experience for new employees. To learn more about how you can enhance your hiring process through the use of our software, contact us today!

Hiring Process Hurting Your Employer Brand?

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Your marketing team has worked hard to ensure that marketing campaigns communicate exactly what your company promises to be–your company brand. So hard in fact, that people are listening and business is growing! Now your company needs to be on top of their game as they seek to attract and hire the right people–your employer brand.

When hiring–especially when hiring aggressively–the perception of your employer brand can start to go one of two ways: your employer brand is knocked as contrived marketing fluff; or embraced as an authentic representation of what your company is, who your people are, and how you seek to do business.

Frequently, the people applying for jobs at your organization are also the people most familiar with your company’s brand–and many times they are direct or indirect customers. They’ve received your marketing. Now, through the hiring process, they get to pull the curtain back and really see what’s going on. It’s important that you meet their expectations.

Delivering On Your Employer Brand Promise

Let us pretend that your company brand stands for integrity, prompt communication, truthfulness, and transparency. You’re on the hunt to hire people who exemplify those characteristics. As you begin the hiring process, you portray these characteristics yourself by outlining the stages of the hiring process and roughly how long each stage will take. Even if you were to reject an applicant at this stage, your employer brand has been upheld by communicating and being truthful. On target so far–your marketing department is loving this!

But the next thing you know, massive chaos has broken out across your organization. Maybe someone quit unexpectedly, or you’ve had a benefit provider change rates on you, or…chaos of whatever type. It’s all you can do to keep yourself from drowning, let alone notify individual applicants that the next stage in the hiring process has been delayed!

But you stay cool, and you find the few minutes it takes to update your applicants. Maybe it’s just a generic, automated email that’s sent out to all applicants remaining in the hiring process, but this simple effort supports your employer brand image. The applicants thank you, and the marketing team does too.

Breaking Your Brand Promise

But let us examine what might happen if you did not take those few minutes to send an update to the applicants.

Scenario 1: Your potential new hire may not trust you to be timely, transparent, or communicative– and that mistrust could remain once they’ve been hired as part of your organization.

Scenario 2: The applicant could assume that they weren’t selected, and that you–uncomfortable with confrontation–just didn’t want to break the news to them. This might lead them to take a position elsewhere.

Scenario 3 In the worst possible scenario, the applicant tells everyone they know about their negative experience thus far with your company, severely damaging your brand image. If you think this is hyperbole, think about a company that is hiring aggressively:

20 positions X 50 applicants = 1,000 brand promises broken

1,000 miffed people X 300 followers of miffed people = 300,000 people who now have a bad perception of not only your employer brand, but perhaps your overall company brand as well. Ouch.

What’s the Good Word?

Word-of-mouth is the oldest and still the hottest marketing tactic–good, bad, or otherwise. Your hiring process will likely touch a lot of people and generate conversations about your  company. These conversations can either tarnish or reinforce your brand. Ensure a positive experience for your applicants–don’t keep them in limbo. By staying true to your employer brand, you will strengthen your company brand.


Looking for hiring software tools to improve and maintain your organization’s employer brand? Visit our resources page for more information about our applicant tracking system and pre-employment screening software, or contact us today.

Image credit: NO se contrata a nadie by Bart Everson (contact)

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