Tip 1: Adjust your policies
Your arrangements have (a lot of) influence on how your employees travel. Therefore, make sure you have a good basis. For example, a personal mobility budget provides a financial incentive. By traveling by public transport, the employee can have extra budget left over. Or choose a higher reimbursement for public transportation than for the car - or a full reimbursement for public transportation. Can employees work on the train while on the road? Then give them the option of counting part of their ov trip as work time.
Tip 2: Stand out and surprise
That employee who never travels by public transportation ... they probably won't read your intranet messages about the train and the NS Business Card. People perceive selectively; we only view and read the things we think are relevant to us. So make sure you stand out and surprise. Be creative. Organize an event, place a meter-high teddy bear in the lobby, engage with people or show vlogs of train-traveling colleagues in the company cafeteria.
Tip 3: Encourage cycling and public transport bikes
Cycling is usually the fastest way to get from home to the train station, or from the train station to work. That realization is often not present. So emphasize the convenience of the bicycle and OV bike in all communications. Employees can use an OV bike with the NS Business Card and safely park their own bike at the station. And do you already reimburse the bike miles to the station?
Tip 4: Go on a train safari
People who never travel by public transport often feel barriers to taking the train anyway. Like checking in and out, finding the right platform or changing trains. Traveling together can remove these barriers, both conscious and unconscious. For example, travel together by train and OV-bike to the location of the team outing. On a train safari.
Tip 5: Give personal travel advice
Offer employees personal travel advice. For example, during sustainability week or at the start of a new year. And of course during the employment interview with your new employees. Travel advice can eliminate misunderstandings; motorists on average overestimate the distance to the station or bus stop and the time it takes to travel by 50%. Also, people often mistakenly think that the train is much more expensive than the car. Include the costs - including fixed costs and depreciation for the car - in your travel advice.
Tip 6: Lead by example
People are strongly influenced by others. By what they do - or by what we think they do. As an employer, you can take advantage of this. Make visible that many colleagues travel by train. Share their stories, for example in interviews or vlogs. They can tell, for example, that they can work on the go, are home earlier as a result and their work-life balance is better. Present public transportation as a logical choice. You do this, for example, by showing the current travel times of public transportation on screens in the company. This way you work on your own social norm.
