Share a Ride, Win a VCR : Firm Thinks Free Merchandise Will Spur Car-Pooling
Can the promise of a free VCR get employees to car-pool?
Motivation Resources Inc. hopes so. The Irvine company is peddling a program to employers that promises employees points toward merchandise such as VCRs in return for sharing rides.
MRI suspects this might soon be a burgeoning market now that the South Coast Air Quality Management District is requiring large employers in Southern California to get more employees into car pools. In order to clean up the nation’s dirtiest air, the agency is empowered to levy fines on companies that don’t comply.
But most transportation experts doubt the free VCRs will get many drivers off the street. They say the greatest motivation to share rides is the prospect of spending less time in traffic as more special lanes just for car pools are added to the freeways. Other inducements might help, but they rank a distant second to the time factor.
“We think the two types of motivation can work hand in hand,” said Janice Daniello, a vice president at MRI.
The service isn’t cheap, but it’s not going to break most big companies either. For an employer of 1,000, Daniello estimates the first year’s costs would be $17,000 in purchasing merchandise for employees who have accrued enough points; about another $17,000 that wouldn’t have to be paid out immediately, which represents points accrued by employees but not redeemed for merchandise, and $10,000 in administrative and other costs.
MRI provides the merchandise, its primary source of income.
The company says it is the first motivation consultant it knows of to attempt to exploit the ride-sharing niche. Most of its customers--and the customers of other motivation consultants--use such programs instead to fire up their sales forces.
MRI also runs a program for Taco Bell to motivate employees behind the counter in its fast-food restaurants, and at Hughes Aircraft Co. to tout the company’s employee suggestion program.
So far, though, MRI says it is talking to some companies about a ride-sharing motivation program but has yet to get any takers.
