Attracting and retaining workforce is one major challenge employers are facing every day. In fact, in the first half of the year 2022, India witnessed an attrition rate of more than 20%, as per the AON PLC Report. The only way to reduce this in your organization is to make it as attractive as possible for new candidates as well as existing employees. Here’s when offering employee transportation can create a difference for you.
The corporate employee transportation market size is growing faster than ever and is currently valued at USD 36.21. Organizations can leverage employee transport to attract and retain employees by offering them the convenience of commute. However, just offering employee transport will not be beneficial until it is managed effectively. You don’t want your organization’s name or employee’s name in headlines because of a negative commuting incident or experience. Majorly organizations find it challenging to manage transport-related costs and safety, and this is where a cloud-based employee transport can do all the work for you. The all-in-one software can help organizations automate their operations, save & optimize costs, and ensure employee safety to offer a convenient commuting experience to their employees.
Let’s explore what is an employee transport solution, how it works, why your business needs it, top must-have features, and everything you need to know about selecting the right software.
What is an Employee Transport Solution?
An employee transportation solution is a comprehensive system designed to streamline and manage employee commutes. It helps organizations automate their employee transport operations to ensure safe and timely employee pick-ups and drops.
Its advanced features majorly include auto-routing, easy scheduling, live tracking, SOS alerts, automated billing, and more. These further help organizations plan, monitor, and optimize their transport operations to offer a convenient commuting experience to their employees.
How Does an Employee Transport Solution Work?
The employee transport solution majorly comes with integrated digital tools including a comprehensive admin console, a driver app, and an employee app. These well-connected tools facilitate real-time information flow for seamless coordination among all stakeholders. Additionally, the solution caters to all types of employee commuting requirements including ETS, Shuttle, and Ad-Hoc.
An employee transportation solution allows admins to create or bulk-upload employee rosters. On the admin dashboard users can automatically schedule trips and design efficient routes with advanced algorithms. The updated trip details are then shared with the employees and drivers via dedicated employee and driver apps. These details contain time, location, route, and passenger/ driver details.
Once a trip becomes active, admins and employees can live-track trips to ensure optimum employee safety. In addition to this, employee transport software also helps organizations maintain compliance, generate instant reports, automate billing, and manage incidents.
Why do Businesses Need Employee Transport Solutions?
Businesses need employee transport solutions to automate their manual transport operations. Automation helps them reduce costs in terms of manpower, vehicle utilization, fuel consumption, and more. Moreover, transport teams can also ensure employee safety with functionalities such as live tracking, SOS, and speed alerts.
Some other benefits of employee transport solutions include trip rating and feedback that help businesses analyze their vendor’s service. Businesses can also effectively major employee satisfaction using the same.
Top 9 Must-Have Features in an Employee Transport Solution
Some must-have features in an employee transport solution include auto-routing, easy scheduling, live tracking, incident management, advanced reporting, and more. Let’s understand how these features can benefit your organization:
- Easy Scheduling: Admins can now simply upload bulk rosters to make scheduling easier and more efficient. In other scenarios, employees can also easily enter their shift details and nodal points to schedule future trips.
- Auto-Routing: Your employee transportation software must have auto-routing to make routing simpler and more efficient for you. With intelligent auto-routing admins can create the shortest and fastest routes within just a few minutes. Moreover, transport teams can also add custom conditions like the longest time of the trip, km of allowed deviation for pick-ups, number of pick-ups, and more.
- Live Tracking: Another essential feature of an employee transport system is live tracking, not only for admins but also for employees. With the employee app, employees should also be able to live track trips for enhanced safety. They can recognize any route deviations, delays, or any non-adherence on the driver’s part.
- Safety & Compliance: Ensure your employee transport software prioritizes employee safety. It must follow a safety-first approach with functionalities such as SOS and speed alerts. An employee or driver can easily trigger SOS from their respective apps to seek immediate help from their transport teams. Whereas, speed alerts are automatically captured in the system when a driver exceeds a specified speed limit. Later this data can be used for driver training and taking other corrective measures.
- Real-Time Notifications: Real-time notifications enhance employees’ commuting experiences, making them more convenient. They are updated about every trip activity and progress with real-time notifications about previous pick-ups, ETAs, and more.
- OTP Verification: OTP verification or any other kind of two-factor authentication is imperative to maintain employee as well as driver safety. This verification can be done at the start and end of the trip to authenticate employee pick-up and drop. Moreover, this will also help organizations ensure that only authorized personnel use their transport services.
- Incident Management: Incident management is a module that ensures every SOS request is resolved at the earliest. As soon as the SOS is triggered, the admin is liable to fill in a detailed form describing the incident and resolution provided. Especially, during the audit, users can analyze drivers’ behavior, driving style, adherence, etc., and take corrective actions for the same.
- Rating & Feedback: Employees must be allowed to share instant feedback as soon as the trip ends. Businesses can add custom questions and fields in the feedback form regarding drivers’ behavior, driving patterns, vehicle cleanliness, and a lot more. Additionally, the rating and feedback analysis can further be used to audit employee transport service vendors.
- Advanced Reporting: An employee transportation solution must offer advanced reporting functionalities for organizations. These reports should include some essential reports for analyzing compliance, incident management, punctuality, and more.
Types of Employee Transport Solutions
An employee transport solution can be categorized into 2 different types based on their deployment types. Let’s discuss them briefly below:
- On-Premise Employee Transport Solution
This type of solution is hosted locally on the company’s hardware infrastructure. The in-house IT team is responsible for maintaining this solution and its related processes.
- Cloud-Based Employee Transport Solution
The cloud-based employee transport solution is hosted on a cloud that can be private, public, or hybrid. Here, the solution is hosted on the premises of the solution provider, however, businesses can still access all their resources, anytime, anyplace.
Difference Between On-Premise & Cloud-Based Employee Transport Solutions
The major difference between on-premise and cloud-based employee transport solutions is the cost. For on-premise deployments, businesses have to bear all the additional costs such as server hardware, power consumption, upkeep, and more. However, in cloud-based deployment, businesses only pay for the resources that they are using, making it a more affordable option.
Let’s understand the difference between these two types of employee transportation solutions on more given parameters.
| Basis | On-Premise Employee Transport Solution | Cloud-Based Employee Transport Solution |
| Cost | Expensive with additional server hardware, upkeep, space and power consumption cost | Comparatively affordable, users only pay for the used resources |
| Control | Full Control over Data | Data is owned by the cloud provider under security policies |
| Security | Highly Secure | Secure with up-to-date safety guidelines, certifications and industry standards. |
| Compliance | Is completely under business control | Ensure third-party provider’s compliance |
| Industries | Suitable for government and banking institutions | Suitable for IT/ ITES, Healthcare, Fintech, etc. |
Things to Consider While Selecting the Right Employee Transport Solution
We recommend you consider important parameters such as flexibility of customizations, smooth implementation, number of integrations, responsive support, and more.
- Customizations Focused
Ensure that your employee transportation solution service provider offers as many as customizations possible. These may include adding multiple types of modes of transport such as cabs and shuttle buses, addressing ad-hoc requests, custom cut-off times, and more.
- Smooth Implementation
Your selected employee transportation solution must offer smooth implementation of the system. This includes migrating data from an existing system, if any, or uploading new data. Also, ensure that your chosen software vendor provides adequate training and support manuals such as user manuals, FAQs, video tutorials, and more. This makes it easier for all, admins, employees, and drivers to adapt the technology and get used to it.
- Third-Party Integrations
Another important point to note while selecting software for employee transport is the number of integrations it offers. Ensure that you get basic integrations like with HRMS, SSO, and more, so the software sets well within your existing ecosystem.
- Instant Tech Support
Your chosen employee transportation solution vendor must offer 24*7 tech support, especially when you operate in multiple or unusual shifts. This will provide technical assistance to all the stakeholders including admins, drivers, and employees, as and when required.
Safetrax – A Futuristic Cloud-Based Employee Transport Solution
Safetrax cloud-based employee transport solution is one that addresses all your employee transportation needs. Its safety-first approach with features like SOS & speed alerts ensures that your employees enjoy a convenient and stress-free commuting experience. Moreover, it also enables organizations to save and optimize costs in terms of optimum vehicle utilization, fuel consumption, distance traveled, and more.
Conclusion
Cloud-based employee transport solutions like Safetrax can help organizations effectively automate manual operations with complete transparency. It enhances your employees’ daily commuting experience by making it more convenient and safer. Overall this improves your organization’s brand image helping you attract better talent and retain the existing ones.