2002
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Category:
Special Recognition
American Lung
Association of Washington,
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Listen to one of the radio spots featuring this winner! |
Small organization offers high-quality
commute benefits
Few
organizations understand the health and environmental benefits of providing
employees with commute options better than the American Lung Association
of Washington. Small organizations, even those with an environmental mission,
might lack the vision to commit significant resources to a commuting program
for its own staff. A 2002 Diamond Award recognizes that the outstanding
efforts of this organization to encourage commute options are unusual
for its size.
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Jan. 22, 2003 Awards Ceremony
The American Lung Association of Washington's Diamond Award in the category of Special Recognition was accepted by Executive Director Astrid Berg and Office Manager Kathy Rexford. |
Executive Director Astrid Berg sees it this way: “We practice what we preach. Our agency has a strategic goal to reduce air quality levels to healthful categories 365 days a year. To do this, we know we need to focus on emissions from motor vehicles. So, we adopted an agency policy to include ways to reduce work trips in our employee handbook and to subsidize mass transit use.”
“Besides helping improve air quality so people can breathe easier, benefits such as an annual FlexPass, a FlexCar for employee’s use and telework make good sense for a business to offer,” Berg says. “These kind of programs help us recruit and retain excellent employees.”
Despite the fact that the American Lung Association has only 25 employees in its Seattle office, which exempts it from the state Commute Trip Reduction Law, it manages to offer a strong transportation program. All staff are issued an annual FlexPass at no cost to the employees. The organization has made a FlexCar available on site for free. Employees can sign up to use it for personal errands, eliminating a common reason people drive alone to work. A guaranteed ride home in case of emergency is also provided to those who do not drive a single occupant vehicle to work.
Off-site parking is not paid for and the on-site parking is provided on a first-come, first-serve basis, with no reserved spaces except for the FlexCar. Berg is known to encourage staff to ride the bus to downtown meetings, and she takes her own advice. If staff bicycle to work, Berg has made a shower available and is lenient on the dress code for those employees.
Longtime employee transportation coordinator Kathy Rexford says Berg supports her efforts to promote commute options to other employees. “I make sure commute trip reduction stays on everyone’s radar screen. I post information in the lunch room, send fun email reminders and organize contests,” Rexford says. “It is safe to say we are a committed group who believe in our motto that when you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.”
Employees take the agency’s mission to assure lung health for the people of Washington seriously, but they also find that commute options work. Up to 10 people ride the bus to work, and two carpool. During the Clean Air Month of May, employees bike to work at least one day a week, if not more often. One person works a compressed workweek, eliminating a day of commuting. Four others work from home one day each week. There is a consensus that the group needs to do more, however, and in 2003 a staff-led plan for increasing the organization’s commitment to reducing work trips will be proposed. One item already finalized is the expansion of telework to the Yakima and Spokane staff.
Commute Program
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*Some definitions: An “ETC” is the staff-level employee transportation coordinator responsible for the daily administration of the transportation program; “PM” is the transportation program manager; and “CEO” refers to the top management-level person at the worksite. “SOV” stands for single-occupant vehicle, and “CTR” for commute trip reduction.