If your company has employees in a city where the local transit agency runs an institutional pass program, you may have considered offering subsidized transit passes as an employee benefit. These programs, such as SEPTA Key Advantage in Philadelphia, allow employers to offer commuter benefits as a way to attract and retain talent, facilitate return to the office, and decrease their company’s carbon footprint.

However, for companies with employees in multiple locations around the country, it can be challenging to ensure all employees are offered an equitable commuter benefits package. Jawnt can help your company develop a full menu of regionally-specific commuter benefits to best serve your national workforce.

Offering equivalent benefits to your employees

The world of employee benefits can be complex. While employers can offer different benefits to workers in different geographic locations, maintaining equivalent benefits for “similarly situated” employees, such as employees in the same staff class, is a best practice for avoiding unintentionally discriminatory benefits policies. Sometimes, HR administrators need to get creative to ensure that their benefits packages are of comparable value in different geographic contexts.

Healthcare benefits are an example of how employers currently offer equivalent benefits for their national workforces. While some companies rely on national health insurance plans, others offer state-specific plans to their employees or take advantage of newer models of health benefits such as health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) or health stipends.

Creating a tailored menu of commuter benefits

The same flexibility in healthcare can be applied to commuter benefits. Different employees may value different types of commuter benefits based on their location, lifestyle, and personal preferences. For example, an employee without a car may place a high value on transit benefits, while another employee who lives in a city with a strong network of bike lanes may want their employer to make it easier to bike to work.

Luckily, there are a wide range of commuter benefits that employers can offer. Here are a handful of the most common types of commuter benefits that Jawnt can help you offer your employees:

Transit benefits

• Subsidized passes, like those offered through institutional pass programs, give employers a discounted rate on monthly transit passes and grant employees full access to the transit network in their city.
• Cost-matching is a flexible option that allows employers to share the costs of transit fares with their employees up to a certain amount.

Cycling benefits

• Subsidized bike share membership enables employees to bike to work without needing to worry about bike storage or maintenance. Jawnt also can help employees take advantage of exclusive discounts. 
• Bike ownership subsidies like a one-time bike purchase subsidy or a recurring maintenance stipend make it more affordable for employees to use their personal bike to get to work.

General commuter benefits

• Pre-tax commuter benefits allow employees to set aside up to $300/month in pre-tax income to put toward commuting costs, effectively increasing their take-home pay and reducing the cost of commuting.
• Parking payouts reward employees who walk, bike, or take transit to work by paying them out the value of the parking subsidy that employees who drive enjoy.

For an example of how a regional-specific commuter benefits plan can work, let’s look at a a national employer that’s headquartered in Philadelphia. With a workforce spread across the country, Jawnt can make it easy to offer their employees SEPTA Key Advantage benefits in Philadelphia, EcoPass benefits in Denver, and cost-matching for transit passes for their employees in other cities. For employees in areas not well-served by transit, Jawnt can help the company offer any combination of other commuter benefits. Employees can immediately start “spending” with their pre-tax dollars, but many employers will contribute a nominal monthly allowance to spend how they see fit.

Jawnt can work with your company to determine which commuter benefits are best suited for your employees in various locations. By offering a menu of options, you can enable your employees to select a bundle of transit benefits that fits their personal commuting needs.