Let’s start with a quick reality check: managing employee transportation is harder than it looks. Between evolving transit benefit mandates, ongoing changes to transportation technology, and increasingly urgent sustainability goals, today’s transportation program managers juggle work that spans from operational details to long-term planning.
Yet despite being the experts in their realm, workplace transportation managers often sit on the sidelines when it comes to pre-tax transit and parking benefits, which have historically been placed firmly under the umbrella of HR, benefits, and rewards.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In conversation with employers big and small, we’ve heard time and again that the most successful commuter benefits programs happen when transportation managers get a seat at the table, incorporating their expertise in a way that makes commuting easier, smarter, and downright appealing to employees.
We’re here to shine a light on this often overlooked area of expertise, and how it can make a difference at your company.
How do transportation managers keep your workforce moving?
It’s a role that can look different from company to company—but at its core, a transportation manager is responsible for helping employees get to and from work as efficiently, affordably, and sustainably as possible.
Sometimes this means managing company shuttles, negotiating parking contracts, or coordinating bike programs. In other cases, it means working on regional transit strategies, employer subsidies, or data-driven initiatives to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips.
You might hear job titles like Transportation Demand Manager, Sustainability Manager, and Director of Transportation. You’ll find them at tech companies, universities, hospitals, government agencies, and Fortune 500s and small businesses alike.
No matter the title, transportation program managers are charged with shaping how people move, and that makes them key players in the overall employee experience.
What are transportation managers thinking about?
Transportation professionals spend their days working on complex issues that overlap, in many ways, with their colleagues in HR. In the workplace, there’s a constant push to improve mobility and reduce congestion, while keeping employees happy and retention numbers up. And both transportation and HR teams often find themselves dealing with limited budgets, complex policies, and inconsistent infrastructure.
But when it comes to employee mobility, there are many more nuanced issues that transportation managers think about each day. Here are just a few examples, gathered from our conversations with transportation teams:
- How do transportation needs vary across office hubs and departments?
- How can we predict commuter behavior in the era of hybrid work?
- How much should we invest in shuttle programs and vanpools vs. parking and EV charging stations?
- How do we measure our environmental, social and governance (ESG) impact?
The answers to these questions are tied into commuter benefits, but the majority of transportation managers we talk to lack visibility into how these benefits are used.
The disconnect between transportation teams and commuter benefits
Since commuter benefits are a pre-tax benefit, it’s common for them to get bucketed as just another payroll deduction, with ownership defaulting to HR. As a result, many employers find themselves using legacy systems that can’t support the latest in transportation technology, which can make it even tougher for transportation managers to get the right data and meet their goals.
When commuter benefits are bundled into legacy systems, it can also lead to limited or ineffective employee communication, which directly impacts ridership and adoption. As a result, HR and benefits teams see low participation in the programs they’ve invested significant time and money into, while employees miss out on options they didn’t even know existed.
In short, when it comes to meeting employees’ commuting needs, the disconnect between transportation management and HR means that employers are missing opportunities to make a real impact.
What a successful commuter benefits program looks like
The best commuter benefits don’t materialize in a silo—they’re built by transportation and HR teams together, with employees’ needs front and center.
We’ve talked extensively with teams that have bridged this gap successfully, and pulled out some common themes:
- Evaluating benefits options together allows transportation and HR teams to create solutions that support commuters across all departments and locations, not just those at HQ.
- Transportation managers bring valuable insights on commuter trends, helping shape benefit designs based on real employee data, like parking needs or hybrid work schedules.
- Collaborating on communication strategies helps ensure that employees understand their commuting benefits—what they are, how they work, and why they matter.
- Sharing access to commuter data allows HR and transportation teams to measure success, identify opportunities for improvement, and roll out updates more effectively.
The bottom line: when transportation managers are involved in planning commuter benefits, transportation programs are better designed, better adopted, and better aligned with sustainability goals: a win across the entire organization.
So if your role touches mobility, transportation demand management (TDM), fleet management, facilities, operations, parking, or sustainability, we think it’s time you have a seat at the table when it comes to commuter benefits. Even better: you should be driving the conversation.
We’ve got your back. At Jawnt, we work with leaders across departments to design benefits solutions that meet real commuter needs, while providing the link between HRIS systems, transportation teams, and transit agencies.
We’ll be hosting a series of events centered around this topic in the coming months. Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know! 👇
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