Employees Get Help With Cost Of Gas Prices
By Rodney Tanaka Staff Writer© Pasadena Star-News, August 6, 2006
High gas prices reach all the way into the office, affecting job retention, recruiting and how business is conducted, according to a recently-released survey.
Seventy-five percent of executives polled by Robert Half International Inc. said their companies are taking action to reduce the impact of higher gas prices on their teams.
Almost half the respondents said they increased expense guidelines for employee-incurred mileage. Thirty-seven percent allowed staff to telecommute more frequently, and 35 percent encouraged car-pooling.
Compensating employees for business-related mileage is a common practice, and gas prices are an obvious factor in that reimbursement equation, said Donna Farrugia, vice president of Robert Half International.
"You have to take steps to ease the pain at the pump," Farrugia said. "If you do this, you help boost the morale of the staff, which in turn reduces employee turnover."
A good employer wants to retain great people, and compensating for high gas prices is one addition to the checklist, she said.
"A spike in gasoline prices won't compel people to quit, but they could begin looking for a job closer to home, especially someone who is already feeling undercompensated or undervalued," Farrugia said.
Many people can't shorten their commute, so they must spend more on gas and they have less disposable income to spend elsewhere, she said.
The same is true of firms that don't have the budget to provide assistance for higher fuel costs, Farrugia said. These companies are allowing employees to telecommute and encouraging teams to car pool.
Someone who wants help in alleviating higher gas prices should have a plan before going to a supervisor.
"You should build a business case by researching and examining all ways the company would be impacted by the change, how it would benefit the company and how it would benefit the employee," Farrugia said.
Gary Kaplan, of Pasadena-based executive search firm Gary Kaplan & Associates, said high gas prices are not significantly affecting the job decisions of middle- to high-level executives.
But commuting length is starting to factor more into employment decisions, he said.
Out-of-state executive searches were met with resistance because of the perceived high cost of living in California, driven by housing costs, Kaplan said.
Previously, a search based in Los Angeles could reach into Orange County, Ventura County or the South Bay without much resistance to the longer commute, he said.
But commuting has gotten much worse in the past five to seven years, Kaplan said.
"We do get resistance even from professional classes, from middle management and executives, on commutation," he said. "We won't always lose candidates over it, but people verbalize it. It causes them some anguish over the decision-making process."
