New Zealand company offers employees $10 a day to cycle to work

Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by madazzahatter

Christchurch advertising firm says workers could feel energised by the exercise – and the money

A Christchurch company is offering hard cash to employees who bike to work everyday in a bid to energise staff and move the city away from a reliance on cars.

Employees who cycle to and from work will receive $5 a day and if they keep it up for more than half a year that amount will double to $10 a day, paid out as a bonus at the end of year.

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“For a while I had been thinking it would be great to incentivise cycling in some way. I’m a really keen cyclist [and] cash is clearly the most obvious incentive,” Tim Chesney from advertising agency Make Collective told Stuff.

“My gut instinct is that it could be something really good for the workplace. I know for myself I show up feeling a lot more energised, my blood is already flowing.”

Chesney said some employees were initially reluctant because the office had no shower facilities, but the offer of potentially hundreds of extra dollars a year was too good to refuse and five of his six employees had joined the scheme.

“The extra money is coming straight out of the businesses profits, but I really believe there will be numerous tangible benefits as a result of people cycling to and from work.”

Developer Elliot Gilmore told Stuff that recovering from his ride to work was “the hardest part”, but the pay-off for his health was better than a gym membership.

“It’s been great so far, I mean, I get to ride through Hagley Park and see people feeding the ducks, reading books and stuff, which is quite different to just waiting for the lights to change while driving.”

According to the council, Christchurch has more cyclists than any other New Zealand city, with 13 major cycle routes running through the wreckage and reconstruction of the city centre.

Associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter said investment in cycleways were a key feature of the ongoing rebuild, with the urban cycleways programme costingNZ$150m.

“Safe cycleways are a key part of making Christchurch a healthy, happy and vibrant city full of people, rather than traffic,” said Genter.

Karmasapiens on March 7th, 2018 at 13:50 UTC »

I used to work for a progressive Biotech company that had a fantastic free onsite gym with personal trainers, massage therapists and nutritionists.

While working there I got into the best shape of my life, felt great all the time - even when up against super stressful deadlines etc.

In return I ended up working HARD for the company.

Edit

I want to take a moment to remind people there are always 2 sides to things. The company had great perks to attract good talent, but there were definitely negatives.

Here’s a great example of a big negative:

My vacation pkg: - Unlimited sick time, - 5wks paid vacation, - 1 day of vaca gained per yr, (+extra wk at 7?yrs), - 1wk shutdown during Xmas (paid), - 1month paid sabbatical every 5yrs,

Great right?

Well the reality is people barely took vacation.. The company had a stack of resumes coming in every day (very talented people) and they made sure to let everyone know just how replaceable they were.

Not performing as well as they would like - you’re gone (employee at will state). To be honest though, I kind of liked that part of it because there was accountability. I knew I could relay on people to give me good info / do good work, because if they didn’t.. they wouldn’t be working there.

But, the guilty feeling of taking vacation was hard to reconcile. Timelines were so short that there were always critical milestones that needed to be hit... always! There was never a good time to plan a vacation, so inevitably, you just let those things good and never really take one.

Edit 2:

Ok another example - this one is very much in the grey area.

Every Thursday the company offered a free catered dinner buffet + alcohol beverages.

Great perk! Who doesn’t like hanging with their colleagues shooting the shit, eating good free food and drinking.

Well... honestly... it kind of gets old quick.

Or maybe better put the reality of what it was vs the expectation got old.

The reality was Thursday evenings till 8 or 9pm we’re schmoozing fests were you go around getting face time with more Sr management than yourself.

You didn’t have to be a part of it if you didn’t want to!

But you had to understood that meant your colleagues were getting more face time with management than you.

Who do you think gets the nod the next time promotions come up? Who falls on the better side of the bell curve during bonuses?

I realize these are incredibly first world problems - truly I do, but they weigh on people more than they probably appear to on the surface.

lostwithtime on March 7th, 2018 at 12:53 UTC »

I’d ride a bike to work everyday for an extra 10. That couple hundred a month would add up nicely

schitz240sx on March 7th, 2018 at 12:47 UTC »

I talked to the transportation officer at my hospital about this. The government has a program for people to bicycle to work. She told me she doesnt want to implement the program here. Fucking Houston sometimes.