Company Offers Cash Incentives For Employees Who Bike Their Way To Work

Riding a bicycle to work comes with many great benefits. Aside from giving your body some much-needed exercise, biking also makes it possible for you to save money since you wouldn’t have to spend money on gas or fare.

As if all those reasons weren’t convincing enough, a small company from Christchurch, New Zealand is now offering cash incentives to encourage more of their people to use bikes on a regular basis.

Creative and advertising agency Make Collective is offering $5 to $10 for employees who ride bikes going to work.

According to Stuff, Christchurch-based firm Make Collective gives a $5 bonus for employees who bike to and from work. What’s more, the amount doubles to $10 if they bike more than half their annual work days.

Make Collective’s Tim Chesney shared they are hoping that the reward system will encourage people to make riding bikes a habit “rather than just getting someone to bike to work once”.

He explained:

“For a while I had been thinking it would be great to incentivize cycling in some way. I’m a really keen cyclist [and] cash is clearly the most obvious incentive.

“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 energized, my blood is already flowing.”

The cash bonus is paid out at the year’s end, according to Chesney (right).

He also said:

“We have a time-tracker for work, so we now have a task in the tracker where you just track an hour when you bike to work.

“Everyone can see everyone’s scores, so at the end of the year we tally it up.”

Developer Elliot Gilmore (left) said the challenge presents people with numerous advantages.

He shared about the experience:

“Recovering once I get to work is the hardest part, but I need to ride more for health any way…

“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.

“The dedicated cycleways really help. I can ride from here to uni, near where I live, on a cycleway for most of the way.”

The company hopes that other businesses will pick the idea up.

Chesney said:

“We work a lot with socially-minded clients and want our work to make the world better, so this is just us playing our part.

“Christchurch is slowly developing its cycle infrastructure, it’s starting to get better and safer to bike, especially with the cycleways off the road, that’s really key.”

Watch the video report here:

Would you bike to work if you were offered cash incentives, too? Sound off in the comment section!