Fuel costs have been going up recently, and with summer on the way, they’re likely to keep increasing. Not only does the rising cost of gas affect you as a consumer, it affects your business and your candidates.
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do to affect the price of gas itself. But you can manage your use of it for business purposes, and you might discover some efficiencies you can keep using when if the cost of gas ever goes down again.
Your business
Batch your driving errands. If you’ve got to make a delivery, visit a prospect or do some other business-related driving, see if you can’t combine that errand with at least one other in the same general direction. Try to plan your driving errands a week at a time and see where you can double- or triple-up your trips.
Map your route. Few things are more frustrating than idling in traffic, knowing you’re burning gas and time and getting nowhere. Before you set out, map your route to find the most efficient way to get where you’re going. UPS is legendary for mapping their drivers’ routes to include as few left turns as possible (right turns are much, much easier to make, especially during high-traffic times). You don’t have to be that thorough, but it never hurts to find the best route between your destinations.
Drive lightly. We mean this in both senses of the word: lighten the load on your car and lighten your foot on the gas pedal. Make sure you’re not carrying around unnecessary cargo before you leave (that includes human cargo, unless you’re carpooling or they’re needed on the errands as well). And try to drive in the neighborhood of the speed limit; as frustrating as slow driving is, it’s a genuine gas-saver.
Your candidates
High gas prices have an especially rough impact on most of your candidates. Making things a little bit easier for them in this respect can earn you a lot of goodwill and candidate loyalty.
Consolidate some steps in your application process. Consider making at least part of your application available online, or offering an online and/or phone scheduling option for interviews. It’s bad enough for a candidate to have to go home and come back another time because your specialists were all busy; adding high gas prices to that hurts even more.
Ask your candidates to carpool. When a candidate calls or emails to express interest in your company, consider asking them to bring along a friend who’s also looking for employment. Not only will this save your candidates money on gas, you’ll get some referrals of additional good candidates.
What about you? What tactics have you been using to keep your business’s fuel costs down? Let us know in the comments!