Car Seats or Brief Cases: The Employers Guide to Personal Use of Company Vehicles

Time-wasting activities while on the clock are costing the economy more than $15 billion a year in lost productivity. If you provide vehicles for your employees, personal use of company vehicles cost you more than average in lost productivity. To ensure your employees respect the privilege of having a personal vehicle, follow some simple guidelines.

Here is everything you need to know before you provide your employees with vehicles.

Who Should Get a Company Car

If you’ve been handing out cars without a clear determination of who should be entitled to having one, you need to lay out some basic criteria.

The factors that determine who gets access to a company car must be clearly written and outlined so that your staff understands the expectations. Without clear factors, you’ll sow discord throughout your ranks from people who feel more entitled than others.

Make a limit for the number of miles that your employees must travel every year. This travel needs to be explicitly for your company.

Some workers might receive a company car as one of the benefits to their job. While it might seem like a perk, it should also be linked to expectations that you have for making them travel when you need them to.

Your company car doesn’t need to be a standard car or truck either. If you want to ensure that it doesn’t get used for employee’s personal needs, then buy an alternative vehicle. A large box delivery truck or a compact car covered in company decals are far less likely to be used for personal needs.

Enclosed auto transport is required for a lot of different products, so make sure you get the best vehicle for your company’s needs.

Set Some Prerequisites

While some of these are no-brainers, it’s vital to put in writing what you expect before someone can qualify for a company car. Even if you think they know this if it’s not in writing, you could be liable for violations.

Your staff needs to have a valid license before they qualify for a company car. if you’re giving them a vehicle that requires more than the standard automobile license, check their qualifications before you hand them the keys.

Check their driving record, as well. You need to look back at more than a few years to check for any pattern of bad behavior. If they have a DUI or DWI on their record, you can disqualify them for a company car based on insurance issues.

However, if you see that the violation was more than 10 years ago, you can use your own discretion. Be aware of how your insurance could be impacted.

If employees with disabilities need a company car or parking spaces, they’re allowed to ask for reasonable accommodations because of the ADA. However, if employees take medication that impacts their reflexes, impair their vision, or upset their orientation, you can reconsider.

Set Reporting Standards

If you want to ensure that your staff doesn’t take advantage of company vehicles, lay out the standards ahead of time. Start with basic safety training and make your employees sign an agreement.

Following that, provide standards for reporting their vehicle usage. This ensures that your vehicle won’t be used for anything other than for work.

Include a clipboard in your car that’s a permanent fixture. Put together a simple spreadsheet where you ask your drivers to write down whenever they use the car. They should report mileage when they sit in the car and mileage when they arrive.

Each trip must be accompanied by a summary of work they performed while using the car. If they have the car for a longer period of time, then make them include receipts, invoices, and other records that you can use to back up their mileage.

If they incur tickets while driving, assure them that those tickets are their responsibility. Without an outline of all of these details, they can claim ignorance or lack of foreknowledge. Don’t give them the chance to make this claim by outlining everything clearly.

There Must Be Disciplinary Consequences

Every one of these requirements that you set out for your staff needs to be backed up with consequences. Without a set of consequences, you won’t have any purchase over holding your staff accountable for using your vehicles for personal use.

Expect some amount of violation. If you send your staff out to pick up something from a shop or a grocery store, they might pick up a few things they needed and save themselves a trip.

If you’re noticing personal trips are taking too much time or causing problems at work, this is a reason to take action.

Standard violations should cause a warning or a fine. If your driver racks up tickets or causes an accident, you need to let them know that their privileges may be taken away.

If your car ends up being used for the employee’s own personal gain or is used to gain a loan, consider these violations to be enough to take away their privileges. Following this, you may consider taking legal action.

Every company has different standards for what vehicles are used for. However, violating the law or putting someone in danger is reason enough to take the keys away.

Personal Use of Company Vehicles is Costly

If you don’t take the time to eliminates personal use of company vehicles, you’re putting your company’s profit margins at risk for withering away. You need clear standards and limitations for what appropriate use is before employees get the keys.

IF you have remote workers that use your vehicles, follow our guide to make sure you’re also protected from issues with cybersecurity.