How do your employee vanpools work? Identified staff serve as vanpool drivers for the 14 vanpools our program currently operates. Drivers pickup riders at either their houses or a designated location. And we’ve got backup drivers on standby in case primary drivers are unable to drive. Commute with Enterprise handles ongoing vanpool management, including processing monthly payments, identifying replacement riders, and providing vehicle maintenance and roadside assistance. Dennis Bell, HR Manager, Meduri Farms Meduri Farms is a family-owned and operated producer, distributor, and innovator of dried fruit for the food and beverage industry, which boasts a workforce of over 280 employees. Meduri is a global leader in a wide variety of dried fruits, most notably craft-dried blueberries, offered in an array of formats and sizes. Meduri Farm’s state-of-the-art headquarters in Dallas, Oregon, include infusion and drying capabilities, a packaging line, R&D capabilities, and an on-site service team What led Meduri Farms to start an employee vanpool program? Meduri Farms’ dried fruit production facilities are rurally located west of Salem with limited housing and transit options for our employees. Before the pandemic, we’d contracted with the school district to provide a daily Salem shuttle service using their buses to make commuting easier. Yet, bus driver shortages and increased costs led us to start an employee vanpool program that’s more cost effective and better accommodates our employees’ commute needs. How did you build your vanpool program? We’d learned our local transit provider, Cherriots, and Commute with Enterprise offer employee vanpool support services at a local community meeting. Together, we created an employee vanpool program tailored to our work culture and employee commute needs. We identified vanpool drivers among our staff and posted and passed out rider signup sheets. A total of 75 interested employees were sorted geographically and grouped into 9 initial vanpools. Meetings were held with each group to identify pickup locations and times. Commute with Enterprise provided the rental vehicles, insurance, and maintenance, and Cherriots offered a subsidy to offset vanpool costs. What benefits has your employee vanpool program netted? Many employees don’t drive or have access to a reliable vehicle so being able to vanpool into work with a co-worker driving has helped improve staff retention. Employees often used to struggle with getting to work. Nearly 25% of our workforce today relies on our vanpool program to access their jobs, and it’s helped recruit new employees. Vanpooling builds employee connection and strengthens our work culture, too. Get There Oregon, our local partners, & Commute with Enterprise can help you start a vanpool program! Consultation & program planning Vanpool matching & management Vehicle rental, maintenance, & insurance Contact: Employers@GetThereOregon.org | 971-202-9758 Visit GetThereOregon.org
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