In Rebecca Wallace's Shoes

The founder of Launch Recruitment talks about how the business is coping in this rapidly changing Australian market.

In Rebecca Wallace's Shoes Sumi Das: Getting employees to carpool has always been considered one of the holy grails for businesses. Ride sharing encourages employee comradery, and cuts down on carbon emissions. But having an organized plan is a challenge for many companies. Paul McGrath: To set up a database for carpool is internally, can be very difficult. And often if they do set one up, the participation is very low. Sumi Das: Paul McGrath is the CEO of RideSpring, a technology company that's built software to organize ride sharing into a one stop destination. Paul McGrath: We've enabled people to share their commute information across the organization very easily. Sumi Das: One of RideSpring's successes is at business software maker SAP. SAP started using RideSpring in 2008, and now 30 percent of the employees in the Silicon Valley office have signed up. Larry Morgan oversees the program at the company. Larry Morgan: It saves them time, saves them fuel, saves them bridge tolls, they get to ride in a carpool lane so there's a quality of work-life balance that's also part of the program. Sumi Das: Here's how the software works. Say you want to find a ride. Select your work site and your home destination, and do a search. A list of drivers appears telling you when they plan to arrive, and leave from work. If it matches your schedule, sign up. If instead you decide to offer a ride, you can fill out a form entering data and describing when you are available to help out. The software also has incentives built in. So the more employees carpool, the more likely they are to be rewarded for ride sharing. Paul McGrath: They can win prizes every single month, and they can also see what they're saving in terms of gas savings and carbon savings. Sumi Das: The rewards are also available to employees who may decide to walk, bike, or use public transit to get to SAP. We've transformed the daily commute into a fun competitive game between co- workers, and that really drives interest in participation. Sumi Das: RideSpring, making it easier to carpool to work, all the while reducing your carbon footprint during the commute hours. For Bnet, I'm Sumi Das.