Runzheimer International’s 1st Annual Total Employee Mobility Benchmarking Survey reveals market trends and statistics relating to business vehicle programs, and establishes first-time benchmarks in the area of employee mobility management, defined by Runzheimer as "programs that support relocation, international assignments, travel, corporate aircraft, business vehicles, and mobile/home office services." Overall survey findings relating to business vehicle programs were: Types of Business Vehicle Programs
Fifty-three percent of survey participants offer company-provided vehicles, whereas the remainder of respondents (47 percent) use an employee-provided business vehicle program or a combination of employee-provided and company-provided business vehicle programs. For those organizations that supply their employees with company-provided vehicles, 85 percent provide their employees with leased vehicles whereas the remaining balance of vehicles (15 percent) are company-owned. For those organizations that use employee-provided business vehicle programs, 69 percent manage their program internally, and 31 percent rely on an outside firm for fleet management. The overwhelming majority (85 percent) of respondents pay a flat mileage (cents-per-mile) to reimburse their employees for use of their personal vehicles on company business. Eleven percent of participants reimburse their employees on a fixed and variable basis, and 4 percent provide a fixed allowance each month.

Anticipated Changes in Spending & Number of Drivers
When asked about their plans to change spending on business vehicle programs and/or fleet, 44 percent expect no change in their fleet spending in the coming year, whereas 26 percent expect to increase spending and 18 percent plan to decrease their spending. Twelve percent of respondents do not know how their spending will change. When participating organizations were asked how their number of drivers was expected to change, 49 percent of respondents anticipate that their population of employee drivers will stay at its current level. Twenty-one percent of firms predict that their number of drivers will increase in the coming year. Fifteen percent of respondents anticipate a decline in their number of drivers and 15 percent do not know how this number will change.

Liability Concerns
Forty percent of respondents indicate that they are concerned with liability for company-provided vehicles whereas 33 percent are not concerned. The balance of the respondents report that they are either indifferent, do not know, or that the question of liability obligations relating to company-provided vehicles is not applicable to their operations.

Responsibility for Business Vehicle Program
When asked about which department or function has responsibility for business vehicle program administration and management, 21 percent of respondents stated that their Human Resources Department “owns” this area of employee mobility. Approximately 18 percent of respondents have placed business vehicle services under the umbrella of Accounting/Finance, and another 15 percent have this function assigned to Purchasing/Procurement. An equal percent of responding organizations (9 percent) reported that Sales/Marketing or Administration divisions handle their business vehicle services. The remainder of respondents have the ownership of business vehicle services assigned to “other” departments.