The Ubiq company offers two additional days off per year to its employees who would opt for the train rather than the plane. AdobeStock/listercz
The company Ubiq promotes, via “TTR” or “Responsible Travel Time”, low-carbon mobility during the leisure trips of its employees.
Are you hesitating between the train and the plane for your next vacation, but are afraid of “losing” days off because of the longer journey time in the first case? To answer its employees who asked themselves the same question, a French company found the solution. Ubiq, which lists office rentals in France, has thus created the TTR, for “Responsible Travel Time”.
” This idea was first mentioned in the team last summer. Our employees were faced with a dilemma when it came time to go on vacation: fly and get to their destination quickly or take the train and have less environmental impact. What takes more time “says Mehdi Dziri, CEO of Ubiq. So, in January, the company introduced two additional days off per year dedicated solely to travel time to its destination. The goal ? Enable the thirty or so employees who work there to choose more eco-responsible modes of travel. These can be divided into four half-days of travel. And have the particularity of being semi-off days: the employee can, if he wishes, use them to progress on projects related to his professional activity.
Read alsoWhere to go on the weekend by train? Our 50 destinations in Europe
” Two days is the equivalent of two weekends if you take two half-days of TTR each time: one outward and the other in return. What seemed to us to be a good compromise, both interesting for employees and understandable in the context of the leave policy “, further details Mehdi Dziri. And for good reason: the TTRs cost, according to Mehdi Dziri, 600 to 700 euros per employee per year at Ubiq.
Although recent, the TTR leave has already been used by one of Ubiq’s employees, who thus traveled to Vienna by train. As the device was thought by and for company employees, Mehdi Dziri has no doubts: I don’t have too many concerns that the TTRs will be successful“.
Read alsoGoing on vacation by train, is it really more ecological?
Climate Perks, a similar scheme in the UK
If this kind of measure is unique in France, a similar initiative already exists in the United Kingdom. ” Climate Perks offers exactly the same scheme of two additional days off dedicated to eco-responsible travel per year! And this program has been a real success Across the Channel, enthuses Mehdi Dziri. What, perhaps, to give French companies the desire to draw inspiration from it? ” That’s kind of the goal. We may be able to avoid around fifty plane trips by the end of the year, so we are well aware that we are not going to change the face of the world. If others also get involved, the impact will necessarily be greater. “.
While waiting for a greater impact of this process, Ubiq is working on more eco-responsible initiatives on a daily basis. The company is also in the process of B Corp certification – for Benefit Corporation, a label that recognizes and rewards a company’s virtuous commitment. ” We think a lot about our environmental impact. In our daily business, we fight against unused square meters. Companies are encouraged to sublet their unused offices, which are heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer “.
