Tim Chesney, the owner of the company, said he hoped the scheme would encourage a longer-term trend, “rather than just getting someone to bike to work once”.
“For a while I had been thinking it would be great to incentivise cycling in some way. I’m a really keen cyclist [and] cash is clearly the most obvious incentive,” Chesney said in an interview for stuff.co.nz. “My gut instinct is that it could be something really good for the workplace. I know for myself I show up feeling a lot more energised, my blood is already flowing.”
The money earned by cycling is accumulated and paid to the employees as a cash bonus at the end of the year.
“We have a time-tracker for work, so we now have a task in the tracker where you just track an hour when you bike to work,” Chesney said. “Everyone can see everyone’s scores, so at the end of the year we tally it up.”
Make Collective developer Elliot Gilmore is one of the employees who got inspired and started biking to work after the scheme was launched. He says it has been hard so far.
“Recovering once I get to work is the hardest part, but I need to ride more for health anyway,” he said. “A bad back kept me out of the gym, plus I find if you have a gym membership, you kind of think, ‘oh yeah, I could go tomorrow’.”
What do you think of such a scheme? Let us know in the comments!
