SEPTA Key Advantage Success Stories - Always Best Care Senior Services
April 21, 2023
The ABC Seniors HR team, from left to right: David Bounds, Dara Robinson, Sophia Bottaro, Natia Bing, and Gerald Mack.
Since 1996 - Always Best Care Senior Services has helped families with non-medical in-home care and assisted living placement services. With Always Best Care - every client receives extraordinary care in an inspiring environment with caring people. Their Care Coordinators have worked with more than 25,000 seniors across the country - including here in Philadelphia.
At the end of 2022 - Gerald Mack and Bryant Greene of Always Best Care Senior Services (ABC) were trying to figure out why the organization was spending so much money on rideshares and taxis. ABC - located locally on the corner of Broad and Federal Streets in South Philadelphia - was using too much of their monthly budget on taxis for their at-home caregivers who spend their days traveling to and from homes throughout Philadelphia, Lower Bucks County, Delaware County, and the Main Line. All in all - ABC was tallying hundreds of miles traveled each month - all by taxi or rideshare. Hundreds of miles traveled via a third-party car service means thousands of dollars paid.
“We wanted to be first and try something different and new,” said ABC’s Senior HR Manager Gerald Mack about their adoption of rideshare a few years ago. “So we went with [rideshare] and it was ok for a while. And then it just got out of hand.”
As the calendar year came to a close - they decided that this model was simply not sustainable. They couldn’t afford to spend so much on transportation so they started looking elsewhere.
That’s when Bryant Greene - the Founder & Owner/Administrator of ABC’s Philly branch - heard from a friend about SEPTA Key Advantage which offers Greater Philadelphia employers the ability to purchase highly discounted monthly SEPTA passes for their employees.
With a deep discount to employers for an all-access SEPTA pass - SEPTA Key Advantage was an obvious solution to their taxi troubles. Greene also saw this program’s value beyond just the monetary benefits and an improved bottom line. Greene wanted ABC to be the first home healthcare company in Philly to offer this benefit and he hoped that if other companies in the area saw that ABC and their many traveling caregivers could enjoy this benefit - others could follow suit. Encouraging employees to use public transportation is not only cost efficient - it's better for the environment. Public transportation is inherently sustainable and a proven reducer of greenhouse gas emissions by shifting transportation away from private automobiles, providing congestion relief, and supporting dense, compact land uses.
Using transit is one of the most impactful choices someone can make to reduce their carbon footprint. The easiest way to mitigate rising congestion and its associated impacts on the environment, economic productivity, and quality of life is to ride public transportation.
By mid-January - ABC wanted to move quickly with implementation and onboarding with the goal of having employees riding SEPTA on the first of February 2023. But before sharing the news with the team - ABC needed to make sure that their employees would be able to easily obtain their own SEPTA Key card if they didn’t already have one. ABC asked SEPTA if they could pre-order a stack of Key cards to be delivered to ABC’s South Philly office so that any employee who needed a card could pick one up.
SEPTA’s response: “YES!”
And with that - the contract was signed and ABC became an early adopter of SEPTA Key Advantage.
Mack was initially concerned that the implementation might be a bit heavy on his already busy HR team - but they found the enrollment process to be quite easy.
Most importantly - the employees have enjoyed it too.
Tracy Burnett - born and raised in Philly - said she’s been riding SEPTA her whole life. She was spending about $200/month on weekly SEPTA passes to get to work - but now that $200 stays safe in her bank account.
SEPTA Key Advantage offers employees a major financial benefit since riders can use the all-access SEPTA pass even when they’re off the clock - greatly alleviating the major financial burden of transportation from the day-to-day, day-to-night, and so on.
Are you looking to enhance your employee compensation package in today’s “employee’s (job) market”?
Or maybe you can relate to Bryant and Gerald’s high transportation (or parking!) expenses and would like to see if SEPTA Key Advantage and employer-provided transit is right for your organization.
Or maybe you just want to get in on this absolute steal and start exploring anywhere on SEPTA’s map…
