We already know that a significant proportion of work-related journeys are undertaken by employees in vehicles not owned by their employer.

UK national data, measured before the current pandemic, already showed that:

• 40% of UK work vehicles are grey fleet
• 14 million grey fleet vehicles are in use on UK roads
• 9 million vehicles are used for business journeys on a regular basis
• 62% of private car use is for work-related activity

And as more people return to work, as UK businesses re-open, this amount of “Grey Fleet” drivers is set to increase.

Below we list our top ten tips, to provide you with practical steps to help bring your grey fleet management up to scratch and ensure you are operating an efficient and compliant grey fleet.

Effective management of your grey fleet will help protect the safety of your employees and other road users as well as minimise the financial, legal and reputational risks to your business.

1.  Identify the number of Grey Fleet drivers within your organisation

Do you know how many grey fleet drivers you currently have within your organisation?

It’s important that you identify the size of your grey fleet population by measuring the number of employees who drive their own car on company business, even if they do so only occasionally.

With the current shift in work practices as more employees return to work, it is also very important to remember that the term ‘grey fleet’ describes any vehicles that do not belong to a company, but which are used for business travel. This term includes those vehicles bought via an employee ownership scheme, a privately-rented vehicle as well as privately-owned vehicles.

When driven on company business, these vehicles fall under the responsibility of the employer, despite who actually owns the vehicle. Businesses then have a duty of care to extend their fleet management to these vehicles, even if employees only drive them occasionally for business purposes.

These vehicles are then subject to the same safety policies that the company applies to its own vehicles: including, insurance, tax, MOT, service and licence status.

2.  Understand the make-up of your grey fleet

Understanding the make-up of your grey fleet vehicles is essential to enabling accurate reporting on all measures.  Although time consuming, an in depth grey fleet audit will help you develop a robust grey fleet policy and ensure that your employees are driving vehicles which are fit for purpose.

As well as enabling you to fully understand the potential impact of the grey fleet on your environmental policy, a comprehensive audit will also flag up any exposure to Health & Safety risks which need to be dealt with promptly, in order to protect the safety of your drivers.

Do you know the average age of your grey fleet vehicles?

Older vehicles may run on older Euro standards – Euro 6 is the current standard. They might also have higher emission levels and lower safety standards.

3.  Enforce the criteria for acceptable Grey Fleet vehicle standards

 

As an employer, you may well wish to restrict the type of grey fleet vehicle a driver uses, in order to uphold company standards relating to safety and efficiency.  Remember, your company standards will also play a core role in helping to manage the reputation of your business and your brand image as we emerge from the pandemic.

Recommended safety features to enforce for all grey fleet vehicles include:

• minimum Euro NCAP (New Car Assessment Programme) safety ratings
• vehicle age
• emission levels required
• safety features
• essential breakdown cover

Whilst companies are able to stipulate and control a set of minimum standards, such as vehicle age, engine size and fuel type, when selecting the company vehicles, it is not so easy for organisations to manage a set of minimum standards for grey fleet vehicles.

Employers need to take into consideration that drivers of grey fleet vehicles may not be able to afford a new vehicle or change their vehicles on a regular basis.

However, certain criteria can be enforced , provided that the company can provide suitable alternatives for employees to use for work purposes, if needed.

Examples of reasonable objections to vehicles being used for business use:

• Soft top convertibles
  can be excluded from business use due to the ease of breaking in and high risk of injury in a roll-over collision
• Vehicles with high carbon emissions
  can be disallowed for not meeting the company policy on carbon emissions and the potential costs incurred by Clean Air Zone and Congestion Zone charges
• Older vehicles
  may not be allowed due to not meeting company safety standards

4.  Manage the business need to travel (why, how far)

In order to properly manage your grey fleet,  you will need to fully understand how and why your employees use their own cars for business. Sometimes it may simply be more convenient for them or that the staff member doesn’t know any better, but without a mileage claims system that records every trip, more cost-effective and safer alternatives cannot be put in place.

Journey patterns and mileage can be collected by using telematics or a mobile phone app to enable employers to regularly monitor the business travel of their employees and in turn, this data can help companies select the most appropriate mix of transport solutions to meet the changing transport needs of the business.

In certain situations, for example, the use of a daily hire car could be more cost-effective than using a grey fleet vehicle or where ad hoc drivers end up covering a lot of miles per year in their grey fleet vehicle, an organisation may consider providing a company car or a cash allowance option as a more cost-effective solution.

5.  Record driver and vehicle documentation

Employers have a legal obligation to ensure all vehicles used for work purposes, irrespective of who owns them, are safe, properly maintained and that drivers are appropriately licensed and insured.

Driving licence checks should be carried out regularly to ensure the eligibility of employees to drive. These checks can be made directly with the DVLA, either via a third party or online with the driver’s consent.

By regularly checking licences, employers will have a full view of employees’ driving history and endorsements which will help in accurately assessing their risk profile and their overall fitness to drive.

Drivers who are deemed a higher risk should be checked more frequently than the standard checks – for example, those drivers with nine points on their licence, who may potentially have a higher risk of losing their licence.

Employers will also need to check the insurance documents for all non-company cars at point of renewal and MOT certificates should also be checked on all non-company vehicles that are over three years old. Employers must be satisfied that the motor insurance adequately covers their employees for business use.

6.  Offer alternatives to grey fleet vehicles

Whilst there are often occasions when grey fleet vehicles offer the most convenient transport option for employees, this is not always the case.

In order to support your company’s environmental policy, it may be necessary to encourage employees to use more sustainable modes of transport, by providing cleaner and more cost-effective alternatives such as salary sacrifice cars, pool cars, and daily rental.

In some cases, the use of alternative modes of transport to those taken in grey fleet vehicles can bring a number of financial, risk and environmental benefits. These benefits range from cutting journey times, inflated mileage claims and parking costs to reducing your company’s carbon footprint.

As business travel evolves, the management of your workforce’s mobility will be underpinned by the technological advances being developed. Our business practices across all sectors have already changed in response to the Covid-19 crisis and these changes are likely to accelerate the emergence of MaaS (Mobility as a Service) as a mainstream service.

7.  Develop and implement a robust grey fleet policy

Grey fleet policies help to formally reinforce company car expectations and individual driving for work responsibilities. Your grey fleet policy should clearly define the company policy relating to your grey fleet vehicles together with the conduct required from your grey fleet drivers.

An accompanying driver safety handbook is also recommended to provide relevant safety advice to your drivers such as how to drive in adverse weather or guidance on how to manage/avoid risks such as driving when tired.

Take a look at our Driver Factsheet Library for examples of how fleet drivers can be well supported with relevant advice.

Employers must ensure that the policy is successfully communicated to employees at all levels and fully understood. In some circumstances, it may be possible to link policies and procedures to employment contracts to ensure they are effectively enforced.

A robust policy is critical to reinforce the legal responsibilities of both the company and the driver and as such, it is critical that employers ensure that all grey fleet drivers sign to confirm that they have received, read and understood their copy of the policy.

 8.  Ensure your policy is enforced across the business

Once your grey fleet policy has been written, signed off and successfully communicated to all drivers, it is now important to enforce the policy.

After all this work to help safeguard your employees, the last thing you want to happen now is for your grey fleet drivers to overlook the contents of your grey fleet policy – or even ignore them – which is why it is important to enforce the policy across the business.

It is important that you communicate to your employees, the reasons why your organisation has implemented the policy so that they fully understand the need for compliance and the role that they play on the company’s compliance journey.

By setting up sound processes which make it easy to capture and monitor all relevant driver and vehicle documentation, it will be easier to engage drivers and reduce the administration burden.

9. Provide grey fleet driver training

Driving is the most dangerous work activity that most people do, and it contributes to far more work-related accidental deaths and serious injuries than all other work activities.

As well as facing risks on the road whilst they are carrying out their jobs, employees can also create risks for other road users.

Employers have a duty to assess, train and supervise all staff who drive as part of their job (including grey fleet drivers), and to manage the conditions under which their workforce drive for work, in order to reduce the risks their staff face and create whilst driving for work.

Unfortunately, almost all road crashes are caused by, or involve, human error and driver behaviour is one of the main contributors.

To reduce the risk of employees being involved in road traffic incidents, it is important to regularly remind them of your organisation’s safety policies:

• guidance on mobile phone use whilst driving
• limits on the amount of driving hours
• importance of taking regular breaks
• how to properly and safely load a vehicle
• procedures to follow in the event of an accident

Providing regular driver training will help promote a culture of compliance within your workforce and will also demonstrate to the authorities (should you ever need to) that your business is committed to road safety.

10.  Carry out periodic safety inspections

As well as encouraging daily or weekly visual, walk around checks by your drivers, organisations can also consider periodic safety inspections by a qualified mechanic to ensure the roadworthiness of grey fleet vehicles.

Although an MOT confirms that the vehicle is roadworthy at the date of the inspection, a lot of things can go wrong in between annual tests that might not be apparent to the driver but could still pose a serious hazard.

Carrying out a more detailed mechanical check of the vehicle quarterly or half yearly in between annual MOT inspections will help ensure that your employees are always driving safe vehicles for work.

Allowing employees to drive their private cars on business can have serious consequences for an organisation.

Managing your grey fleet efficiently will enable you to safeguard your employees who use their own cars for business purposes and will also help manage the risks to your business as travel and transport needs adapt to the new “normal”.

Speak with one of our fleet experts to find out more about how we can support you in implementing a robust Grey Fleet policy to ensure the risks to your organisation are carefully controlled and reduced.