The employee mobility budget: Aligning sustainable transportation with human resource management?

Abstract

This paper discusses how a particular tool in the employment relationship has become part of a desirable transport future. We examine how and why the employee mobility budget has entered the set of sustainable transport measures in Belgium. In a discourse analysis, we examined 52 articles from newspapers, magazines as well as research reports. The main actors in the debate are identified using an exploratory social network analysis, and we discuss the various definitions of the employee mobility budget, the framing of the problems to be solved (in the first place congestion), and the main conflicts between actors. The results reveal the sustained efforts to put the idea on the agenda and the formation of a coalition of the willing. The fact that the mobility budget concept is highly compatible with the hegemonic discourse on employment relations contributes to its popularity. Finally, the individualisation of employment relations and the decrease in attention for environmental aspects are highlighted as potential threats of the type of sustainable mobility policy studied in this paper.