Plus Home Services

Plus Home Services is a service voucher company with a clear vision. "We decentralise our activities so as to be closer to our customers and over 4 000 home helps", explains manager Rudi Vertommen. "We also apply this local strategy to travelling by our personnel."

Plus Home Services offers domestic help in the homes of private customers. "At 53 branches spread across the country, supervisory staff are permanent and easily accessible points of contact. Moreover, we always look for jobs at locations near our home helps and we try to keep the distance between two job locations short whenever possible. It is a matter of matching home helps with the right customers and drawing up efficient work schedules."

Limiting local travel is one thing. "We also want to make sure these journeys are as efficient as possible", Rudi adds. "The less time our home helps spend on the road, the easier it is for them for instance to collect their children from school. Long and cumbersome trips serve no purpose and are not good for anyone, not for the home helps themselves and not good for productivity and our business."

When a new home help is engaged, we discuss together what will be the best way for them to travel. Rudi: "In the end, it is the home help who decides. Plus Home Services operate across the whole of Belgium. It is not possible to impose the same means of transport on everyone as the transport situation differs to widely from one region to another."

"We closely look at all the options together and always ask about their interest in a De Lijn bus and tram season ticket," explains Rudi. "We have been working with De Lijn from the start because we are convinced of the advantages."

What are the main benefits of bus and tram for Plus Home Services? Rudi: "The environment is important to us, but user-friendliness also plays an important role. In rural areas, home helps have no problem parking their car on the customer's ramp but in town centres parking space is much harder to find." Plus Home Services also focuses on the safety of its employees, while at work and elsewhere. Our statistics show that the fewest commuter accidents happen on public transport. One more reason to encourage it", Rudi confirms.

Through the employer-paid system, Plus Home Services covers 100% of the cost of season tickets. Rudi: "It is our view that with this fully pre-paid scheme you can stimulate people to choose a season ticket rather than claiming a mileage allowance for using their car. For home helps, who do not all have the same financial means, the fact that they do not have to pay their annual season ticket in advance is it is an additional stimulus."

"Plus Home Services of course operates in a sector subsidised by the government", Rudi adds. "This means that we don't have piles of money to hand out. But if we can find ways of creating a win-win situation for the employer and employees, we will not hesitate to do so. The De Lijn season ticket is a good example of this."

• Bus and tram are safest as regards accidents while commuting
• No need for employees to pay for season tickets from their own pocket
• No problem of having to look for parking space in town centres
• More sustainable means of transport than cars

Plus Home Services arranges for cleaning and ironing in private homes through the service voucher system. The company has 53 branches, mostly in Flanders, and employs over 4 000 home helps and 150 supervisory staff. Plus Home Services was set up in 2005 and has grown from pioneer in the service voucher sector to market leader.

Visit Plus Home Services at www.phservices.be. Discover how Plus Home Services stimulates sustainability among its employees: at work, at home and on the way to and from work.

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