With gas prices hovering around $4 a gallon in most places, driving has certainly become expensive. People are driving less, switching to lower cost vehicles and changing their overall driving habits. The good news is that gas prices appear to be going down and even better, there are simple ways we can save.

Here are a few ways you and your employees can save at the pump:

Car Pool

Here at Grasshopper Group, we have a few people who carpool from South Boston a few days a week, saving them gas money & tolls. According to Search Marketing Manager Casie Gillette, “I was a bit apprehensive to carpool with all of our schedules being different but it’s really been great. I’m filling up my tank less and less. Can't complain about that.”

Employees may not be aware of who else is interested in carpooling so make it easy for them. Set up an internal wiki page, put up a sheet in the lunch room, or consider signing your company up for the Business Commute Challenge.

Work from Home

Did you know that commuting one day less per week could save you almost $300 a year in gas savings alone?

If you run a business where employees can get their work done from home, give them the option to do it one day a week. With tools like  GoToConnect and of course Grasshopper, working remotely is easy.

Ride Your Bike

If you’ve ever been in the Grasshopper offices, you’ve probably seen a few bikes around. Both co-founder David Hauser and VP of Product Marketing Mike Morris ride their bike to work all the time (full discretion – they also participate in triathlons, so they may have an advantage here). It’s healthy and you save money!

Some health insurance companies will actually reimburse you for bike helmets so be sure to check yours out.

Flex hours

According to the 2010 Urban Mobility Report put out by the Texas Transportation Institute, sitting in traffic resulted in an average of 39 wasted gallons of gas last year. Or to put it in dollar value, $1,166. That’s a lot of money being wasted sitting in one place.

Here at Grasshopper Group, you will see people come in at 7am and you will see people come in at 10am. Why? Because for those with commutes, leaving a bit earlier or a bit later prevents you from having to sit in traffic. It saves you money and it helps your sanity.

4 Day Work Week

Yes, this is probably something many of us can only dream of but for many companies, a four-day work week is becoming a reality. According to MSNBC, about 34% of employers are offering a shortened workweek benefit. As for the savings? One woman is seeing “at least $20 to $30, just in a week's time, in savings”.

Not sure if a four-day work week is for your company? Some companies are testing it out in the summer to see if it works and then going from there.

Bring In Lunch

One of the best and most-used benefits here at Grasshopper Group is our lunch incentive program. Each employee gets $5 a day towards Diningin.com. You put in your order, your $5 is credited and lunch is delivered right here to the office. Employees save money on lunch and gas.

Can’t afford to give your employees lunch every day? Think about doing a pizza day or ordering in once a week.

While these are just a few ways that you can help employees save money on gas, I'm sure there are more. What is your business doing these days?