Do your employees need to travel? And do they want to? As we all work on settling into the ‘new normal’ as it pertains to the way we do business in a world that is still recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 virus, these are actually very pertinent questions.
In fact, some very clever people have started looking into the booming business travel trade that’s resulted post-lockdown, and published a very illuminating white paper about it. Here is the gist of what they have found, and what this means for companies with travelling employees in 2022 and beyond:
There was a time when most business owners and key HR roleplayers believed that the right to travel should be used as an incentive, or ‘treat’. However, the results of the pandemic have pretty much put paid to that. While there are certain employees who are very keen to travel and get out and about once more, others have realised that they don’t enjoy it, and actually prefer remote working and networking.
As such, travel should be viewed as a transformational tool from an HR perspective. Employees should be given a clear voice in matters pertaining to proposed travel schedules to ensure that the efforts of the workforce are always as efficient and culture-boosting as possible.
According to the findings shared in the white paper, travel teams must ideally take an active, cross-departmental approach, working in conjunction with human resources, data, finance, DE&I, and sustainability. By working in this way, it will be far easier to ensure that the business enjoys an optimal return on investment when employees are sent out on the road, or in the air, to represent their company elsewhere.
Companies with a distributed or fully remote working model are finding that employee travel and corporate events are very important touch points in terms of establishing culture. How you travel, where you travel to, where you meet up, and how these in-person meet and greets take place are becoming all the more important.
Now you know! Keep an eye on the blog in the coming weeks and months for more insider insights into the world of corporate travel, and how you can leverage it to benefit your business. In the meantime, feel free to get in touch with our team of seasoned travel planners to learn more about our comprehensive service offering, and how we can help you to streamline your employees’ corporate journeys (and your own!) from start to finish.
