When it comes to business travel in small and medium businesses, the management must be mindful of its budget, but the employees also need to be comfortable and able to do their job while on the road. It is important to find a balance between these two needs that allow the company to be efficient and the employee to be confident that he is well taken care of.
What should a corporate travel policy include?
One way to do this is to set a reasonable hotel budget limit per night for several destinations or to make sure your travel management company is aware of negotiated contracts to direct employees to the hotels that are included on your preferred list. Stating the dos and don’ts gives people clear information about they can access as services but how to book their business trip, so they are productive.
There are a few essential things that should be included in your guidelines. Firstly, the policy should state what is and is not allowed when traveling for work. This could include a ban on alcohol or spending company money on personal items. Secondly, the policy should outline what expenses are and are not reimbursable. This could include specifying which hotel or airline chains employees are able to use, and what meals and incidentals are covered. Finally, the policy should include the payment processes for invoices that are managed by your travel management agency and details about other reimbursements that may occur when travelling for business.
Having a corporate travel policy in place is important for both the company and its employees
There is a misconception that employees who travel for work resent corporate travel policies. The reality is that most employees appreciate having the policy to follow if it is fair, realistic, and focuses on their wellbeing. A well-developed travel policy is a benefit to both the company and the business traveler.
If you are given the task of creating a corporate travel policy, your goals should be to:
- provide clarity to your team members,
- develop a policy that will help to standardize business expenses,
- reduce time spent for booking the travel services,
- give clear information to team members on the steps they need to take to plan or get the needed approvals for a business trip,
- state clearly what is are the business travel reasons,
- put some controls around how business expenses are managed,
- identify the means to keep everyone engaged and compliant.
Before structuring your travel policy, it is beneficial to gather information from all your stakeholders, seek the common grounds and identify the most important aspects for each department. It is worth spending some time to understand how the budget is set up and ask approvers for their input on previous approval processes. Surveying the past experiences your employees had during their business trips is going to give useful details about what worked before and what did not. After you have put everything into one document get feedback from your HR, finance, and department heads on the processes you have defined, clarity of the provided guidelines and the best way to have communicated. Bear in mind that you should regularly adapt to the new conditions of the travel market. Your travel policy will not be set in stone, and you will need to keep track of its effectiveness.
As experts in business travel, Oombla Travel can provide you with the support and advise you on how to develop, have the right tools and how to best communicate your guidelines to keep everyone engaged. Travel management companies do have the needed expertise to gather the best practices and give you the tips and tricks you need to make it work so you have an effective travel program.
So, there are some definite focus areas you should include in your travel policy:
Your Travel Partner. The policy needs to communicate the contact details of your travel agency managing the travel arrangement for your employees. At the same time, they need to know emergency response procedures and how to ask for support in cases of changes, delays, or other services they may need for conducting their business trip.
Booking Transportation & Accommodation. The business can work with a travel agent who is looking for the best deal for the company. The best rates can be identified and taken advantage of, but only while making sure the business traveler’s needs and the business objective of the trip are satisfied. Requiring that employees utilize your travel management agency again is not unfair. It makes it clear for the employee how to handle the situation. Additionally, it shows that the company values the safety and security of its employees.
Travel Insurance. Business travel insurance is one way to ensure that your travelers are taken care of in the event of any unexpected travel disruptions. It can provide peace of mind for you and your travelers and help to ease the stress of dealing with unexpected travel changes. Your policy needs to support the business and protect you from certain financial risks and losses that can occur during travel. This coverage goes beyond flight cancellations and baggage delays.
Rates. Your business travel policy should provide some flexibility for employees who are faced with exceptional situations. Room and food expenses can vary widely depending on the destination, so it’s important to have a policy in place that accounts for these discrepancies. So, you don’t want to set the hotel limit to 50 Euro per night because it is reasonable to stay in a comfortable hotel for that rate in Bucharest but enforce that same limitation for an employee who must do business in London.
Duty of Care. Looking after your employees while they are travelling is not just about emergencies and major world events – it could be someone losing their passport, missing a flight, or falling ill while abroad. It’s also about those travel details that can improve your employees’ wellbeing, like making sure they don’t have to drive after a long-haul flight, or the booked itinerary considers not flying during weekends or personal time.
Use of company credit cards. There can be a lot of effort and expense associated with setting up corporate credit cards that employees are required to use while travelling. However, by trapping these expenses to the company account, you can get an accurate record of most of the business expenses that the employee is incurring. Many of the expenses of travel such as airline and hotel can be directly billed back to the company thus taking the issues out of the hands of the business traveler, not to mention saving them a lot of time.
Travel Loyalty Cards. If you have your business travel coordinated by an outsourced travel arranger like Oombla Travel, it’s worth establishing corporate accounts with the major airlines to collect frequent flyer miles. This will help offset the cost of future travel. As such, the business can redeem those miles and realize those benefits as a significant discount to apply against the travel budget.
Per Diem Allowance. Your business travel policy should clearly communicate to employees the amounts they can get for their business destination or what the limits are for hotel, rental car, and meal expenses while traveling. You want to avoid any tendencies by employees to go overboard with daily expenses, so this policy should be reviewed regularly to stay up to date with current costs. When you partner with a travel management agency like Oombla Travel, you are sure that employees are directed to the guidelines before making extra charges.
A well-crafted travel policy can protect your company’s budget while also accommodating the needs of employees who are travelling for work. This will help ensure that business travel is productive and achieves the goals of your business. Making sure that your employees feel safe and taken care of can provide several benefits for your business. Firstly, it can make travel and day-to-day tasks easier for employees, and secondly, it can be a powerful tool in retaining the best staff.
Are you responsible for business travel in your organization? Do you need to re-shape your travel policy? Are you looking for a better experience for your employees when they book travel? Oombla Travel can help you with that! Oombla is a travel management agency with high expertise in providing the optimum travel solutions for small and medium businesses. With Oombla Travel, your organization can have the right travel program for securing team engagement and retention. Let us show you how you can redefine business travel for your team. Contact us.