Business travel is never duty free – even for SMBs
Consider this scenario…
In a few months’ time your industry is having its annual two-day conference in London. You’re sending two employees. The first – Jason – is a member of Generation X. He plans to drive in early on the Monday from Oxford as it’s the first day of the conference, stay overnight in your company’s preferred hotel chain and drive home after the conference finishes. The second – Francesca – is a Millennial. She’d like to go to London on the Saturday and enjoy some time in the capital before the conference begins. She’s found an AirBnB that will cost the same per night as Jason’s hotel room and which she’d like to stay in for the duration of the trip. Once the conference ends, she’ll share a lift home with Jason.
Two challenges arise here.
What’s your take on duty of care?
The first challenge relates to Jason. It looks like business as usual to many people but have you considered the risks he faces? Two very long days, fatigue – even a potential road accident. What’s your responsibility as an employer?
If a business trip goes wrong, your company faces reputational damage. It also faces financial and legal penalties if you are deemed to have acted negligently. Research from GBTA suggests that 52% of employees would consider legal action if they were not supported properly while travelling on business.
How do you handle ‘bleisure’ requests?
The second challenge is Francesca. Millennials are far more likely to want to combine business and leisure – bleisure, as it’s becoming known. This group prioritises experiences and sees the advantages in turning a demanding business trip into something more enjoyable. They’re also less likely to have responsibilities at home that make extending work trips difficult.
But how do you deal with this request as a business trip? What does your travel policy say? How will the expenses relating to it be handled by your finance team?
A duty of care plan isn’t an optional extra – no matter company size
It’s easy to think that a duty of care plan is only really necessary for big businesses who send employees on overseas trips to unknown destinations, not your small business sending employees on the annual jaunt to the capital. This attitude is reflected in the fact that only 46% of companies have clear travel security policies according to the GBTA research.
But that’s far from the case. Understanding and mitigating risk is vital whenever employees travel for business. Something as small as an employee not knowing who to contact in a travel emergency could easily be perceived as negligence if anything happened.
It’s why it’s vital that every company who sends employees on business trips has a robust duty of care plan in place. In Concur’s view, such a plan has three components:
- It educates employees around risks to personal safety and security before they travel
- It harnesses technology such as Concur Locate & Active Monitoring to ensure the company knows the location of its employees while travelling
- It allows a point of contact to communicate with employees and provide assistance at all times, especially in an emergency.
Get comfortable with bleisure travel
Accommodating Francesca’s approach to business travel may help to you to retain your top talent because it may help to prevent fatigue, stress and burnout. The result is employees who are more actively engaged and committed to your business. It may also help you attract the best and brightest talent. But Jason needs to be supported too.
A robust travel policy and duty of care plan gives both employees the support they need, not to mention protects your business. And by harnessing what technology has to offer, it’s easily achievable too.
Find out more about Concur Locate.