Question Time IS MANDATING POLICY THE BEST WAY?
In this regular feature, an industry expert answers your business travel issues. This time round, Rachel Watson answers a query over travel policy mandation from buyer Peter Macey of MDDUS
Q.
Rachel Watson CO-FOUNDER, OPTEVA Rachel has over 20 years’ travel industry experience. She has worked for a global TMC, running its largest European call centre, and worked as a TMC account director for a global investment bank. In addition, she has worked as a travel manager for a global investment bank. With a strong operational travel background combined with deep experience in the corporate sector, Rachel provides both strategic insight and tactical delivery. Rachel co-founded the travel consulting practice Opteva in 2005 with her business partner Johanne Young.
A.
CLEARLY travel policies need to be mandated to be effective, so
what is the best way to achieve this in terms of operation and costing when many company boards are looking at reducing both travel and costs within their businesses?
FROM our experience, for a travel policy to be successful it needs to
be workable from both a cost and opera- tional perspective and commensurate with the business culture and approach to managing employees. As we all know, there are varying approaches to the term ‘mandate’. For some businesses, a mandated approach is simply not workable as it doesn’t suit their business model and culture. Although the ability to mandate may
" Policies can work in either a mandated or non-mandated environment with the right engagement, consideration and perform- ance reviews"
be considered to be ideal, we have worked with many businesses that have very strong policy compliance through highly effective employee influencing and behaviour management. Policies should be worked with a bottom to top approach, understanding that the business will have a remit on cost savings but effectively consulting with the traveller population to understand what is practical. While the communication needs to come from the top, if the right stakeholders have been appro- priately engaged it creates a good level of buy-in from the start. In this climate, travellers appreciate the need to be cost conscious and many have turned into surrogate travel consultants trawling
the web for lower prices. It is therefore more important than ever that the traveller population understands the principles of the policy and the benefits
to both the business and themselves of adhering to it and not getting lost in the myriad of travel options. It is also really important to understand
how a policy will work with market variables. For example, if you have a ‘lowest available fare’ approach within a time window you need to regularly review top routes to understand if capacity or schedules are driving higher fares. Some businesses with a high level of concentrated spend within top routes are starting to have route specific policies to manage such variables. It is imperative that businesses continually review the performance of their travel policy, both from a cost- saving and compliance perspective. Even with mature travel programmes we often find opportunities for savings through what can be subtle policy changes. We are seeing more regional focus and
less of an attitude of trying to make a global policy work, come what may. There are still underlying global principles to make the policy fair and equitable but balanced with variances to make policy work at a local level. It goes without saying that when rolling out a new policy or managing any policy
change that key stakeholder engagement is critical. How that engagement is managed is fundamental to success. For example, as a traveller, if I get a message from the top telling me to fly economy for very valid business reasons I will accept that. However, if I find that suddenly I need to leave meetings three hours earlier as the airport I regularly use has challenges (unless you are fast tracked in business class), it is not going to work for me. It all sounds very obvious but we have
seen so many businesses managing these issues after implementation of a new policy and not up front. You can’t pre-empt every situation but you can demonstrate you have been thoughtful in your approach. In our experience a thoughtful and measured approach gains buy-in and drives compliance. In summary, policies can work in both
a mandated or non-mandated environ- ment with the right engagement, consideration and performance reviews.
IF YOU have a business travel issue you would like advice on from an expert, email us at:
help@thebusinesstravelmag.com
WWW.THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM I 13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76