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THE HUMAN FACTOR


SECURITY, RETENTION, CULTURE... ARE WE SEEING A SHIFT IN FOCUS FOR BUSINESS TRAVEL, AWAY FROM THE MONEY MEN AND TOWARDS HR?


BUSINESS TRAVEL IS A COST, so it should sit firmly under procurement. This is a line of thinking for many businesses – but with the evolving role of the buyer now focusing on increasingly prevalent issues such as traveller tracking, secu- rity, corporate culture and the peren- nial matter of compliance, could we be seeing the travel department shift away from the finance side of business? According to Deloitte’s Global Human


Capital Trends research, published earlier this year, it found 79 per cent of the 2,532 business and HR leaders surveyed rated employee retention and engagement as one of the most “urgent” issues for them to address in 2014. So should buyers be focusing more on key HR issues to help with their own goals, and is HR having a bigger say in the world of corporate travel? Michelle De Costa, global travel director at consultancy firm Sapient, believes the move away from procurement has already started. “I feel travel has always had strong ties with HR because of the shared ele- ments, such as security and relocation. But


60 1 BBT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014


because some issues, such as duty-of-care and traveller security, are becoming more important, HR has taken on a bigger role within the travel department of companies like Sapient.” The move away from procurement is


something Wings Travel Management CEO Paul East has also seen, but feels it may not affect large “FTSE-based com- panies”. He says that, in many global organisations, travel will operate in its own separate department, with both HR and procurement feeding into it. However, East says the benefits of operating more under HR could be felt in the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market. “In some SMEs, booking travel will be just one facet of the job for the buyer and so they may not fully understand all of the obligations involved, and I think this is where HR is picking up now,” he says. “I wouldn’t say HR is taking over, but there is a lot more involvement with the functionality, and it’s the job of a travel manager to act as a linchpin between departments.”


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