The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the professional body for HR, started in 1913 as the Welfare Workers’ Association with 34 members; it now has more 130,000.
According to CIPD, HR’s beginnings lie with the 19th-century ‘welfare officers’ concerned with the protection of female and youth employees in industry.
staff in the industry, HR is working with the buyer to review their travel policies and to make them flexible, which allows for things such as first class travel. “Some of the employees we deal with [in the oil and gas sector] are doing 28 days on and 28 days off, so they are now expecting business class travel. So it also becomes an incentive, and is another remit to fall under both procurement and HR.” However, East explains there has to be cost control when setting the travel policy. “HR doesn’t always appreciate the total costs involved in certain areas of the business. I’m sure the dream for every HR director is to have a 100 per cent happy workforce, and if you flew everyone first class, that would certainly help. So that’s why the reality is you need to have both [the HR and finance] departments working together and working across the business, and not stuck in silos.” Bornor controls the travel budget at IG and despite “procurement feeding in”, everything will be signed off by HR. She says that when setting the company’s travel policy there is finance involvement but, ultimately, it falls with HR, something she says is “sadly not commonplace yet”. “I think one of the elements that needs
to have a seat with HR is how you deal with people individually, because this doesn’t happen so much on the procure- ment side: I get them saying: ‘Why do we have to pay for this? Why can’t we cut the cost on that?’ But it’s a cultural thing in a lot of businesses. “Whether we’re asking people to travel for a week away or six months away, it’s still a big ask – when you are travelling on business you’re 24/7, whether it’s working
62 BBT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2014
“Economic transformation and demographic
changes have already had an impact on talent supply and demand”
in your hotel at night or jumping from taxi- to-meeting-to-airport-to-taxi, then back to another meeting, or entertaining local clients. So what I’d say to anyone who is running a travel policy – whether travel sits with HR, procurement or its own team – is to think about the people side of it.”
GLOBAL MOBILITY In its recent report,Talent Mobility – 2020 and Beyond, PWC notes that assignee levels have increased by 25 per cent over the past decade and predicts a further 50 per cent growth in mobile employees by 2020. As this figure grows and more emerging markets appear, the scope for the buyer and HR team to work closer together increases. Johnson explains that this shift has happened more over the past few years as companies continue to expand into new markets. “Global mobility has evolved from a point-A-to-point-B operation, to much more sophistication around why com- panies send people abroad. Many of the
issues that emerge make up a lot of those which buyers are now having: ‘How do we track our travellers? How do we track cost? How do we make sure people are secure?’,” says Johnson. “There are many parallels, so it makes
sense that there are some shared opportu- nities for the global mobility team to work with travel, or under the same umbrella.” Johnson adds that some of the strongest and most sustainable supply of talent is now appearing in the east rather than the west.
“Economic transformation and de-
mographic changes have already had an impact on talent supply and demand, and with more employees heading east, this places greater responsibility on HR and travel departments,” she suggests. Bornor says, at IG, HR will work closely with the buyer to help with relocation issues, such as language barriers. “We encouraged and funded language lessons, for example, when we opened our office in Tokyo – we organised Japanese lessons for the several employees who knew they were going, four months before they flew off.”
She adds that with every business trip
there are many HR issues to think about, and urges companies to understand the importance of the ‘people factor’. “I know travel is a cost, but it’s also
about people getting on a plane,” she says. “It’s people that deal with missed flights that impact on personal issues, such as missed family arrangements, and this is because they’re working for your company, trying to make it bigger and more successful. I know travel is a cost, but so are people.”
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100