Traveling for business isn’t usually as simple as traveling for leisure, and there are some ways to make business travel smoother. If you are in the process of restructuring your company’s travel policy, you will need to consider a few different rules and make sure your regulations are all correct. Employees will have to be sent these policies before traveling so it’s essential they all make sense. Here are some ways to restructure your company’s travel policy…
If you use corporate travel management to outsource the control of your plans, they will usually have tiered policies to provide you with flexible options when you want to book. Policy management offered will help guide you when deciding on the right policies for business, the travel companies will often have policies put in place that you can follow. Using experienced companies can be beneficial when it comes to business travel, especially if it’s new to your company and you’re still learning about travel policies and what works best. They will also help you to stick to a budget and not overspend on your business trips.
Keep employees details up to date with your agency
Whether you are using an agency or not, you should ensure all your employees’ travel details are checked regularly. Passports should be up to date for at least 6 months, next of kin details should be up to date and any name changes should be accounted for. You can also pay more attention to details, to show you consider your employees needs and ask them to update any food preferences or dietary needs on a regular basis. This will make booking any restaurants or cafes much easier, you can save everyone’s dietary requirements to one document and ask any new staff their preferences when they start working for you.
Create a policy to make sure employees only use your agency
A policy to ensure employees only use your selected travel agency for booking hotels and travel is crucial as you could run into problems if you don’t know where they are staying. It is always more useful to have everyone staying in the same hotel and it can be enjoyable to eat breakfast together before starting the day. It will be safer for employees to travel and stay in verified hotels to minimise problems before or after the trip. Tracking expenses will also be easier this way and this is an important factor when it comes to budgeting for business trips in the future.
Ensure you have Covid-19 policies in place
Due to the current circumstances surrounding the pandemic, most countries will need proof of a negative Covid-19 test or a vaccine certificate from travelers. If there are a bunch of you traveling together, you can all go on the same day or at a similar time to get Covid-19 tests if you live in the same area. It’s crucial to keep up to date with the rules and regulations for entering different countries and remind everyone to pack masks and hand sanitiser. It’s also important to have a plan in place for employees that get Covid-19 when traveling.
Share your company’s list of approved hotels with employees
Business travel can be daunting but not so bad if employees know where they will be staying. If you have some more to splash out on fancy hotels or even keep it simple, you should stick to a few different chains so you can add them into your policy. Consistency will make flying or traveling for business less stressful and more organised for you and the team. Keep your list of approved hotels accessible, and up-to-date, go for hotels that have a strict cleaning policy that will be beneficial during the pandemic. It will be easier to have a list of approved hotels if you’re traveling to the same location often, however, if your location is changing a lot you will need to research well in advance to use a business travel agency to help with this.
Things to remember when you have restructured your travel policy
Once you have restructured your company’s travel policy, you should make sure all the right people know about any changes. For example, if you outsource business travel planning to corporate travel management companies, you will need to update them on your new policies so they can stick to the regulations.
Now you know exactly what to consider when restructuring your company’s travel policy and how to go about sorting this out; you can get started when you feel ready. It’s useful to keep travel policies updated and look over them regularly, especially if you travel often for business and plan to keep doing so. Usually your employees will want to see any policies you have when it comes to travel and they should be readily available to view, whether you email them out or save them in a shared cloud storage area.
