Restoring employee travel confidence should be a priority for you as a travel manager, ensuring travelling employees feel comfortable, safe and understand updated travel policies are the basics. But what can data teach us about going further to restore this confidence? And what sources should you be sharing with employees?
In this blog post, we’re discussing research conducted by PwC and sharing advice to help travel managers achieve peace of mind – not only for travellers – but for themselves, too.
Peace of mind is something, as a travel manager, you might have struggled to achieve pre-COVID – nevermind during and in the aftermath of a pandemic! At Gett, we understand that you might feel uncertain about the future – it’s natural, everyone feels the same – but how can you communicate confidence and keep your travelling employees feeling secure?
“55% of younger people (aged 18-40) willing to pay more for physical distance when travelling”
According to the PwC report
Accept that business travel will look different
You shouldn’t expect everything to fall into place after COVID, after all, if this virus has taught us anything, it’s that our companies are more adaptable and employees more resilient than maybe we gave them credit for. Still, it’s also shown us that the future can be wildly unpredictable.
Unpredictability and peace of mind don’t usually go hand-in-hand. Still, it’s the unpredictability that you can go some way to plan for. The global pandemic has given us a lot of positives in terms of experience. We’ve all learned our businesses need to become more agile and mobile in its processes and policies. We need to learn how to seamlessly conduct business in a virtual sense and not rely solely on traditional aspects of business travel – for example; physical expense reports are probably a thing of the past!
Throughout lockdown periods, we’ve all come to reevaluate what we deem necessary in our lives. According to the PwC report, people want more control of their surroundings – with 55% of younger people (aged 18-40) willing to pay more for physical distance when travelling. It’s awareness of statistics such as these that can help you build a travel framework fit for your mobile employees.
“Accepting business travel will look different, and taking steps toward making changes for a better, more robust travel policy can help you achieve peace of mind in the long run.
Everyone needs to know what’s expected of them
How many times have you felt worried about something because you weren’t sure what to expect? It’s very easy to assume employees are happy to wait for details of your new travel policies but don’t leave employees second-guessing your actions – you need to stay in contact with them consistently.
Aside from communicating important information about business travel, you must signpost them to respected and trusted resources. As we all know, sites report on different statistics – you must seek out the best resources and share them with employees. The PwC report found that the most trusted sources were the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (59%) and state government (49%).
As the travel manager, you should also seek to find updated information regarding business travel guidelines from these sources. Reading different information online can unnecessarily increase stress and worry.
Being able to track employee journeys is imperative
Tracking the journeys your employees are taking and keeping in constant contact with them through your ground travel transport dashboard, is a great way to ease any worries you or your employees are feeling. Our aim at Gett is to provide you with an end-to-end SaaS solution for stress-free business ground travel – and this is even more important to us given the current global circumstances.
Our dashboard enables travel managers to view all booked rides and accurately manage travel expenses and more. Knowing where your employees are means that as the travel manager you can easily keep an eye on the area and whether they are facing localised lockdowns, or whether your government deems the region unsafe and enforces quarantine on return. This has happened recently with travellers returning to the UK from Spain, who are now subject to a 14-day quarantine on return – so it pays to keep yourself and travellers informed.
“54% of people surveyed say they will avoid publication transport – including trains and buses.”
According to the PwC report
You need to have confidence in your ground travel provider
Working alongside a ground travel provider who is committed to delivering a stress-free service is key to your future business travel. The PwC report highlights that 54% of people surveyed say they will avoid publication transport – including trains and buses. This highlights the need for a quick and safe ground travel solution. Did you know when you press ‘order now’ on the Gett app, the average pick-up time in London is just 3 minutes? That’s fast!
For your employees to feel confident travelling for business once again, you need to be sure you work with a ground travel provider that not only delivers employees to important meetings safely and quickly, but that allows you to manage and track bookings, cost savings and expenses at the same time.
When your employees do return to business travel, a question you might ask yourself is ‘how can they become greener?‘ Read our latest blog post to find out!