Remember the days before COVID? Ah…Travel management has changed so much in such a short time. Although the travel industry has dealt with natural disasters and disruptions over the years, there’s never been anything quite like this.
As a corporate travel manager, your job has changed dramatically; you’ve had to re-assess your travel policies – ensuring employees feel safe and comfortable when travelling, and trying to figure out what the future holds for business travel. While no one has any real concrete ideas about how quickly ‘normality’ will resume, it’s essential to adhere to travel risk management best practices in the meantime.
Which best practices should you be adopting? We discuss our top six tips.
Take a stringent approach to approval processes
Giving your employees the power to make their own travel decisions is perfect… for a pre-COVID world. But while we’re stilling battling the coronavirus, make your approval processes stringent – don’t empower the traveller. Instead, make sure the travel management team signs off all trips. This approach will help you keep track of employee trips and mitigate any associated risks. If everyone had free reign to book travel whenever they wanted, you wouldn’t have a handle on who was travelling where and for what reason.
You need to know where travel is planned and how often they’re travelling.
Outline destinations that are out of bounds
Not only do you need to outline these destinations, but you also need to keep this list updated regularly. With the global pandemic continuing to wreak havoc across the globe, it’s essential to manage any high-risk areas actively, to keep your employees healthy and safe and also to protect your company. As soon as an outbreak hits your offices, your staff will have to self-isolate or working from home, slowing any company progress made.
You can check government sites or the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) for the most up to date information and guidance.
Track employee journey progress
By tracking journey progress, you know where all your travellers are at any given time – it’s as simple as that. Being able to track and trace in light of the pandemic is crucial. Knowing where your employees are travelling to, and whereabouts in the journey they are can help you monitor them, giving them updated information on the go.
Invest in an end-to-end solution that automates expense reporting
With so much for the travel manager to oversee, the last thing you need to worry about is accurately managing travel expenses. Using a solution that helps you eliminate inaccuracies and enables significant time savings means employees can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time focusing on their jobs.
Cashless trips are essential
Not only is cashless travel essential for the health of staff, but it’s also less stressful. At Gett, you can pay your ground travel rides via a monthly invoice – which means your travelling employee doesn’t even have to think about paying for a trip. Hail a ride via the app, hop in, arrive at your destination quickly and safely and go about your day; ride now pay later.
Continue to review your processes
With an ever-evolving situation like COVID, you need to be consistently reviewing your processes. Obtain feedback across departments and ensure your travel policies mirror the most up-to-date travel information. You should also consider surveying individual employees who have travelled amid coronavirus. They are the best people to obtain feedback from, how did they find your communication, the travel updates and generally the travel process? Is there anything that your organisation would benefit from going forward when managing your travel?
If employees are uneasy sharing their authentic travel experiences, consider an anonymous feedback forum – you want to hear their most honest and genuine feedback; you must review and make changes to ensure the health and safety of the workforce. If you’re wondering what changes other travel managers have made read our blog post: How corporate travel managers are preparing for business travel.