Employees want ultimate convenience when travelling. But giving them the freedom to book their own travel means travel policies aren’t always complied with, they take ground travel booking into their own hands, which means choosing suppliers not on approved supplier list to get to their meeting quicker, or to save money, but are their habits creating unmanaged spend?
You might have always had unmanaged spend issues or these issues might have just come to light due to workforce expansion. When a growing company hires new staff members, ground travel can become an afterthought. “But unmanaged spend on ground travel is minuscule when compared with flights or accommodation”, you say, and although that’s correct, if not addressed, the unmanaged spend snowballs and becomes even more expensive and unruly.
Here’s how you can take preventative measures and get a hold of unmanaged ground travel spend — before it gets hold of you.
You need to balance employee freedom with managed spend
It’s not good just taking all control back over ground travel, as we’ve already mentioned, employees want convenience when travelling, and that means booking ground travel themselves. But you need a solution that allows you to oversee and manage spend from afar. Sounds like a predicament, but not with an all-in-one ground travel solution, this kind of solution deliver this essential balance.
A ground travel platform means you’re empowering the employees to book and manage travel themselves, but with limits. They can only pick from a preferred supplier list but the choice is vast.
You need a solution that delivers on every ground travel need
There are many great ground travel providers out there, and they each offer a different service — executive cars, limousines, private hires — you name it, there’s a provider for it. But no one supplier can fulfil all of your corporate ground transportation needs, from a quick airport pickup to a white-glove ride for schmoozing an important client — your needs are varied. That’s why you need a solution that offers unmatched vehicle choice to suit all employee levels.
Utilising a solution that combines all providers in one platform, can mean you save money and time hopping from one ride-hailing app to another. It also helps boost team satisfaction by using one seamless app for all their ground transportation needs; travellers will always have a consistent experience, wherever they are in the world.
Oh and a solution like that doesn’t just have a collection of providers to choose from you can also integrate your current preferred suppliers into the application, too. It’s the ultimate corporate mobility solution.
You need the ability to track hidden and indirect costs
It’s the hidden costs that slip through the net — they easily go unnoticed. But with an all-in-one ground travel solution, you can track these costs quickly and efficiently. In-depth drive reports and real-time tracking enables you to notice staff travel patterns. Maybe staff members are only riding in rush hour, or you notice they’re taking an unnecessary amount of short trips. Highlighting these travelling trends can help you re-shape your travel policy and swap travel habits out for more cost-effective solutions.
Just remember — if you’re not measuring it, it’s not being managed.
You need a single management system customised to your travel policy
Building your travel policy around your management system is backwards and quite frankly unnecessary. You need one management system that’s customised to fit your travel policy needs. Imagine knowing everything that is spent, where, when and on what. With a single ground travel solution, you can do all that and more.
You’d no longer have to locate local suppliers internationally, travellers can just download one app, schedule their booking and await their arrival — they can also track the driver. No more language barrier, no more ground travel anxiety, just one simple management system that benefits both the employee and the travel manager greatly.
