Risky business - Travel beyond COVID-19
In case you missed it (and we doubt you have), COVID-19 has thrown business travel for a loop. Travel risk management has taken on a whole new meaning, with policies and budgets constantly changing to stay ahead of the latest updates.
It isn’t all gloom and doom in the business travel industry. Throughout the pandemic and coming out the other side, successful organisations all across the globe have made big changes. We’ve taken a deep dive into the most effective travel responses to COVID-19 that mitigate risk. What did we find? Walk this way.
Get. People. Home.
The pandemic brought safety and travel risk into sharp focus. Organisations were forced to take a good hard look at their crisis management and continuity plans. Here are a few trends we noticed from the most successful organisations:
- Crisis communication teams were put in place, bringing together senior management and key stakeholders.
- Access to relevant and accurate traveller data became the number one priority.
- Continuity plans were constantly being reviewed and adapted to the ever-changing situation.
- Communication was improved across the board, keeping every employee in the loop.
People first
Caring for employees was more important than ever. Whether they were working on-site or from home, businesses had a new responsibility for the mental and physical health of their workers. Here’s what we noticed the most successful organisations did to uphold morale.
They used internal communications to boost employee motivation, offering fun guides and home parenting advice.
Communication was put front and centre to ease anxiety by offering clear and accurate information.
Employees were engaged in the conversation, keeping the tone positive while informative.
A new era of business travel
With the world opening back up, business travel will look different. It could be a hard sell to get your employees back on the road with all this uncertainty. If their jobs do require travel, you need to assure them that you have their back.
Their safety and wellbeing is the priority, so how can you reflect this in your travel policy and build confidence among the troops? Here are a few tips and things worth considering to get your employees on the path back to safe business travel.
Tips for the top
- Be prepared for different travel requirements and restrictions from every country. Restrictions vary from country to country and city to city. Stay up to date and know the usual lockdown procedure in all your travel locations.
- Free reign on global travel is a while away. Re-introduce travel in geographical waves based on wherever is open and doing well.
- Is your travel tech working for you? Take note of what does and doesn’t work and how your tech needs to change.
Booking flights? Here’s your guide
- Review your health and safety processes and procedures. From airlines to hotels and land transportation, make sure they have relevant certifications from accredited health safety organisations.
- Build employee trust and cyber confidence. Create context-specific, flexible, dynamic and adaptable travel options within your travel policy.
- Re-evaluate travel expectations. Essential and non-essential travel has changed. You may want to introduce limits on how many travellers you send out at once.
- Make sure your data is accurate and accessible. The 'new normal' of business travel means more red tape and complex processes. Giving your employees accurate data is more important than ever.
- Adapt your existing 'bleisure' policies. If your company doesn’t have one, post-COVID could be the ideal time to support employees.
Travel won’t be ‘normal’ again for a while. Restrictions will be tight and learning how to navigate those restrictions will be a gradual process. One thing is for certain - the need for travel to drive business growth is still there, and organisations are already starting to act on it.
There’s only one way to prepare for this new world of business travel. Learn what we can from the past. Take the lessons major organisations have learned and follow the paths they have forged throughout this pandemic.
By taking all this new information in our stride, we’ll be able to manage risk moving forward and adapt to any new situation. Time to fly.
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