How Automating Business Travel Management Helps Your Employees

For first-time or occasional business travellers, going on business trips are exciting affairs — they give employees a break from their regular work routine, the opportunity to visit new places, and in-person meetings can be more effective at critical stages of the business. 

Frequent business travel, however, can be stressful with flight delays, long layovers, working on the move and the difficulty of being away from home. Additionally, employees and people managers also go through health and safety risks, budget approvals, lengthy claims and reimbursements, expense reporting, and a lot more to manage when it comes to business travel. 

But there is a solution. Here’s how modern, digital business travel management makes all the difference.  

1. Company travel policy automation

A company travel policy outlines budgets, processes, arrangements, insurance coverage, and more. Consider this scenario: you need to travel overseas for an upcoming sales meeting. 

You make the booking with your company credit card only to later realise that flight prices for those dates exceed the budget set in your company travel policy. You were meant to seek your manager’s approval via email before booking. 

This may be an exaggerated example but it shows how a well-written company travel policy is arbitrary if not executed effectively. Having a lengthy rulebook without effective controls can lead to unintended slips which often result in travel budgets being exceeded. 

Automating your company travel policy improves the travel experience for employees and ensures better and easier compliance overall. Using the right travel management system, people managers can set budgets and other constraints using the same platform employees use to book business travel. 

Now consider this scenario: travel arrangements you selected for your upcoming trip exceed the allocated budget. Your travel management platform prompts you to send an approval request to your manager, or select alternative more budget-friendly travel options. Budgets are more likely to be met, and travel bookings and approvals are easily managed in less time.

2. Improved employee satisfaction

Lounge access, boutique hotels, short transits, leisure time — every business traveller has different needs and preferences. How people book travel has also changed, with over 80% of all travel bookings in 2018 made online or via a mobile app. 

Giving employees the opportunity to book travel themselves and access to wide travel options can make a big difference to productivity and happiness on the job. 

When it comes to business travel, there are added factors like reporting, reimbursements, risk management, approvals, and more. Travel management platforms have the ability to address these requirements while giving business travellers the autonomy they prefer. 

With a travel policy that is well-executed and controlled, giving employees booking autonomy becomes easy. Giving employees the power to choose signals to them that they are trusted, their choices matter and shapes a more positive work environment.

However, not all travel management platforms are created equal and choosing one with a wide travel inventory is key. 

3. Empowering employees to do their best work

Let’s list how many people are involved in booking a business trip: the traveller, a business admin, a travel agency or corporate travel service, and approving manager. Now multiply that number with email back-and-forths until the business trip is booked. And after a long business trip, the last thing employees want to do is paperwork and post-travel reporting. 

That’s a lot of billable hours lost on travel management when it can be used to focus on your clients and grow the business. When you automate, there’s one place for all travel information kept accurately and up-to-date. 

4. Real support is one click away, anytime

When employees are in a new, unfamiliar place and something goes wrong, it can be difficult to know where to turn for the right help. With a support team available 24/7, business travellers always have a point of contact and never have to worry about being left in a lurch whether it's missing documentation, safety threats, or illness. 

Automating business travel management is about efficiency, but it doesn’t have to mean giving up the human factor. Employees are supported before, during, and after business trips, from quick queries to more complicated issues. 

‍