A corporate travel policy is a set of rules made by a company for their corporate travel. Used by their travel managers and employees as they plan business trips on behalf of the company, to typically define protocol on business travel. For instance, the requirements needed to book business class seats. The main objective of a good travel policy is to keep travellers safe, while also adhering to the company’s guidelines. Minimizing travel costs is usually a top priority too. If a corporate travel policy is user-friendly, oversees traveller’s security, and up-to-date; overall compliance of the policy will most likely be higher as well.
Benefits of Using Corporate Travel Policies in Your Company
No matter how big or small your company is, if it is going to grow, ultimately it will be in the best interests of your company to engage in corporate travel. Corporate travel does not always mean leaving the country; maybe you just need to meet with the distributor a few states across and an airline will serve you better than a 12-hour road trip. Regardless of what the reason is, corporate travel will always remain an important part of growing any future business and due to this, the corporate travel industry has expanded by leaps and bounds in the last few years. One of the most essential things you can do for your company, specifically as it begins to engage in corporate travel or looks to change its rules, is work on the policies and check out the benefits of corporate travel. So what are some of the best suggestions for corporate travel that your business can implement?
Universal policies
Universal policies can be very beneficial to your corporate travel, and one universal policy that should be highly considered is having corporate travel agents. Corporate travel agents can help you to ensure that your corporate travel policy rules are maintained. This is very important as people from the CEO down to the lowest level may either unintentionally or intentionally do something in such a way that can cost the business money. Maybe your travel policy does not permit first-class reservations for your workers but individuals still try to fly first class and make the company pay for it. These issues can conveniently & simply be handled by having your own corporate travel agents with whom you work to make sure that all rules and policies are maintained.
This can help your company save 1000s of dollars or more in travel costs annually. Not only this but detailed universal policies that your corporate travel agents have access to will also assist your company employees to know precisely what is expected from them when they engage the travel industry. They will know what things are reimbursable, what things are not, whether they need to keep receipts, and so it removes all grey areas. This helps the company people know the rules and what is expected of them which can be a huge relief to the financial department and help ensure overall business cohesion.
Save money
As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest advantages of using corporate travel policies for your company is that it can eventually save you money. This is huge advice for those who engage in corporate travel frequently as businesses that do it more frequently see the most savings. One good way of ensuring universal implementation while simultaneously saving money is to use corporate booking tools to book hotels, flights or even rent-a-cars.
Having travel agents and booking tools that help to implement your company travel policies. When everyone in your company uses the same corporate booking tools, the same corporate travel agents, and complies with the same policies, not only will it save money (and also the time), but the money saved will be predictable & reliable which can help you detect incidences or individuals where policies were not kept.
Limit employee decisions
When your company employees engage in corporate travel, they are doing so with an objective and a purpose in mind for the company. With this in mind, it is necessary that they are able to focus on the task at hand and not be overloaded with a number of small decisions to make as a part of their travel. Limiting employee decisions incorporates things like simply following the policies, using particular booking tools or a particular corporate travel agent, but it can also be extended to things like recommended carriers or particular hotel chains– if they do not wish to stay in those hotels, then they can change hotels at their own expense.
Corporate travel agents and your company itself may have work with specific hotels that have better rates or offer special discounted rates to your employees and so mandating specific hotels or modes of travel can help a business minimize employee confusion while simultaneously earning a huge financial benefit. Employees who have to book their own hotels and make all the other decisions associated with travel are employees whose minds are really going to be divided between the work they’re expected to do on behalf of the company and their own private accommodations. The more choices an employee makes, the more chances are there for policy violation and for the business to lose more money.