Creating Corporate Travel Policies – Part 4

We are continuing our mini-series for creating a policy manual for employees traveling for business. If you already have your own policy guide, you can check it against ours and refresh it as needed. Our series includes setting policy for expenses such as hotels, airfare, and ground transportation. This installment explains how to get your employees to adhere to policy.

Common Implementation Concerns

Once your policies are complete and ready to distribute to your traveling employees, you may encounter some pushback. Being prepared for this and having a plan to address these common concerns will help you win the battle.

Some of the common concerns you will encounter include:

• Travel policies may be difficult to understand
• Your employees won’t take the time to read the policies
• Employees may assume they don’t have to follow travel policies
• Travel policies come across as overly controlling

Getting Employees to Embrace Policy

If you want your employees to adhere to your corporate travel policy, you must communicate the policy effectively and provide easy access to the contents. Never include your corporate travel policy within another policy document such as your Operations Policies. There is too much data in an Operations Policy manual that will overshadow your travel policy. Not all employees will be traveling and do not need to be educated about travel policies that will never apply to them.

Access to the Policy

Traveling employees must have access to your corporate travel policy document. Employees should never be allowed to make travel bookings without reading the policy first. Providing access to the document with a written handbook or via your HR or employee portal are the best ways to provide easy access for those who need it.

Make sure your policies are communicated in clear, simple form without a lot of abbreviations, travel jargon, or acronyms. You don’t want to cause any confusion. Create a checklist of steps to take when booking a business trip. This might include hotel bookings, rental cars or car service bookings, flight bookings and making arrangements for any services or goods needed at the meeting location. This will make life easier for your traveling employee.

FAQs            

Your policies will not cover every scenario or question an employee might have. End your policy guide with a well-thought FAQ that answers as many questions as an employee might have. If you have been asked the same questions over and over about travel, consider including those questions in your FAQ.