American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has published a report for travel managers that sets out a five-step framework for understanding and managing the impact of business travel on employees.
The report, titled On the road to wellbeing, offers valuable insights into duty of care as part of a safe return to business travel.
“Travel managers are in a unique position to provide insight to their organisation about the impact of business travel on employee wellbeing, but many do not have the KPIs that they could use to measure and monitor traveller wellbeing,” American Express said.
Developed by GBT’s Global Business Consulting team, On the road to wellbeing explains how travel managers can combine travel data with HR data, such as job codes or tenure, to gain a deep understanding of how travel impacts individuals’ mental and physical health.
“Equipped with insights into traveller wellbeing, travel managers can identify travellers at risk of fatigue or burnout, and introduce measures to support them, such as improvements in travel comfort or ‘time-for-time’ compensation for long-haul night flights,” American Express said.
The report sets out a five-step framework for greater visibility over traveller wellbeing, with advice on how travel managers can share valuable insights on employee wellbeing with peers across their organisations. These include:
- Impact: agree which aspects of business travel have the most impact on employees.
- Identify: develop traveller risk profiles to understand how travel impacts individual employees.
- Review: check that the company’s travel policy is updated with measures that support wellbeing such in-travel assistance and traveller-friendly expense allowances for food and drink.
- KPIs: introduce Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the performance of wellbeing initiatives and communicate on them across the organisation.
- Measure: make sure the travel satisfaction survey captures employee wellbeing.
With the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations across the globe, many employees are now beginning to contemplate the resumption of business travel, according to American Express.
On the road to wellbeing provides advice to help travel managers gauge sentiment about returning to travel and factor this into individual traveller risk profiles.
To download a copy of the report, click here.
Featured image source: iStock/encrier
