Spring is a great time of year to refresh, renew, and reevaluate your corporate travel policy. Compliance to a well-defined policy can single-handedly have an instant impact on your travel program and your company’s bottom line. Several industry trends and market conditions have pushed to increase compliance, which has encouraged corporations to examine travel policies. Some of the common revisions to travel polices have included encouraging efficiencies via technology; removing ambiguity; and incorporating crisis management procedures.

Travel policies should be aligned with company goals and revised to mirror the newest trends and organized to be attractive to all employees. As demographics have altered the workplace, travel managers should be reevaluating travel policies to achieve better compliance and traveler satisfaction. Companies are discovering how altering traveler behavior to comply with policies, in combination with negotiated contracts, assists the corporation to accomplish savings and finance objectives.

We recommend the following developments and initiatives to engage, persuade, or require that travelers support both the travel program and organizational objectives:

1. Comprehend shifting work environments. Recent demographic trends have altered company configurations. As younger staff becomes the road warriors, travel managers should understand their habits and create processes that will generate interest and increase compliance.
2. Attract travelers using practical dialect. Contemplate your technology and suppliers, as well as processes, messaging, and communication methods for the greatest influence on policy. Reevaluate travel technology and mobile apps, if not utilizing already to ensure tools are accessible and incorporated into policy. Consider adding sharing economy supplier options to your policy. However, there are benefits and risks to evaluate for the sharing economy in a managed travel program.
3. Captivate and educate managers. Travel managers should focus on training managers to ensure the policy and applicable approval processes are understood. This education may include available resources, online tool, and benefits of the travel program and processes. Focus should be on the monetary impact of non-compliance.
4. Personalize data for your audience. Reporting should be varied and targeted for executives, divisions, and travelers. The reports will differ each month and should focus on vital information that is pertinent to company goals and savings.
5. Show the highest non-compliant travelers. Some companies generate lists of the top travelers that are not complying with policy to demonstrate the performance and how it influences corporate results.
6. Encourage compliance with duty of care. Use potential crisis as leverage to inspire travel policy and process compliance. Reassure new travelers by demonstrating how your travel program assists in duty of care, when booked within the policy. Hotels are often booked outside of the policy, which makes it difficult to find travelers. Hotel compliance should be a focus to ensure all travelers can be located during a crisis.
7. Enhance policy with important terms. Provide comprehensive explanations for key areas of the policy including meetings and events if applicable, in-flight Wi-Fi, and premium economy options.
8. Create a policy synopsis for travelers. Through automating processes, some polices have been simplified. A lengthier policy can make it harder for employees to understand and could lead to compliance issues. However, a shorter policy could cause confusion. Some companies are providing a high-level summary for travelers, especially those on the road to emphasize key policy topics.

There are numerous approaches to engage travelers and drive corporate travel policy compliance, which vary from traveler training, incentive-based rewards for adherence, and reporting that recognizes potential savings. Based on our experience, Acendas created best practices to traveler engagement and policy compliance. For more information, click below to download our white paper on the 8 Strategies to Drive Travel Policy Compliance.