What is a Travel Policy?
A travel policy is when a company consolidates its travel into a simplified and standardised policy. This will outline the rules and procedures for employees to follow when managing their travel bookings and expenses. Fundamentally, a travel policy takes into consideration numerous factors congregated around the travel practice such as:
Approved booking procedures for both transportation and accommodation
Authorised and unauthorised expenses
Utilising preferred vendors
Duty of care procedures
Insurance policies
Risk assessments
Reimbursements
Implementing a comprehensive travel policy covers a business for all eventualities, equally benefitting both employer and employee. Most importantly, it will prioritise passenger safety by maintaining knowledge of their exact whereabouts whilst mitigating expense spikes in travel spending — preserving financial integrity.
However, if a travel policy is not examined thoroughly, this leaves areas vulnerable to exposure and potential discrepancies, which, on a minor scale, can lead to revenue losses in parallel with reputational damage and, on a more serious note, may risk the security status of your traveller.
1. Employee Security
The security of your employees should come second to none, and although the world has become a more accessible place, this does not necessarily mean that it has become a safer one. CMAC conducted research regarding the duty of care organisations must adhere to when resourcing taxis for business travel purposes, inciting from our independent data that 40% of respondents travel alone for every business trip, increasing the susceptibility of the individual, expected to navigate their way through locations they may be unfamiliar with, especially when travelling internationally.
Travel policies must clearly indicate the recommended vendors employees should use when deciding on appropriate transport and accommodation, alleviating the potential risk of harassment that can be experienced when booking lower standards of these services.
Furthermore, frequent solo travel underscores the importance of closely monitoring ground transport services in terms of taxi journeys. With 50% of our data correspondents resourcing their own taxi without review or approval from their company, this jeopardises the safety and legitimacy of the vendor. Essentially, employers must include trusted and standardised vehicle vendors that include mandatory live tracking updates within their travel policies so that you know exactly when and where your traveller is located when on the move.
Organisations that invest time into sourcing reliable recommendations will encourage employees to become more inclined to steer away from taking their travel matters into their own hands since the resources are readily available and approved. This will make the booking process easier and more efficient, simultaneously providing peace of mind through utilising a guaranteed secure vendor.
2. Travel Expense Repercussions
Deciphering adequate budgets for travel spending is no easy feat, especially when coordinating around uncontrolled variables dependent on the location and if travel demand is in peak season, imposing continuous fluctuations in navigating price.
Travel policies must regularly review and update their expenditure plans so that employees are aware of how much allowance they will receive down the road or what they are eligible to be reimbursed up to. Without these clear guidelines, employees are tempted to push the boundaries, leading to fraudulent activities such as overspending on luxuries, utilising their travel benefits for personal trips, or submitting overinflated travel expenses.
This type of exploitation, mishandled by companies, should be taken very seriously, as it significantly spikes outgoings, especially if an organisation functions on a larger scale.
3. Compliance Regulations
Implementing a comprehensive travel policy, like any other type of policy, must adhere to specific rules and regulations which comply with relevant laws, such as GDPR or regional travel guidelines. It’s imperative for an employer to legitimise their policies to retain integrity for their reputation and for employees to respect the boundaries and limitations established whilst travelling on behalf of a business.
Failing to recognise fine flaws within a travel policy leaves it exposed to the investigation of negligent compliance, ultimately resulting in crippling fines, severe reputational damage and a loss of trust from employees. Repercussions such as those of the previous leave a lasting impression, and yet can simply be avoided by ensuring your travel policy is kept private, regularly reviewed and updated according to any amended regulations.
4. Vendor Manipulation and Competitive Pricing
Travel policies that are publicly accessible may reveal potential weak spots for vendors to manipulate their prices, inciting aggressive approaches to negotiations as they’ve gained information landscaping an incline for competitive advantage. Showcasing preferred suppliers and releasing expense thresholds offer an opportunity for vendors to collectively exploit a travel policies guideline by inflating costs, leaving very limited alternative options to secure the best deal.
Illuminating further light on the practice that a travel policy must be kept private and is only accessible internally to employees and company executives, mitigating the breach of valuable information that can be used by third-party suppliers to lock businesses into unfavourable business rates.
5. Simplify your Policy
Keeping your travel policy clear and concise has the potential to minimise the risks associated with how constructive your employees are when following the procedures and guidelines put in place. Knowing that the audience reading your travel policy is competent enough to be trusted to travel to numerous destinations unaccompanied demonstrates that they are likely to take their own initiative, straying from the policies’ placement. Over-detailing your travel policy and extending the length of unnecessary information will discourage your traveller from reading it and, therefore, abiding by it.
Ideally, when creating your travel policy, all relevant information must be included from a compliance perspective. However, to ensure your employees understand the content, it’s advised to be kept condensed and easily comprehendible, encouraging those to follow the practice.
Consolidate your Travel Policy with CMAC
It’s time to take a more structured and coordinated approach to your travel ambitions. Utilise CMAC’s services to spearhead your business objectives through international operation optimisation whilst maintaining cost efficiency.
Tailored solutions are developed by our expertise teams, supported by our expansive network of regulated vehicle and accommodation suppliers, and propelled by our advanced software systems enabling real time updates on demand of your employee's exact location, ensuring compliance and most importantly safety.
Take the next step and reach out to a member of our dedicated team at hello@cmacgroup.com.
Together, we can strive for the infinity of succession on behalf of your business through the integration of aggregated solutions, protecting the peace of mind of your employees whilst advancing performance goals.