The pandemic acted as a huge wake-up call to corporates to satisfy employee duty of care with robust risk management protocols, traveler tracking and more. And the unprecedented geopolitical events this year justified the extra effort, demonstrating that risk is everywhere, not just in countries categorized as extreme risk.
Risk mitigation has now morphed into a general responsibility of traveler wellbeing, taking a more holistic view of travel. The good news is that the physical impact of travel is an increasingly quantifiable metric through advances in big data and analytics. For example, the wellbeing dashboard of Corporate Travel Management’s Data Hub has been providing these reports since prior to the pandemic and usage has steadily climbed.
Rather than use data to model savings projections, travel management companies can help corporates change policies to factor in wellbeing by capturing metrics that track pinch points. They can then lay down a threshold of policy changes such as flying fewer hours in economy, limiting high frequency trips, long minimum connecting times, scheduling too many Red Eyes, traveling through multiple time zones and not allowing sufficient downtime between trips.
Much is at stake as employees will vote with their feet in what is a competitive job market. Traveler-centric policies are a negotiating factor when hiring and they can help with employee retention. However, there is an extra cost of covering wellness if you’re going to provide chauffeur-driven airport pick-up after a Red Eye, upgrade travelers into business class or book hotels with more leisure facilities.
It’s something that Carol Fergus, director global travel, meetings and ground transportation at Fidelity International, has grappled with. “Straight after COVID we changed our air policy to business class on flights of over eight hours to entice people to come back to travel. That increased our cost so we managed demand and spent money in a different way.”
Fergus explains: “Instead of sending four people on the trip we sent two and combined trips into multi-sector trips so that they stayed longer.” She argues there are benefits to these multi-sector trips. “Travelers are away from home longer but there is less travel and they spend quality time with overseas colleagues rather than parachuting in for a 15-minute meeting.”
Travel with Purpose
Companies have tightened pre-trip approvals so that only necessary/income-earning trips get the green light. It’s what industry observers in the US are dubbing Intentional Travel. On the other side of The Pond, it’s called Purposeful Travel.
John Van den Heuvel, president, Corporate Traveler USA, has seen this shift over the past year to “travel policies that put an increased focus on meaningful and purposeful travel, ultimately redefining why and how employees are traveling.”
This has been the strategy of many clients of global consultancy GoldSpring, according to Neil Hammond, partner and director of hotel and air sourcing. “During COVID companies went in various directions but all toughened up on travel approvals. They also widened supplier selection to give travelers more flexibility and feel more comfortable,” Hammond says.
The most common ask of the consultancy is the cost impact of changing class of service – usually taking the business class threshold from eight hours to six – but very few make the change “as it’s difficult to take away benefits and perks from travelers,” explains Hammond.
Instead, corporate clients are making other changes, such as improving process efficiencies to offer quicker expense claims and compensatory time off when working late for example. “If you want them to take a 12-hour flight in economy then they don’t work the next day,” he says.
What Cost Wellbeing?
These are all nods to satisfying wellbeing. “Wellbeing comes at a huge cost,” says Hammond. “Buyers know that if they let one person fly business class they lose two other trips, but I’ve seen more policy changes dictating getting a chauffeur drive after a Red Eye flight or late night flight. We’ve also seen reimbursement of personal protective equipment and the provision of fast track through airport security channels.”
A GoldSpring survey of 30 corporations called Smileage – The Economics of Managing the Traveler Experience, published last October and shared at the GBTA convention in August, revealed that “A traveler’s smile signals happiness, while a $10,000 hotel suite represents comfort. The challenge lies in balancing these elements and creating maximum value at the right cost”.
CTM has witnessed a range of wellbeing-centric strategies, says Josh Gunn, global product marketing manager. “Some approaches we considered with clients included allowing travelers to extend their stay earlier in advance to acclimatize and prepare better for key meetings and conferences, sometimes at the expense of cabin class to offset the increased cost if the traveler would prefer to do so,” Gunn says. “Others included lounge passes to help with productivity and improving the airport experience for those traveling in economy.”
Advito, the consultancy arm of BCD, developed a Traveler Wellbeing dashboard to help clients capture and analyze data to provide deeper insights into what positively (or negatively) impacts their travelers’ wellbeing.
“We look at several different factors, including cabin class, number of time zones crossed, number of connections, departure/arrival times, destination pollution level and security risk,” explains Kelly Ellis, global practice area lead, traveler engagement at Advito.
Points are deducted from a total ‘wellness score’ of 100 when there is a factor that negatively impacts wellbeing – for example, if the traveler has to take a Red Eye flight and connect twice. “This helps turn the data into insights that are actionable for travel managers and companies looking to improve traveler wellbeing.” Ellis says that companies are on various points on their wellness journey, noting that “several of the policies we’ve evaluated for our clients have minimal reference to traveler wellbeing and are therefore starting from scratch to incorporate a traveler-first perspective.”
BCD paints a similar picture, according to Natalia Tretyakevich, senior manager, research and intelligence. “We found only 18 percent of surveyed travel buyers currently review data on traveler wellbeing, and only 5 percent reviewed and planned to take action based on the results.”
Those companies ahead of the curve are changing tack. “In the past, policies have always been written from the corporate standpoint. For example, ‘do this because it will save us this.’ Now, the tone is changing,” says Ellis. “Companies are realizing that policies should be written to consider their travelers’ wellbeing while also maintaining cost savings, duty of care, and compliance standards woven throughout.
Fidelity has been there and done it but it’s not been without its challenges. “We need to make money and make sensible choices but we can’t work miracles,” says Fergus. Working in favor of all corporates is the fact that travel has not returned to 2019 volumes, which helps absorb the higher average ticket prices.
“From a global manager’s perspective, it’s about doing the right thing,” says Fergus. “There’s no more we can do. We are fair from a reputational perspective. We place our travelers in good properties that are safe and secure, we track all bookings booked via our TMC and any that fall onto the high end of the Risk Register get cancelled while those trips that can go ahead are sent information on the risks so that they are aware and know what to look out for.”
Chasing the Black Swan
One company well-placed to gauge demand for improved duty of care is International SOS, a major risk management provider. It has seen what was previously only risk mitigation processes and procedures at clients turn into formal risk policy to secure more rigorous governance. It has also seen a doubling of case activity into its assistance center over the last 12-24 months.
“Many are calling in for advice on low-end risk destinations and for pre-travel medical briefings,” says James Wood, regional security director, Northern Europe at the company. “We have also seen an increase in the number of alerts we are publishing – 80 percent more medical and 28 percent more security alerts," he says.
“Companies are not spending more but spending better. They are putting more efficient and robust risk management processes in place before travelers go so they can mitigate risk before it becomes a problem and avoid things like costly evacuations.” ISO 31030 standard acts as a good starting point and benchmark.
Wood also highlights a perception versus reality issue. “Organizations perceive that geopolitical events and so on are the biggest threat but the day-to-day reality is illness, petty crime and road traffic accidents. For example, for every security case we receive, we get seven medical cases. The main challenge is health issues and bugs.”
But US-based colleague Julian Moro, SVP and regional security director, adds perspective: “Doing nothing by saying that Black Swan (a rare event) such as 9/11 will not be repeated is no longer a defense judging by what has happened over the last 12 months. So it’s better to address the issue and be proactive.”
Traveler health and wellbeing is a focus for CWT clients, homing in on the likes of frequent long-haul flyers and tweaking policy around benefits such as eligibility for lounges or upgrading class of travel and allowing additional time after a trip to recuperate. “We’re seeing travel policies become more employee focused so eligibility for more premiumization on a trip is being looked at by clients,” says Richard Johnson, senior director, Solutions Group at CWT.
It means providing different data to clients, says Johnson. “Companies are looking to receive and understand more data which impacts employee wellbeing such as on Red Eye or long-haul flights. They’re looking at it through employee segmentation, so travel managers can understand where they need to focus their efforts. If you had an employee who flew five times a month, they would be a priority for intervention and to look more closely at upgrades, better flight times and recuperation periods, compared to a traveler that has one or two flights per year.”
Angie Langen, vice president of marketing at CTM, adds, “Trading down flight class in favor of more luxurious hotels is a popular way to balance costs with traveler experience, especially when air demand and prices are high.”
The switch to intentional travel has moved non-essential travel – normally internal travel – to virtual, with stricter guidelines around it. This achieves environmental sustainability and wellness goals in one fell swoop. “Conducting industry-level benchmarking (specifically in the areas of premium economy/business class of service, meal allowance, and hotel amenities) has helped our clients decide which parts of their policy to modify,” explains Ellis.
Underlining this issue, Fidelity’s Fergus adds, “We have to balance cost, sustainability and wellbeing and the business has to take ownership of their budget. Budget holders have to be accountable.”
Better communication has to be an integral part of this new world order. Moro from International SOS refers to the “repositories of information being set up to help travelers prepare for trips safely” because “they need to do more with less.”
Ultimately, wellbeing must be a boardroom issue. “Before, it was left to non C-suite level execs to manage,” warns Moro. “But not today.”
