Can Better Business Travel Help Employees Do a Better Job?

Let’s answer this question with a question.

Imagine having a pivotal client meeting overseas, and not only did you waste valuable prep time dealing with a passport problem, you couldn’t find a flight that gave you ample time to get to the office, then you couldn’t find a cab. You’re late, you’re flustered, and you’re going to have to finish your presentation in the back of a car. So here’s the question:

Are you really going to do your best work?

Give business travellers more options, and they’ll give you their best.

There are countless apps and options that can make business travel better. Your employees want to use them, and you should want to offer them. Why? Because when you bring in more tools, more apps, and more of the resources to improve the travel experience, it makes employees’ lives easier. It makes them happier. It makes the entire experience they have with your business better, and that makes their work more productive.

This is the sharing economy, so let’s open up a little.

So what are these tools? Some are the apps you’ve heard of — probably the ones you used to book your last vacation — and some are new providers or integrations. The point is, there are a lot of ways to make travel easier for employees and better for business. Here are just a few:

• Help your business travellers get where they’re going faster and easier by integrating your expense tool with Uber and their receipts can flow automatically into their expense reports.

• Connect with airlines like American and United, or Lufthansa and British Airways — plus rental car companies from Sixt to Hertz — so when employees book directly on those sites, their charges and receipts will auto-populate expense reports and save everyone time.

• Give your business travellers choices without giving up control. Integration with providers like Booking.com or HRS give buyers and business travellers instant access to more booking options. 

• Tap into apps like VisaHQ and CIBTvisas that use travel data to automate visas, passports, and other required documents to take the hassle out of international business travel.

• Help business travellers deal with language and cultural barriers with apps that send helpful tips before they hit the road and provide a voice-translator and useful phrasebooks. 

You can make life on the road — and in the back office — better for everyone.

When they don’t have to worry about their expense reports, about their visa, or whether it’s okay to use Airbnb, your traveling employees can focus on the job they were sent out to do. This not only boosts productivity, it lifts morale. Plus, it can help your AP team get all the spend information it needs, accurately and on time, improving their ability to control T&E, which is often the second-largest line item on your budget.  

Open up travel options for your employees. Just open up the app center.

Blog #3 in series - to read blog #1: The Better the Experience, the Better your Compliance or #2: Everyone Takes Responsibility but Someone Has to Take the Lead