Increased home working and being constantly on-call is changing business travel for the better, according to new research by the Institute of Travel Management (ITM).
Increased home working and being constantly on-call is changing business travel for the better, according to new research by the Institute of Travel Management (ITM). Thanks to e-mail, blackberries, PDAs and laptops, home working is now encouraged by 40 percent of British companies; two-thirds regard connectivity as a vital requirement when their employees are traveling on business.
Surprisingly, this always-on-call culture is seen as reducing rather than increasing the stress placed on employees, according to Paul Tilstone, ITM's executive director: "Instead of being constantly in demand, travelers no longer have to face a mountain of work when they return to the office. Working on the move makes business more competitive, although the increased expectation on the employee could have the opposite effect in the future."
But corporate thinking is far from agreed on how to get the best from the employee, says Tilstone. "There are some striking contradictions between what companies say and what they do. Despite the importance placed in staying in touch, less than a third of organizations actually give their people any advice on connectivity when traveling.
"Airport lounge access is another case in point. Companies are missing out on how lounges can benefit employee productivity. The cost of lounge access is modest, and travelers can work in peace. However less than 7 percent of British companies purchase lounge access for their travelers when it is not included through class of travel or executive club status.
"Although 75 percent of companies are now promoting transport choices to their staff based on efficient use of time, many travelers are encouraged to fly direct to save time, but at a higher cost. If travelers know that they have access to a place where they can work, regardless of who they fly with, or in what class, they are less likely to be driven by collecting benefits from frequent flyer schemes. This will increase compliance, which will drive down costs," Tilstone concludes.
Travel time is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to clear the in-tray, points out Colin Goldney, managing director of ITM's research partner, Argate Consulting. "Whether it's on the Blackberry, the mobile, the tube, in a taxi or even onboard the aircraft before push-back from the gate, travelers are planning their workloads and e-mails around the periods of downtime in their journey. The productivity value of lounges, limo drives, express check-ins and the ability to shield the contents on your laptop screen from your neighbor is often overlooked in procurement policies that demand the lowest logical fare."
As companies consider the implications of corporate manslaughter legislation, embrace concepts of corporate social responsibility, and as home working becomes even more common, companies are having to decide whether a home office worker taking the train into London for a meeting constitutes business or commuter traffic and what their responsibilities are for that trip.
The findings of this latest ITM research follows an earlier ITM survey which showed that changes in working practice are blurring the boundaries between commuter and business travel. This is leading some companies to adopt more formal travel planning for both.