I can't have been the only travel professional giving a wry knowing smile at the pictures of the major UK political leader recently, photographed sitting on the floor of a train while en route to an important presentation. Unable to secure a seat, the individual was pictured reviewing notes and working on the floor by a toilet.
Let's de-politicise this story and just say that this individual, in his 60s as it happens, is an executive in YOUR company. Let's assume he or she in sales, or a relationship manager, hell, let's even assume this is a travel manager en route to a critical meeting which will drive value for your organisation.
His company is not willing to pay for first class. Although, clearly, there are some industries, many would argue politics is one and potentially the charity sector is another, where the optics alone do not allow first class travel. The individual is perhaps not au fait with rail booking enough to organise a seat to be pre-booked.
Can you relate to this?
I recall working with a more mature team member who was incredibly talented at his job but his eyesight was failing him in his later years. Every month or so he was gently reminded of the need to be fully connected in this 24/7 world and that the company was moving to ever more self-service via an internal app store. Every month he would open his drawer and pull out his company-provided smartphone. A few minutes and a few expletives later, the phone would be back in the drawer and the thing wouldn't be seen again for a month or so.
In the rush to ensure that we adapt our programmes to millennials, such as self-service approaches and the latest technology, have we ensured that all needs have been assessed to ensure that all your travellers are able to fully interact with your travel programme?
The industry is awash with discussion of the latest best practice for travel programmes whether it's travel 2.0, (even 3.0), open platform or mobile.
Traveller centricity dominates the discussion.
What exactly is traveller centricity and have we lost track of some of the basics?
In simple terms, traveller centric policies put the needs of the traveller at the heart of everything that we do. To achieve this, we need to understand them, talk to them, engage with them and ultimately cater for their maturity, frequency of travel and more important, productivity.
A travel programme needs to provide the right level of support to all. It allows individuals freedom while hand holding and guidance for those who need it.
Continued below
Traveller centricity needs to cater for the rich tapestry of human life and that of your employee population. If your travel programme is built (as most are) to control the masses it has an inbuilt assumption that everyone is trying to travel out of policy, is that correct? Just like in the wider population, your traveller base will have people who fall into this bracket but there are also people who HAVE to travel out of policy to suit their personal or business needs and people who want to travel in policy but just don't know how.
To build and maintain a successful travel programme, we need to understand the nuances of our traveller population.
I've worked with many companies that often resist getting feedback from travellers on their travel programme or are fearful of opening up online chatter type feedback portals. The fear is often that they think their travellers will ask for something they can't have such as for higher grades of travel and hotels, for more bespoke white glove services. But do travellers really ask for this?
The key to success is effective stakeholder feedback, communication and understanding the businesses needs and drivers. Not their wants but their needs. They WANT to travel in business class but their NEED is to arrive refreshed and ready to do business.
Key steps to success
1. You must benchmark your policy against other companies in your sector and with a similar footprint. You must know how you compare versus others — your travellers certainly will.
2. You need to understand the correlation between your travel programme and wider company objectives. This might be profitability or it might be retention and recruitment of staff. We need to remember that travellers are not travelling for the sake of it; they have a day job to do. We would be as well to remember that our job is that they can be the best that they can be when they get there and your company gets the best value it can.
3. Think like a traveller. Too many travel or procurement managers tend to travel nowhere, often feeling uneasy about spending money on travel when they are tasked with reducing it.
But travel managers have to think about whether they have been tasked with reducing travel cost or for extracting more value as the two are very different. For a travel manager not to travel is like the head of IT having a 1980s mobile phone, it's completely unthinkable.
Trust me, your travel policy seems very different after a 4am alarm call in an uncomfortable hotel bed when you need to attend an important meeting.
4. Remember it's a marathon, not a sprint. If you want to manage or reduce costs (which we all do), the laws of diminishing returns state that negotiating discounts will only get you so far.
Buyers increasingly need to influence changes in traveller behaviour in order to reduce or even maintain cost. To do this requires credibility, so pick your battles. Picking an argument with a division over not travelling on a preferred airline and costing $100 will not build credibility when you want support for a multi-million pound saving video conferencing project.
So back to our example from the start…
Let's assume this individual is able to excel in their role and that despite their advancing years, the economy seats (or train floor) and cheap hotel beds have no ill effect on their health. They bring in more sales, exceed your customers' expectations and negotiate deals far better than anyone else in your company and peers at other organisations. Is there not just a little part of you which is wondering, how much more brilliant can they be, if they had a seat on the 1156 from Brussels Midi?