Previously I have managed many large travel programmes and in most cases compliance to the organisation's travel policy has been under managed. This was mainly due to lack of communication, compliance, monitoring and buy-in from internal stakeholders.
In my previous article I wrote about the benefits of an outsourced Meet and Travel Programme and about the 14 projects we will run in order to get a best in class travel-centric programme. Rewriting the policy is one of the 14 projects, which we have prioritised to ensure all other projects and deliverables are led by the policy guidelines.
Background
I am the programme lead for a large multinational company's Meet and Travel Programme. Together with five resources from HRG Consulting, led by Clare Francis, we are managing the programme both from an operational as well as a day-to-day capacity. We strategically manage all projects within the team including, for example, data consolidation, air and hotel programmes.
The company had a somewhat unclear travel policy that was open to ambiguity, with the common "lowest logical approach". The company has an appetite towards increasing how the traveller is serviced as well as ensuring an improvement on their experience level rather than running with a more traditional cost saving approach.
The journey
The HRG team, client programme owner and I began to gather relevant background information from the client, such as local travel policies and the global policy as well as analysis and input from many of the steering groups and key stakeholders involved with the travel programme. A survey provided an in-depth analysis and enabled us to benchmark the end-to-end travel programme, from the strategy and governance, through to meetings and expense management.
The output formed the foundations for developing a long-term set of strategic programme goals, a business plan and an analysis of the current travel policy. We took the analysis of the policy one step further and benchmarked it against five industry peers in detail as well as best practices in the travel industry, the process consisted of an analysis in detail of 24 different common "policy areas".
Our main findings were that the company had a very complaint travel community so the cost saving opportunities were limited. However there were a lot of opportunities to clarify a number of items, for example
- Advanced booking window
- Online booking adoption
- Reuse of unused tickets
- Defining usage of loyalty programmes
- Clarification on "lowest logical"
- Clarification on whether to use or not use sharing and new economy suppliers
- Defining usage of airline ancillaries
- Clarifying use and reimbursement of various expense items while travelling
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)/sustainability areas
That was the "easy" part — the technical analysis of the policy and clarification of improvement areas. Our next step was to sell it into the client in a tasteful and captivating manner that they would instantly buy into.
Rather than connect the alternatives to corporate goals and savings, we presented them as development of the travel programme and increase of service levels and experience towards the travel community. We presented the new travel policy through an interactive policy document, where the travellers could easily "click around" and find the various sections of the policy without feeling that there was too much detail to familiarise themselves with.
We also aligned the travel policy with the supply base in terms of setting and configuring the relevant TMC online booking tools. We developed a number of key performance indicators to follow up the policy update and secured relevant data inputs from the TMCs.
The end result
We have, of course after a diligent change management and communication plan, implemented the new meet and travel policy and so far we have not measured the effects yet. The policy has been well received through:
- Travel managers due to the clarity, key performance indicators and reporting connected that is clearly aligned to the policy
- Travellers through the clarity and user friendliness of the format that has been developed
Our next step is to further define and clarify areas as we go, via continual feedback due to the fact that we did not implement "all findings" in the first update. We will do various updates, perhaps twice a year and measure the effects through key performance indicators.
Seven key take aways
1. The first obvious one is to find the right fora where decisions could be made on a company group level
2. It is very important to have the ear to the ground, listen in and get input from the local markets prior taking a final decision. We tried very much to put ourselves in the shoes of the receiver and tweaked all communication in a way that they could interpreted easily. Quite often mistakes are made in having the plans and actions that focus on a group level and not consider local requirements — to a certain extent, pleasing 30 markets with a strong and solid policy is of course mission impossible so trade-off and compromise should be made
3. One area where we did not dig into too much was in the TMC operational processes and configuration capabilities, but we should have been more diligent to ensure that all key performance indicators are implemented and can be measured in accordance with the technology in place
4. We proposed a number of changes in the update, but rather than implementing everything at once, we are going to do a phased approach during a two-year phase. This ensures we get optimum return on investment and can measure our output and make sure we are on track with our goals
5. It's important to put communication at the forefront such as conducting a number of workshops with both your internal main internal stakeholders and supply base to explain what you want to achieve. You can then develop projects around that as well as making any policy updates
6. Key to any successful policy is ensuring it is aligned to the company's culture; getting that right is vital
7. Industry expertise can have a huge focus on being extremely pragmatic; if you seek external advice make sure to view it with an open mind
The biggest lesson learned in this whole project is looking at things with very fresh eyes, and I think all too often the traveller gets forgotten. Having this focus ensures that the traveller remains a primary focus and decisions are made to enhance their experience, but also to align to the company's overall objectives.