Business Travel Compensation, a platform that ensures corporates receive Delay Repay entitlements on the UK’s rails, has evolved to provide services for travellers outside of business hours.
The service was launched in August by Tracsis Travel Compensation Services with the intention of working with TMCs to ensure 100 per cent of compensation owed for train delays and cancellations are passed back to their clients.
Business Travel Compensation says companies are now looking at how to use the system to ensure travellers receive reimbursement outside of business hours, such as if their journey is disrupted on their way home.
Lee Fortnam, product director at Business Travel Compensation, said: “Speaking with TMCs over the last few months it’s become quite apparent that traveller welfare is a key focus which needs to be embedded into their travel policies and they’re looking at different ways in which they can achieve this.
“To support this demand, we’ve been looking at the flexibility and configurability of our systems to be able to report back on exact times. Depending on the requirements from businesses, we can now tailor our reports to highlight those travellers affected outside of business hours. It’s then down to the individual travel policies on how they compensate their employees.”
Commenting on the need for businesses to consider the welfare of their travellers, Raj Sachdave, managing partner at consultancy Black Box Partnerships, added: “Traveller welfare is a growing concern for businesses, to ensure they have a duty of care to their employees whilst travelling on business. With more people than ever travelling for work, it’s important that employers understand how travel disruption may impact on an employee’s home life, and where possible reimburse them with some form of compensation, demonstrating duty of care. My question is – what is the industry doing for regular commuters and those with season tickets? Is enough being done to compensate those travellers?”
Adding a travel manager’s perspective, Rosie Mohamad, head of travel at Pinsent Masons, said: "The work/home life balance for employees is integral to our firm’s values. Organisations (and agencies) have to be seen to be evolving to demonstrate that wellbeing is a key focus, ensuring a stress-free working environment. Our policies may also need to evolve to factor in services like Delay Repay. However, the challenge we have as a business is that some of our travel is rechargeable to our own clients and some is firm related, so the automated Delay Repay service is not a straightforward solution for our business. This would need to be a key area for consideration if we decide to take this forward. As technology progresses, our processes internally will only become smarter, working with agencies to ensure their execution is right for our business.”
businesstravelcompensation.com