Businesses could reduce travel over-spend by up to 15 per cent by enforcing existing corporate travel policies, research from Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s Solutions Group has found.
The research launched today focuses on the challenges of policy compliance and how to influence the behaviour of travellers.
Itidentified three reasons employees do not follow policy:
- Travel policies are generally included in new hire packages and then, if read at all, stored and rarely referenced.
- Individual vendor’s loyalty programs, or simply people’s personal preferences, provide a stronger draw than the deterrent of being non-compliant.
- External factors drive travel decisions, such as client requirements and other valid business reasons. There is such a thing as forgivable non-compliance, when needs dictate.
Katie Raddatz, head of the CWT’s Solutions Group Americas, said enforcing compliance is one of the hardest parts of a buyer’s job but also the area with “significant missed savings”.
“Travel departments spend significant time and resources getting the best corporate deals to keep costs down,” said Raddatz. “But often travellers think the policy might not apply to them or they just don’t know the policy.”
The research, Behaviour management: a new way to think about an old problem, outlines four stages to better manage traveller behaviour:
- Analyse - Start with an analysis of the potential savings and the different traveller segments to uncover non-compliance issues.
- Educate - Traveller scorecards are created to educate stakeholders by using terms and language they use with a format that can be immediately executed.
- Engage - Traveller scorecards, containing individualised reports, are sent directly to the traveller. The clear information in the reports makes it easier for managers to speak to employees about their booking behaviour.
- Compete – Creating a traveller gamification programme promotes positive traveller behaviour by introducing motivating, game-like elements that provides incentives to travellers to stay compliant.
“There’s pressure to reduce costs from every direction. Making sure people stick to the rules is an easy way to cut spend,” Raddatz added. ”We want to make sure we’re increasing compliance as much as possible. When it’s done properly, you can see the percentage of missed savings fall almost immediately.”