Corporate jargon within travel policies can confuse, misdirect and ultimately cost a business time, money and the safety of its staff, says Bob Papworth
You know the feeling. It's the end of the holiday and the car is packed to the gunwales with two weeks' worth of laundry, fractious kids squabbling in the back seat, wife not speaking, and the gloom drawing in over rural Brittany - it's time to find un petit hôtel for the night.
Checked in and settled down in the restaurant perusing the menu - thoughtfully translated by the management into English - the fun begins. Such choice! Does one start with "home made delight porkbutcher", or who could resist the "fine tepid muslin of broccoli to snails of the scrapmetal (tepid vinegar to nutmeg)"? And, to follow, the "Vendean brioche way lost bread and its milk jam".
And it's not just a matter of mistranslation. A couple of years ago, Amadeus sent out a press release (in English) about an "e-Travel operational excellence programme" which led to "a new shadow cluster infrastructure to allow nearly instantaneous fallbacks, hardware-based HTML compressors deployed across all servers, and the obtaining of TruSecure certificate from CyberTrust".
So, now you know. Or perhaps not, as the case may be.
The aforementioned are, of course, extreme examples, but they serve perfectly to illustrate the point that, even with the best of intentions, communication can - and, given half a chance, will - break down. And so it is with travel-policy compliance exhortations. In order to "sell" the notion of compliance, policies - and the merits of sticking to them - have to be effectively communicated.
There is clearly much work to be done. Three years ago, the Barclaycard Business Travel Survey showed that only 27 per cent of respondents believed their company policy provided them with the best travel options; only 23 per cent thought booking policy-compliant travel reduced the hassle and inconvenience; and a mere 18 per cent thought policy provided the best travel prices.
A year later, opinions had hardened. Only 21 per cent thought they were getting the best options, 17 per cent thought travel hassles were reduced, and only 15 per cent believed they were getting best prices.
Sadly, changes in the survey structure mean that no more recent data has been made available, but the trend was clearly downward.
On another tack, in Barclaycard's latest poll, 78 per cent of respondents say their employers don't have an environmental travel policy. One wonders how many of them are right, and how many are simply unaware of a policy that does exist, but has not been communicated particularly effectively.
Compliance, and therefore communication, does matter. In May this year, Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) research indicated that companies could save as much as eight per cent of their total travel and entertainment spend by tweaking their travel policies. However, they could save a further 12.6 per cent of total T&E expenditure by improving compliance.
The CWT study, Playing By The Rules: Optimising Travel Policy and Compliance, includes a number of pointers. Companies should provide their travellers "with clear, comprehensive guidelines in a user-friendly format". CWT Travel Management senior director Christophe Renard insists: "Many of the best practices observed by CWT are within the reach of all companies."
By working closely with their travel management company, as well as senior management within their organisation, travel managers can better articulate their travel policy and reinforce compliance. "This results not only in reduced costs, but enhanced traveller safety and well-being," says Renard.
In the same month, to coincide with its Spring Global Education Conference in Washington, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) came up with its own massive tome, this time called Best Practices Guide To Travel Policy Compliance.
"More corporations are focusing on travel programme compliance as they seek to reduce costs in the face of rising prices from their suppliers and constraints on their internal budgets," the report says.
"Tough economic times are causing senior management at many companies to scrutinise the travel programme more closely to determine whether or not it's delivering value to the corporation.
"Now, more than ever, it's incumbent on travel managers not only to negotiate the best deals with their air, hotel and car rental suppliers, and identify the key performance indicators that will drive savings, but also to ensure travellers are complying with these policies."
ACTE admits that persuading business travellers to do what they're told "hasn't been a simple task", although greater use of booking tools and corporate cards has improved the business travel manager's lot.
Of those surveyed, 48 per cent claimed to have achieved greater air-programme compliance in the past year, 47 per cent said hotel compliance had improved, and 41 per cent said car-rental policy adherence had increased.
And of those who had seen improved compliance, 38 per cent calculated that they had made cost savings of anything from five to 24 per cent as a direct result.
And how did they achieve these gains? Asked to identify the key factors contributing to policy compliance, 58 per cent of respondents identified "mandating policy". In second place, with 50 per cent of the vote, came "communication of travel policy".
That "greater use of booking tools" does help the hapless travel manager, of course. The ACTE report, published in conjunction with AirPlus International, says: "Technology has played a role in the focus on compliance, with SBTs [self-booking tools] and automated expense-management systems enabling TMCs and other third-party providers and corporate buyers to control, monitor, and analyse their compliance in ways that weren't possible a few years ago.
"Enhancements such as pre-trip approval modules in the SBTs and expense-management systems that employ dashboards, which enable travel managers to view their travel patterns at a glance, also aid compliance."
And there's more techno-help on the way. Yet another May report, again published to coincide with the ACTE gathering, suggests that mobile technology can be used as yet another weapon in the travel-management armoury.
The Amadeus study, called Upwardly Mobile, says: "Mobile technology will also help travel managers to promote policy compliance while on the road. In the case of a cancelled flight, employees will be able to instantly access approved supplier lists, ensuring that they follow company policy rather than choosing costly alternatives, further reducing company costs."
Trouble is, relatively few travel managers have as yet woken up to the opportunities.
The report highlights the importance "for travel managers to begin consulting with the IT and HR departments within their company, in order to implement a mobile strategy into their travel management programme and take advantage of current and future offerings".
Amadeus continues: "Upwardly Mobile shows, however, that while travel managers are aware of these benefits, they have so far made little progress in implementing changes. Some 80 per cent have acknowledged the role of mobile phones with enhanced features to improve corporate travel but, despite this, very few have ntegrated these services into their business travel programmes."
And, lest we forget, it's not all about cutting costs and saving money. At a recent Institute of Travel Management (ITM) seminar on travel security and risk management, travel buyers were reminded that one good way to promote policy compliance is to underscore the risks involved in rogue travel.
For the good of employers and employees alike, and with heightened awareness of the corporate's "duty of care", travel managers were advised to take a hard line on establishing security policies, and then take a "softly, softly" approach to implementation.
Asked by one delegate how she could justify the cost of implementing a traveller security strategy, ITM chair Caroline Strachan was characteristically forthright. "If it was me in your organisation," said the Yahoo! international travel manager, "I'd use scare tactics. If you are travelling to high-risk locations, it's absurd that they [senior management] don't take this seriously."
Mark Hanna, corporate security manager at Nomura International, took a similarly tough stance. "It [traveller security] is not the responsibility of the travel manager, or of human resources, or of the travel security manager - it's the responsibility of each and every one of us," he insisted. Persuading people to take that responsibility, Strachan said, was not always straightforward. "The problem with this subject is that it's high on the agenda when something happens, but low on the agenda when nothing has happened for a few months."
However, while speakers were more than ready to take a tough line with intransigent employers, they were far more tolerant of the travellers who would be asked to comply with security strategies.
Nomura's head of human resources, Stephen Sidebottom, urged: "Communication needs to be simple, clear and purposeful. Make sensible demands of people. Use carrots not sticks. Get people thinking about why this is useful to them, why this is useful to the firm - that's much better than setting a list of rules and then waiting for them to fail."
Strachan suggested delegates should KISS - "keep it simple, stupid"- while Christian Collett of Control Risks urged: "Create a travel security policy, and then communicate it. If things go wrong, you need to be able to put your hand on your heart and say that this happened despite all your best efforts."
Whichever way you shake the dice, communication is key to selling a travel policy. Getting it right pays dividends, both financially and in terms of CSR. Getting it wrong at best results in indifference and at worst ends up defeating the entire object of the policy exercise.