Ensure your duty of care programme can support your travellers in 2022
At the top of the list of priorities for most travel managers right now is duty of care and looking forward to 2022 and beyond, this will be no different.
There is no doubt that Covid-19 has increased the level of risk associated with travel and although we hope this will change over time, dealing with the challenges presented by the virus looks set to remain the reality for travel managers and travellers for the foreseeable future.
The first step in preparing your organisation’s duty of care programme for the future is to establish what duty of care measures you had in place pre-pandemic, what you have implemented as precautionary or emergency measures and whether what is currently in place is fit for purpose when your organisation starts to travel again.
Here are some of our recommendations for duty of care processes and technology that will ensure your travellers are fully supported for the future:
Updated travel approval system
The outbreak of Covid-19 has changed the criteria as to what constitutes necessary travel for many organisations and so ascertaining the reason for travel is now more important than ever before. The right travel authorisation workflow will make these reasons more visible, allowing key stakeholders to assess the motivation for each travel request as well as highlighting which roles and departments need to travel the most and where to.
A thorough but efficient travel approvals process can provide some much-needed reassurance to travellers who might feel nervous at the thought of making their first corporate trip in a while. Knowing that multiple stakeholders, who have access to detailed information regarding risk assessment and travel guidelines, have approved a trip can help travellers to feel more confident.
The ability to customise your travel approval system as your organisation’s travel requirements change over the coming years is essential. As travel restrictions change and the world develops new ways of controlling the spread of Covid-19, the style of approval that your organisation requires right now might be vastly different from what your organisation needs in a year’s time. Your organisation might also want to implement different approval workflows depending on the reason for travel or on the traveller themselves - the right travel approval system will make this possible.
Understanding of ISO 31030
Although ISO 31030 was not created to specifically address the challenges and anxieties surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, the publication of the new global benchmark couldn’t be more relevant.
Welcomed by those responsible for the management of corporate travel, ISO 31030 provides organisations with the chance to boost internal assurance about the safety of travel, as well as improving employee’s confidence in travel. Meeting ISO 31030’s standards will show travellers that your organisation is taking all necessary steps to mitigate travel risk.
Check out the ISO 31030 publication here
With travel resuming to stable levels, corporates’ attention should now turn to the mental wellbeing of travellers. At a time when so much to do with travel feels uncertain and can trigger feelings of anxiety and nervousness amongst travellers, it’s best practice to plan ahead for how you will properly support your team once they do start to travel again.
In order to ensure that travellers feel as confident and comfortable as possible in the run up to a business trip, corporates should take a considered approach to the information they provide their employees with. Providing regular touch points, such as calls, webinars or newsletters, that update travellers on travel regulations and your organisation’s duty of care process is a good initiative to implement.
Post-trip surveys can be a useful way of collecting the experiences of those who are travelling and using them to inform your organisation’s new corporate travel processes. Furthermore, consider asking questions about how they felt before, during and after the trip, how the trip impacted their work and home life and whether they would’ve liked your organisation to do anything differently to better support them. Your TMC will be able to advise you further on post-trip traveller surveys.
Targeted traveller updates and alerts
Staying up-to-date with the latest travel advice regarding Covid-19 and avoiding information overwhelm seems like a Catch-22, but it’s a challenge that many travel managers are having to undertake.
Although it’s important to have access to all necessary information that pertains to travel restrictions, governmental advice and test and vaccination developments, it’s even more important that the information travel managers are exposed to is relevant and accurate.
We would recommend streamlining your information sources and prioritising those that are verified and can be tailored to only share information that is relevant to your organisation's location, your travellers’ most frequent destinations and the way that your company travels for business.
Talk to your TMC about accessing apps and widgets that search for the travel restrictions, governmental guidelines and testing policies for an upcoming trip or relevant location and present you with only the most relevant information. It is also a good idea to ensure that you and your travel stakeholders are signed up to a real-time travel alerts service such as ATPI Alerts.
Ensure your sustainability strategy and travel strategy align in 2022
A hot topic of discussion globally has been sustainability and how the travel industry can make those steps to being more socially responsible. Looking forward, corporates should undoubtedly have strategies and policies set up regarding sustainability and should look to work together with their TMC to achieve these goals.
The good news for travel managers is that corporate travel doesn’t have to be at odds with your organisation’s wider sustainability targets. There is a way to achieve a corporate travel strategy that delivers what your organisation needs while also limiting its impact on the environment.
Here are our recommendations regarding planning for 2022 and sustainability:
The first step to incorporating sustainability into your travel policy is to first measure your current levels of travel. ATPI can calculate your current CO2 emissions and offer a complete data set.
Following on from this, ATPI account managers can consult con how to reduce travel related CO2 footprint, using Analytics data and making recommendations to reduce travel emissions, and even to remove certain unnecessary travel.
In simple terms, the only solution to climate change is to reduce all human made greenhouse gas emissions to zero. Ultimately, this will be achieved by decarbonising electricity generation and transport, stopping deforestation and planting more trees and reducing emissions from farming. Whilst progress is being made in these areas, there is still work to be done. In the short term, carbon offsetting is one way of neutralising your carbon footprint.
Carbon offsetting is an internationally recognised way to take responsibility for unavoidable carbon emissions. It is about funding projects around the world that help reduce carbon emissions by a measurable and verifiable amount.
It’s important to ensure that any carbon offsetting project that your organisation is involved with has been verified and/or certified by an independent third-party organisation. Look out for projects and initiatives that can provide your organisation with annual certification as proof of your contribution.
We have created our own carbon offsetting service, ATPI Halo, which partners with world-leading offset projects to aid you in supporting ESG strategies that fit with your company culture. Find out more about ATPI Halo here and take that first step in making your corporate travel strategy more sustainable and responsible.
There has been a flood of information regarding environmental sustainability and travel over the last few months as organisations race to publicise their new sustainability efforts. However, not everything is as green as it seems and corporates who are looking to limit their impact on the environment can soon become victims of greenwashing.
The term ‘greenwashing’ is used to describe the process of making unsubstantiated claims regarding how environmentally sound an organisation' products or operations are. These claims often create a false impression or provide misleading information, causing customers to see an organisation’s products as more environmentally friendly than they actually are or that the organisation’s actions are working towards a CO2 net zero or carbon neutral goal.
Despite setting off with the best of intentions, those responsible for steering their organisation’s sustainability programme can soon feel overwhelmed and confused due to the amount of misinformation surrounding environmentally friendly initiatives.
We recommend taking the necessary steps and involving your travel management company when you begin to develop your organisation’s wider sustainability strategy, as they will be able to look at how your organisation travels and recommend strategies that are most relevant and appropriate.
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
SAF is a type of fuel produced predominantly from sustainable feedstocks (e.g. used cooking oil), as well as more recently from synthetics. The chemical and physical characteristics are similar to traditional fossil jet fuel. The two can even be safely mixed to a degree. However it’s important to remember some key facts:
- The creation and adoption of SAF is a change that airlines are having to embrace, and governments will also need to support, regardless if it is a long term viable solution. This makes it a rather complex playing field.
- Although SAF is more environmentally friendly than traditional fuels in its generation, when burned in the atmosphere it still creates emissions equivalent to those of kerosene that ultimately need to be offset.
- It is important to ensure that the bio-mass grown or synthetics produced to create SAF are produced sustainably, and that SAF are bunkered and transported in a sustainable way as well.
- Today's aircraft engines can use up to 50 percent SAF without any major improvement to the current technology. Some recent innovations may even allow for 100 percent SAF usage in the near future.
- In the long run SAF is not suitable to completely replace fossil fuels, because it would require huge amounts of land to produce the volume required, and that land clearance or replacement crops would cause other environmental issues.
Achieve cost-savings in your travel strategy
After a tough two years, travel spend reduction sits highly on most organisations' agendas when planning for the future.
However, working out how to achieve significant results in this area can feel like trying to unravel an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
Particularly at a time when there is, understandably, so much focus on duty of care and safety when travelling.
Tackling compliance is one of the most significant ways in which your organisation can gain and retain control of your travel spend, but doing so isn’t as easy as it often appears. It’s a good idea to find out how prospective TMCs will improve your organisation’s compliance rates, as you can then assess which of their strategies will fit best with how your organisation works.
Although it will take working closely with your organisation to develop tailored cost-saving strategies, an RFP provides you with the chance to gain an overview of how prospective TMCs will approach this.
Fare and Content Sourcing
Confirming how prospective TMCs source their content and secure fares will provide an instant indicator of how effective any cost-saving initiatives will be. You can compare this with the types of content that your organisation requires and your current fares for further insight.
Travel technology might provide a certain wow-factor during the RFP process, but will it achieve the cost-saving results that your organisation requires? Sometimes it can! However it’s worth asking prospective TMCs to clarify how this is possible.
