Millennials this, millennials that. You can say what you want about the generation born after 1982, but they’re definitely redefining attitudes towards business travel.
Younger workers love to travel more than anyone else, but not at the expense of their quality of life
Unlike many of their older colleagues, they prefer to structure their lives around experiences rather than other forms of compensation.
Combined with the growing challenges faced by many industries to attract and keep good quality employees, these developments open up interesting opportunities for HR managers when it comes to setting travel policy.
Greater HR involvement is a welcome development given the increasing number of new recruits asking to look at their future employer’s travel policy before deciding to join a company or not. In fact, a recent Booking.com survey showed that almost a third of all employees accepted their job in part or fully because of the travel opportunities it offered.
It’s also a clever move when it comes to keeping your current workers happy. With more and more organisations now taking into account the human cost of business travel alongside the business costs, travel policy itself is seen as a great lever for improving job satisfaction and employee retention.
For HR managers this often feels like walking a tightrope
On the one hand, policy is there to ensure safety, consistency and fairness across the board. On the other hand, there needs to be enough room to adapt to the needs of individual employees and roles. Regardless of how you decide to solve that conundrum, modern business travellers expect at least some degree of flexibility.
As part of our Happy Traveller, Happy Employee e-guide, we’ve looked at the importance of keeping your policies under regular review and adding more flexibility to your travel programmes.
We’ve also provided you with ten great travel perks to consider. Combined with some of the more traditional company benefits, they’ll go a long way towards keeping your existing business travellers happy. They’ll also do wonders for improving your company’s brand as an exciting place to work that values the quality of life of all its employees.