Top 10 U.K. travel management company Capita Travel & Events has
become the latest business to explore how travel affects productivity and other
human capital challenges for corporations. It is proposing to track and manage traveler
well-being, partly by developing communications programs that nudge employees
towards smarter trip planning or, better still, finding a travel alternative.
Capita Travel & Events aims to launch the service, named Smarter
Working, in September. Chief commercial officer Trevor Elswood is helming the
strategy after spending a year developing the concept with other subsidiaries
of parent group Capita, the business process management and support services
specialist that is one of the U.K.’s largest private sector employers. One of
those subsidiaries, a big data analytics specialist, evaluated data from
approximately 27,000 business travelers at Capita and other companies. The
analysis showed 27 percent more sick days for employees who annually spent 50 days or more traveling on
business, significant underutilization of virtual
conferencing facilities within the Capita, and “no travel” campaigns reduced Capita’s
domestic rail and hotel bookings but caused unwelcome spikes in day trips by
car.
With that data, Elswood collaborated with two more Capita subsidiaries—one
specialized in gamification and the other in changing behavior through
e-learning—to build a client communications program. “We looked to see what we
could translate into the world of corporate travel,” said Elswood. “If you
applied big data to travel, where would it take you? We wanted to see how travelers
behave, and how the power of understanding your audience and modifying language
can create better communications to nudge people to do the right thing.”
Acting on Big Data
Elswood and his big data colleagues started by matching travel and
expense management information with videoconferencing usage reports and
employee data such as age, gender, length of service and number of sick days. They
threw in fleet data like employee vehicle mileage and insurance accident
reports, and external information including weather records and even crime
data. Then they added qualitative research by interviewing travelers.
Elswood discovered that lack of co-ordination between internal
travel management, HR and facilities management within Capita led to the underuse
of virtual conferencing: 11 percent of travel between internal sites where
virtual conferencing was available was found to be replaceable. Barriers included
lack of education about how the technology worked and poor calendar management.
Capita addressed these issues with improved scheduling, training videos and the
widespread installation of Business Skype to supplement more heavy-duty
facilities.
Analysis of the travel reduction campaign also proved an eye-opener.
Not only did car usage rise 5 percent above normal during the month of the
campaign, but additional matching found the car journeys were longer as
employees racked up mileage to avoid hotel bookings. Absenteeism rose in
consequence and there was an increased risk of accidents—bad for employees and
bad for insurance premiums at a company where the average employee spends 9.2
days per year driving on company business.
That amounted to 1.9 million hours of driving hours in 2015, and
Capita has started to think about how it could reduce that figure, either
through more virtual conferencing or shifting further to rail, especially for
higher salaried employees who can work on the train. “You start to think about
traveler policy instead of travel policy,” said Elswood. Weather data was
scrutinised to see whether moving employees onto trains, especially in winter
months, would reduce insurance premiums as a safer alternative to driving.
Elswood said “the biggest wake-up call” in his research was the 27
percent higher absenteeism rate among the most frequent travelers, which was
assessed as costing Capita £2.3 million per year. Once again, a deeper data
dive provided more specific insight: Absenteeism is highest among international
travelers and those whose make frequent early morning departures. By
identifying travelers who fit this profile, “we can forecast that if they carry
on like this, they are likely to be unwell soon,” said Elswood. Capita has
started sending alerts to travelers but also copying in their line managers and
the HR department.
Elswood’s next mission was analyzing employee data to understand
behavior by demographic. He found infrequent travelers spend less prudently on
travel, whereas frequent travelers understand how to buy smarter, for example
booking more than 14 days in advance. On the other hand, longer-serving
employees are more likely to test policy rules, whereas newer ones are more
compliant.
The project developed targeted corrective messages for each group.
Elswood’s communications colleagues, for example, recommended subtly different
messages for men and women, appealing to the competitive instincts of the
former and to the “group good” impulses of the latter.
Launching to Clients
Come September, Capita Travel & Events customers will have
access to educational videos and what Elswood dubbed an “intelligent
communications hub” that delivers tailored messages. An example, said Elswood,
would be: “All of your colleagues are saving money by doing split ticketing on
rail journeys.” The message would explain how to book split tickets and how
much could be saved.
The links between HR and travel have attracted increased attention
in recent years, including “traveler friction” benchmarks offered by Scott
Gillespie’s tClara consultancy, and a travel stress index devised by Carlson
Wagonlit Travel. Demonstrating these links is one thing; persuading clients to act
on traveler wellness, and to pay a travel company to help, is another.
Elswood said Capita will not charge extra fees
for the Smarter Working program. “We see this as an essential part of the way
we will do business in future,” he said. Elswood also believes senior
executives are becoming more receptive to how travel challenges productivity.
“I’ve not had one conversation with a CEO, CFO or COO where they haven’t said
‘yes, we want you to come back,’” he claimed.