Topaz International is beginning "productivity
audits," an attempt to measure and advise companies on how booking and
travel policies affect employees' ability to do their jobs.
To conduct these audits, Topaz will gather information from
companies, including such nontravel data as salary, total compensation and
employee revenue creation, as well as travel data like the number and types of
trips employees take and how active a role they must take in the booking and
expense process. Some companies already measure employee productivity via HR
departments, providing data that will be ripe for the audits, Topaz owner,
president and CEO Bradley Seitz said.
By analyzing that data, the audits will allow for
recommendations for travel policy changes, he said. "Always driving your
employees to book their own trips online might not be the most effective use of
their time, or driving them to do their own expense reports might not be the
best use of their time," Seitz said. "Or putting certain travelers in
business class might be feasible and a good thing, depending on the metrics of
what you pay these individuals and their contribution to the company."
For example, a top sales employees might be
better served by having an admin to handle bookings rather than handling bookings
themselves. That turns the time they would have spent bookings into time
generating revenue for the company, he said. "It's anything related to
what helps them do their job better," Seitz said. "It could increase
retention and even be used as a recruitment tool."