Smithkline Charges Agents With Policy Enforcement

<B> Smithkline Charges Agents With Policy Enforcement</B>

By Beverley Aujla

<I>London</I> - Pharmaceutical giant Smithkline Beecham is asking its corporate travel agents to police travel bookings to prevent its staff from breaking policy.

The company has drawn up new procedures to enable agency staff to diplomatically point Smithkline Beecham travelers in the right direction if they attempt to break the firm's own rulings.

The centerpiece of the innovative scheme is a tailor-made script that enables agents to avoid confrontation while ensuring business travelers, from low-ranking executives to top flight directors, do not break policy.

The prepared scripts have been written for travel agents who may feel intimidated telling senior executives to comply with corporate policy.

"It is the age-old problem of a junior agency staff telling a vice president that his request is out of policy. We expect agents to enforce the policy. The scripts are working well and they are diplomatic but effective prose without being confrontational," said Smithkline Beecham travel manager Tom Stone.

The scripts already have been issued in the United States and United Kingdom, and the company plans to extend the program to France as well.

If a traveler refuses to comply, the agents fill in a non-compliance report and send it to the department head.

Said Stone, "We need to be more dictatorial than we are at the moment. The question is what happens after the travel agent puts the phone down if you have zero tolerance. The reason some people don't comply is because the company doesn't have a disincentive for them to comply. But we will go to the sector head and tell how much money they are losing because their travelers are breaking policy."

In Smithkline's operations in the United States, for example, one senior manager sent an e-mail to his staff asking for cooperation in helping the company reach its route deal targets and called a number of travelers whose names showed up on the non-compliance reports.

As a result, the company's U.S. travel agency had to bring in temporary staff members for three days to cope with the volume of employees suddenly changing their travel plans.

Said Stone, "I see it as the way forward--simple but effective.