Copenhagen - AstraZeneca has started researching the effects of travel on its employees' well-being and whether there is a link to recruitment and retention. The company's travel team hired the U.S.-based consultancy tClara to attempt to quantify "travel friction" caused by such stressors as traveling during personal time, enduring long flights and crossing multiple time zones, especially in economy class.
Speaking here last month at an Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference, AstraZeneca global commercial leader for travel Kerrie Henshaw-Cox said early results suggest the most frequent of the company's 25,000 travelers experience disproportionately more travel friction per trip than less-frequent travelers. The team managing Project Tex (short for Traveller Experience) during the next few months will review fuller results and consider corrective actions. Henshaw-Cox said options may include restricting travel on weekends and public holidays, and not starting international meetings until Tuesdays.
Project Tex was prompted by research AstraZeneca conducted last year called Project How Much, which attempted to identify the impact of a 50 percent travel reduction imposed by the business. One consideration when weighing the most appropriate balance between too much and too little travel was the impact of travel on AstraZeneca's appeal to an employee. Employee welfare is not a matter of lip service at AstraZeneca. Making AstraZeneca "a great place to work" is one of its three key strategic objectives, along with achieving scientific leadership and returning to growth, according to the company.
Henshaw-Cox determined that traveler well-being merited further investigation and quickly won enthusiastic support from AstraZeneca's Australian business. She obtained sponsorship for Project Tex not only from the country's human resources director but also its chief financial officer and procurement lead. Owing to geography, Australians typically travel much longer distances than counterparts from other countries, and recruitment and retention of top talent in the country is an acute challenge—especially in the pharmaceutical industry—making HR issues a strategic priority for all senior executives. "Our Australian CFO is very pragmatic," said Henshaw-Cox. "It costs a lot of money if we have to replace talent within the company."
Research started last month and is both quantitative and qualitative. Travelers are being surveyed and interviewed in depth. Meanwhile tClara has analyzed 8,500 passenger name records for 1,128 travelers between June 2011 and December 2013 to log how many trips involved what it has defined as friction points. Once the research is completed, the Project Tex team will make recommendations to senior stakeholders in Australia about such potential actions as policy changes. Henshaw-Cox then will share the findings with the rest of the business globally. Other issues that may be considered in light of the results include a supplier review. "Are we going to include in the program airlines that have a horrendous record for punctuality?" she asked.
TClara since launching in 2013 has analyzed PNRs from more than 40 companies, said managing partner Scott Gillespie. He has concluded that the most frequent travelers are the ones most likely to cease all travel abruptly, suggesting they reach a state of burnout. "We would like to draw conclusions about breaking points for moderate, significant and extreme road warriors, but it's very clear from the limited evidence so far that quit rates are very company-specific," he told BTN.
Gillespie insisted the intelligence companies gain from studying their travel friction is actionable. "Companies can ask themselves if they need to mitigate the risk by altering schedules or policy," he said. "A very obvious answer is to look at cabin policy, but we are also finding that on average 60 percent of all flight hours are on personal time [outside the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. between Monday and Friday]. We understand why, but there is an opportunity for companies to ask if they want to continue this behavior and to ask travelers what it would take to mitigate their wear and tear. The answer could be: 'Get someone to fill in my expenses for me' or, 'Make sure there is a week each month when I don't have to travel.' I can see a point where companies will customize policy for each traveler."
Speaking here alongside Henshaw-Cox was her predecessor at AstraZeneca, Caroline Strachan, now American Express vice president of consulting in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Amex reviewed 100 client travel policies and found that fewer than 20 percent referred to traveler well-being. Those that did mainly were technology companies with economy-class policies that sought to ensure their restrictions were not damaging traveler health.
Strachan said she is finding that more companies look for the "sweet spot between being there and not overworking the traveler." The recommendations Amex is making to improve traveler well-being include gauging traveler feedback, recalibrating travel policy to restore work/life balance (such as reimbursing personal calls home), choosing preferred suppliers that offer healthy options, making travel processes easier and monitoring the health of frequent travelers.