"Being the bad guy with travelers and making them abide by company policy" is the most challenging characteristic of travel managers' jobs, according to survey results recently released by Carlson Wagonlit Travel. It's no wonder, as one-quarter of business travelers polled said they book air, car or hotel outside of corporate travel policy more than five times a year.
The "bad guy" facet, ranked as most challenging by 32 percent of travel manager participants, topped four other items: senior-management pressure on cost savings (22 percent), misperceptions about the job function (16 percent), moving to online bookings (13 percent) and working with the travel management company (9 percent).
The survey did not query respondents about rates of policy compliance.
"I used to see more violations, especially a couple years back when everyone was going to the Internet for the $99 fare," said Corporate Travel Directions president Ed O'Connor. "Over the last ten years, I've seen policies and compliance improve quite a bit. It's better in a couple categories, most significantly on the air side."
"Companies typically have a very small number of substantial violations that reach several hundred dollars," said TRW Consulting president Tom Wilkinson. "In my experience, when a person violates policy and buys a round-the-world first class ticket, there is usually something else going on. People rarely are interested in committing a serious violation just for a cushier seat." Still, he said, "In gigantic corporations, you could run into some significant dollars, and policy compliance can be a never-ending fight. Travel managers have their hands full because they are charged with enforcing the rules, but don't necessarily have the authority."
The two consultants agreed that it is hotel policy compliance which has been most difficult this year, partly due to skyrocketing rates outrunning dated per diems and rigid policy parameters.
After cost savings at 54 percent, 23 percent of travel managers responding to CWT said that ensuring traveler compliance to policy is the function senior management most expects them to perform. Apparently contributing to the task's difficulty, corporate travel managers and business travelers have fairly distinct views about certain aspects of policy, CWT's surveys showed.
While 60 percent of 650 travel managers polled in 12 nations (including clients of other travel management providers) said business travelers frequently or occasionally consider corporate travel policy restrictions to be a negative influence on their business travel experience, just 27 percent of 2,100 traveler respondents agreed.
Ninety-three percent of travel managers (99 percent in North America) said business travelers are very or somewhat familiar with policy, while 79 percent of travelers said the same of themselves. More than 80 percent of travel managers polled said travelers understand that there are ramifications for them and their companies when they consistently book outside of policy for air, car or hotel, but just 46 percent of travelers said they believed there were such ramifications.
According to the CWT survey results, travel managers favor both communication and booking controls as mechanisms for ensuring policy, but most travelers cited financial or disciplinary penalties as the most effective methods. Fifty-seven percent of travel managers surveyed by CWT said they had communicated non-reimbursement as a ramification, and 28 percent said travelers have been told they face disciplinary actions "or outright termination."
"A high percentage of companies don't include enforcement language in their policies," said O'Connor. "If you delay expense reimbursement somehow, or question the people when they go outside of a mandated policy, that works effectively. Even identifying when someone has gone out of policy may be all you need, because if travelers [at least] get hassled for non-compliance, it probably won't happen again."
According to Wilkinson, "Exception reporting has made travelers aware that they are being watched, and that there are consequences for non-compliance."
Though CWT's results may point to a need for organizations to make their policies more restrictive, more than half of travel manager participants said policies had already become significantly or slightly more restrictive over the past three years. None said policy had become significantly less restrictive, while 4 percent said slightly less and 40 percent said policy restrictiveness had remained the same.
Sixty-four percent of travel managers polled said corporate travel policy is mandated, but 56 percent of travelers described their companies' policies as mere guidelines. Results for this question varied significantly by region, with the lowest percentage of travel managers reporting mandated policies residing in North America, at 56 percent, versus 77 percent in Europe and 73 percent in Asia-Pacific. More than half of European travelers see policy as mandated, compared with 38 percent in North America and 40 percent in Asia-Pacific.
Thirty percent of North American travelers said they break policy more than five times a year, versus 21 percent in Europe and 23 percent in Asia-Pacific.