It might be tempting to just slap up a haphazard business travel strategy for your company and claim victory. However, travellers, managers, and administrators may in the future be influenced by your policies.
It’s conceivable that it won’t change anyone’s behaviour at all, in which case you’ll be able to centralise your business trips, making it easier to keep track of and plan for business trips.
First, we’ll define corporate travel policy and discuss why it could be useful for a business like yours. Then, we’ll dive deeper into some essential topics and resources, such as the best methods for creating a travel policy, guidelines for creating a flexible corporate travel policy template, methods for achieving near-complete policy compliance, technological solutions for managing trip approval, and tools for automating the business travel booking process.
Specifically, what elements make up a travel policy?
To put it simply, a company’s travel policy is a codified collection of rules and processes outlining how employees should request time off for business trips, organise excursions, and handle the costs associated with such trips. Business travel rules are often formulated by the Finance Manager in conjunction with the Travel Manager. Information such as whether or not workers are allowed to fly business class, the minimum number of weeks or business days in advance that trips must be booked, and whether or not employees must take any special measures while travelling alone are often included in such policies.
It should be evident that planning a trip and its accompanying expenditures are just part of what a travel insurance is concerned with. It also guides your itinerary and affects the performance of employees in many other fields. Choosing the right travel request approval workflow is essential here.
The need for a policy on business travel is best shown by the following question.
When everyone knows the ground rules, they can play by them equally. When it comes to travelling, the rules aren’t just rules. They shouldn’t cause someone to roll their eyes or become annoyed. Instead, regulations governing transportation might benefit both travellers and businesses.
Exactly what should be covered by a company’s policy on business travel?
Your company’s travel policy should reflect how your organisation travels, who travels for your business, and why workers go. However, there are several things that every company’s policy should cover.
Pre-approved booking process and tool must be included. Do you want consumers to use a centralised system for booking business trips so that you can streamline your partnership with suppliers? Should employees be responsible for arranging their own bookings in line with corporate policy, or should they instead submit their travel requests to an office manager who handles all reservations?
You should also specify in your policy the categories of expenses that are allowed and those that are not. By doing so, you can be certain that your business travellers won’t rack up excessive charges on the company credit card they were issued or make any unauthorised purchases for which they won’t be reimbursed. The policy should be extremely precise about what kinds of costs are covered, such as corporate entertainment, business lunches, and event registration fees.
Plans and regulations for making accommodations
Business travel policies should also take into account the company’s hotel policy and the expenses of lodging. Given that every company’s corporate housing policy will have its own specific requirements for living quarters, it’s important that those requirements be spelled out clearly from the get-go.
