Why Need to Have a Travel Manuals for Employees
- Companies have a well-defined travel process in place.
- Complete and robust management of company travel policy and procedure.
- Substantial Cost savings for the company as the company gets the negotiated rates by consistently using the preferred airline, Car rentals, Hotels, etc.
- All-inclusive traveler profile for all the employees.
- The company fulfills its responsibilities towards employee care and help.
- The employee can focus on the core business without worrying about little details related to travel.
- The parameters as defined under the Business travel policy are known to all employees so there is no confusion while making travel arrangements.
- Travel policy set clear guidelines to be followed while traveling.
- Time-saving is another important aspect of defining clear rules and regulations to be followed under a travel policy.
- Safe for employees to travel long/short distances whether domestic or international with the company authorized vendors.
- Transparent ways of carrying out every transaction from employees and employer end.
- Makes and speeds up the reimbursement process as both the employee and employer are known of the claim process to be followed as per policy directives.’
- Proper implementation of travel policy results in automated expense reporting.
- The predictability of expense is almost known to both employee and employer.
- The travel policy in place develops a more cost-conscious culture.
- It generates valuable corporate travel data.
- In case there is any discrepancy in the expense report it can be validated by taking the help of the travel policy.
What constitutes the best practice in travel policy in corporate:
- All the travel expenses such as food, lodging, transportation, etc. must be included in it.
- Defines clearly what is acceptable and non-acceptable.
- Clarity on filling out the expense report.
- Details on how to get approval, whom to get approval from etc. must be clearly mentioned.
- Details on deadline and procedure for submission of the expense report.
- The policy must be clearly explained to new hires in the company and updated policies should be available on the web 24*7.
- Unforeseen circumstances such as delay of flight, and cancellation of air/ rail tickets must be included in the Travel policies for employees in India or abroad.
- It must be reviewed on a regular basis and should be updated also.
Measures to be taken in the development of an effective travel policy.
Regular meeting with travelers and getting their feedback helps to know about the loopholes in the process and procedure of traveling and the same can be rectified while reviewing the travel policy. So proper feedback needs to be taken.
- There is a need to provide some basic "Do's "and don'ts "while designing the corporate travel policy.
- Consider including non-expense-related material in the travel policy. Employees' ways to conduct themselves become more important.
- Practical concerns which include safety procedures needed to arrive early at the airport/station, and documentation to carry with themselves should be included in the travel policy.
Seeing by managers all those employees who travel for business how can they increase efficiency, decrease spending, and do such things that help manage both the employee and the employer travel well as specified in Travel policy in HR.
Incentivize: The employees should be offered some cash back for the money saved by them. Offer them the reward points. Make it a game that which the employee who saves the most would win a prize.
The traveling management client must provide all services such as expense reporting, booking, etc. through the mobile application.
- Regular update of travel policy is just as it takes advantage of emerging technologies and travel innovation that helps to save the organization's spending. Thus, it serves the purpose of traveling policy.
- Save and keep all the documentation while traveling like hard copies of all receipts, tickets, passes, and other documents. Every detail must be explained in the expense report.
- Regular auditing of management processes and receipts should be done. It is required to clean up the system and employees get refunded in a timely manner.
- Make the reimbursement process fast. Fast completion of expense report and reimbursement process when goes smoothly and quickly increases the employee efficiency thus saving on cost.
- Reward frequent travelers publically. Send an email to all employees acknowledging traveling employee efforts.
- Take and give regular feedback from employees. Honest feedback not only helps in evaluating performance and accelerates improvement.