Planning a business trip for your employees or colleagues
Your employees’ or colleagues’ performance on the road is directly related to how well their trip was organised and prepared. Here’s how to plan a successful trip.
Planning a business trip should always make productivity and keeping the whole trip as stress-free and as safe, particularly in a world dominated by COVID, as possible. To do this requires strategic and smart planning.
After all, there are a lot of factors involved to bear in mind, specifics to work through, arrangements to make, and schedules to align. And even after all that has been done, you still have to deal with the prospect of issues turning up when your traveller is on the road. Again, with rules and guidance changing all of the time with the pandemic, this is even more important.
As a travel planner, the best thing you can do is to be as prepared as possible so that you can be free to fix issues as and when they occur.
But, how do you go about doing that?
Consider their usual preferences
While the pandemic may mean that their normal preferences can not be catered to, use the things that you know they like and dislike to plan their trip.
Maybe they prefer quick connections between flights, or perhaps they would rather have a more leisurely layover. Do they prefer self-catering accommodation or hotels?
Check the current guidelines
Things keep changing at the moment, from periods of quarantine to whether a countries borders are open at all for non-essential travel. Some airlines and countries may insist on evidence that you are COVID-free before you travel – and if they don’t right now, they almost certainly will in the near future.
You can overcome this issue by making sure that your employee or colleague has a fit to fly test certificate.
Create an itinerary
Most people like to know what to expect, especially when it comes to working matters. Ensure they have their schedules and timetables, routes, times, addresses and all the necessary information and 1documents all collated in one place.
Plan for extras
While it is a business trip and they are getting paid to do it as part of their job, there is no reason why you can’t make it an enjoyable activity too.
In fact, by making sure they are having a good time and throwing in a few extras – giving them a day off to sightsee, allowing them to take their husband or wife with them – means that they are much more likely to be relaxed and therefore work better while they are there.
Debrief after the trip
Once the traveller has arrived back home, arrange a debrief meeting This is a valuable way to gain feedback on how to improve future business travel arrangements.
Ask them what they feel went well or not so well, what they thought of the accommodation and catering and so on. This will helpt to inform you going forward and make each business trip more productive and offer more value for money.
Photo by Basil Samuel Lade
