The trend toward redrawn corporate reporting lines means the responsibility for travel may sit in procurement, security, finance or human resources (HR). And regardless of the reporting structure, a travel manager must collaborate with all of those departments to be successful.
A Blueprint for Travel Managers: Partnering with HR is the first report in a BCD Travel Inform series exploring corporate travel’s evolving relationships with HR, security and finance. It uses original BCD research to explore the challenges that hinder what should be a natural alliance between travel and HR. And it offers tips and tools for overcoming the hurdles. Among the findings:
- More than 40% of the travel managers surveyed by BCD rarely or never interact with their HR colleagues.
- Over three-quarters of respondents identify major obstacles to travel-HR collaboration.
- Almost 60% of the travel managers surveyed never share data with HR.
But A Blueprint for Travel Managers: Partnering with HR also highlights opportunities. Travel has a role to play in HR priorities identified by survey respondents, including:
- Talent acquisition
- Employee satisfaction
- Employee engagement
- Duty of care
- Wellness
The report details how data can form a bridge between travel and HR because they share an interest in information that yields a deeper understanding of employees. Trip lengths, total days on the road, number of in-policy bookings, frequency of vacation days added to business trips—these data points and more provide important insights about employee travel patterns, behavior, productivity, health and satisfaction.
A checklist for travel and HR managers wraps up the report—guiding them on what to do next to build strong, mutually beneficial partnerships.
