How Business Travel Hits Home

Working as a consultant for travel safety, health and security, I have the privilege of preparing business leaders to fulfil their duty of care towards their team.

As I consult and teach and train, the norms of 2019 (legal, behavioural and cultural knowledge of the destination; health and security risks; local travel; accommodation; communication; emergencies) continue in similar ways, but there are now two further considerations to take into account.

Firstly, the possibility and impact of extended isolation away from home.

Even with the best preparation for travel, the rules around Covid-19 have changed frequently and without much warning, and the best laid plans can be useless. This leads to examples of travellers being required to stay an extra week or more away from home when contracting Covid-19, and even travellers without Covid-19 can sometimes find themselves without correct documentation required to return home in a timely fashion.

The psychosocial stressors of such (and other) examples related to business travel have already been examined, and an increase in burnout observed across industries and cultures^[1]. What needs to be added to the assessment of such risk is the impact on family when the traveller’s return is delayed so significantly. The loss of expected proximity, and the additional workload placed on those at home as they juggle daily life, are compounded by anxiety for their loved one.

The key questions that arise for those responsible for approving the travel (e.g. the employer) include provision of employee assistance and — critically — the support of relations / dependents of the traveller. This latter area has typically not been a consideration, and rapidly needs to be assessed. Although ignoring (or, more generously, not seeing the importance of) the impact that travel has on the wider relationships of the employee has been acceptable in the past, that’s no longer the case. As hybrid working (a topic for a future post) rises in both popularity and governmental support, it will become increasingly difficult for any employer to ignore the home impact of this dimension of work.

The second new consideration is the emergence of employees expecting to be able to make a choice not to travel, based on their personal judgment of risk or even simply their own preference of timing and other priorities, in opposition to their employer’s expectations.

The last two years of high concern about being around other people, and the risk to self, has made people more ready not only to judge the behaviours of others vis-à-vis their own safety, but also to make their own judgment on the threat posed by a destination, simply by searching online and availing themselves of any source of data on infections, deaths, and rules and regulations. The judgment on this basis may not be accurate at all, but it still gets made, and then affects traveller readiness.

I suggest that a relational perspective can support a response to both these major points, and be beneficial to both the traveller and the sending organization.

An employer could request travel of their employee, and as they do so enquire of the employee how the travel could be planned to minimize stress and effects on dependents whilst they are away. Improved class of travel, for example, could reduce fatigue and stress, leading to better levels of energy and focus both at the destination and on return to home.

It’s certainly not been the norm in the past, but I would argue that this kind of approach would vastly improve morale, demonstrate the value placed on an employee’s family / dependents, lead to better retention of staff, and help with recruitment. For the business, it might even usefully scale down the presumption to travel when these additional offers of help — and cost — are taken into account. Finally, it will reduce the psychosocial stressors (as mentioned above) that both the traveller and family / dependents will be experiencing.

It’s unlikely national governments will expedite laws to bring such changes about. It’s more likely that industry bodies, unions, and individual role modelling by major employers will be needed. This is where we need leaders to place a higher value on relationships, and relational thinking: to comprehend that it’s a win-win situation for both employer and traveller.

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