Keeping stress levels to a minimum during a business trip is a major challenge. Travelers have to worry about meetings, lodging, rental cars, collecting receipts for expense reports and 100 other things all in the course of a short trip - and that quickly adds up to one overstressed business traveler.
Yet these trips are necessary for the success of any business. A recent report commissioned by HEC Paris, citing information from Oxford Economics, noted that the average business would lose 25 percent of its customers and 28 percent of its revenue if it no longer engaged in travel for the sake of having face-to-face meetings with clients.
Citing figures from the U.S. Commerce Department, the HEC report also noted that each dollar spent on business travel between 1995 and 2007 provided for additional revenue of $12.50 and new profits of $3.80 - a huge return-on-investment. So clearly, business travel is an essential part of any organization's continued success. However, the process can also cause great stress to those employees who are sent out on the road.
The HEC report also details a survey that was sent to business travelers employed by a range of large firms across the country, with individuals from many different business sectors participating. The survey found that the need to complete post-trip expense reports was one of many factors causing major stress levels during business trips - suggesting that more businesses need to invest in automated expense reporting software, so that costs and receipts will be logged automatically during business trips, with no stress involved. The survey also noted the other factors causing high stress levels during business trips. According to the report, the four most common sources of business travel stress are delayed and lost bags, poor internet connections, medium and long-haul economy flights, and finally airport delays and layovers.
Business travel expert offers tips on how to make your next business trip a success Keeping stress low during a business trip is essential, as the survey detailed above illustrates. Rhonda Abrams, a publisher of books for entrepreneurs and president of The Planning Shop, recently pitched into the effort to de-stress business trips by writing a guide for how to "win" during your next business trip.
"To increase your return on travel takes a bit of planning," she wrote for the Poughkeepsie Journal. "Before a trip you're busy taking care of pressing things, but carve out just a little time to consider ways of increasing the value of your upcoming travel." Abrams, via the news outlet, suggested that business travelers start by ascertaining what they want to accomplish during a trip - defined as a potential "win." Abrams also suggests that business travelers aim to collect "multiple wins" during their business trip by having a secondary and even tertiary purpose, in addition to the primary one.
She also suggested in the Journal article that travelers "use hotel as a second office," so that they spend less time in transit and in traffic. She concluded by suggesting travelers should use loyalty programs and benefits by working with trusted lodging locations and other services, to help limit the costs listed on expense reports at the end of the trip. All these suggestions can help to bring down the high stress levels detailed in the report above for both seasoned and rookie business travelers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment