How well do employees understand your travel policy?

Policy compliance ranked in the top 5 focus areas for customer travel programmes in the 2024 CTM Global Customer Survey, so have you ever considered how well your travellers understand their entitlements under your company’s travel policy?

A travel policy is only as effective as the travellers’ awareness of its guidelines and how it supports duty of care, efficiency, cost savings, and compliance. A well-crafted travel policy involves input from various stakeholders to establish clear guidelines for travellers and bookers, ensuring alignment with the company’s travel programme goals and matched with the needs and expectations of travellers. However, its success depends on effective communication and the simplicity of the policy.

Let’s look at the importance of travel policy compliance, the barriers faced and how you can boost your travellers’ knowledge to deliver A+ compliance.

Overcoming travel compliance challenges

Ensuring compliance with travel policies can be tricky due to several challenges. One challenge might be the presence of training gaps. New starters or existing employees transitioning into roles that require travel may lack training or communication around the policy requirements, resulting in accidental non-compliance. Further, overly detailed or complex travel policies may deter employees from fully engaging or embracing them, leading to intentional non-compliance.

Organisations can also reduce any unnecessary complexity by implementing travel management tools that integrate company policies directly into the booking process, preventing employees from accidentally booking outside guidelines. With more workforces operating in hybrid and remote environments, the adoption of formal business processes and procedures is important and how you manage your business travel bookings is no different. Utilising an online booking tool like CTM’s Lightning, helps organisations achieve stronger adherence to their business travel policy and better understand the reasons for non-compliance to drive policy optimisation

The impact of non-compliance

The results of non-compliance can have an impact on the organisation, such as unnecessary costs, straining budgets and resources, and may lead to weakening relationships with preferred suppliers and the ability to retain negotiated rates. Additionally, a lack of understanding can expose employees to potential risks during their travels. Ultimately, non-adherence reduces the overall effectiveness of travel policies, which can impact the organisation’s objectives and performance.

Tips to improve travel policy compliance

Communication and training will help support your success and you can work with your travel management company to do this. It is a critical step for travel managers to communicate the importance of a travel policy in supporting the organisation’s goals to employees and stakeholders to achieve their desired results. Organisations can ensure effective communication of travel practices and combat resistance to change by incorporating these simple tips:

• Identify champions within your business who can support in communicating the importance of the policy and what it entails.
• Ensure the policy is effectively documented and easily accessible and your OBT is configured to deliver on that policy.
• Create easy-to-read versions or summaries of the policy, making it accessible for employees to reference on the go.
• Engage employees in every stage of implementing the travel policy to ensure they feel involved, informed and comfortable with the changes.
• Conduct training sessions following the implementation of the travel policy to ensure that travellers are comfortable with the outcomes and understand the importance.
• Include education in new employee induction and onboarding training to immediately introduce the business priorities for business travel.
• Host workshops or webinars that refresh employees on travel policy details.
• Regularly communicate updates or changes in the policy, ensuring employees are always in the loop.
• Encourage feedback from employees travelling to ensure that the policy is easy to follow.

Benefits of ensuring compliance

A well-designed travel policy, supported by your travel management company and seamlessly integrated with your OBT, encourages the right booking behaviour. When effectively communicated to both travellers and travel bookers, compliance becomes effortless, helping your policy deliver the intended results.

Key benefits include maximising your travel budget, centralising and simplifying the tracking of travel spend and booking behaviour, ensuring employees book through approved and safe channels that support duty of care and maintaining consistency across company travel experiences. Ultimately, a strong travel policy fosters efficiency, safety and professionalism while driving long-term value for your organisation.