For example, the firm's seven offices work through an authorized travel agent, which is audited every 18 months. To help one client achieve that balance, Weeks' firm surveyed the client's traveling employees. The results helped management determine employees' priorities. What it found was that safety was a priority for the firm's female employees, who want hotels that offer room service or on-site dining facilities so they don't have to leave the building for meals. Implementing this priority in the policy costs very little, says Weeks.
Weeks also points out that most companies authorize mid-size versus compact cars.
And, because car rental makes up only a small percentage of most company's travel budgets, authorized upgrades are a relatively inexpensive way to boost the morale of traveling employees. With about 50 percent of the company's 58-person workforce on the road, Baty says, the company travel policy is designed to minimize hassles for the firm's traveling employees. It also provides corporate gas and credit cards. The company even allows companions on business trips, although it doesn't pay their expenses. When travel takes an employee away from home for three weeks or longer, the company pays for travel home for a long weekend, Friday to Monday.