Finding metrics to support traveller wellbeing

With the increase in travel, meeting planners need to think about employee wellbeing standards while considering organisational goals and environmental impact. This is what Richard Johnson, global head of Solutions Group, CWT, and Tricia Alsup, travel manager, Dollar General, shared at a recent GBTA session in Dallas on how to measure, assess, report, and act on wellbeing metrics.

Johnson said: “The topic is significant since traveller wellbeing is frequently squeezed uncomfortably into safety and security. Finding metrics to represent the travellers’ needs is part of my job, so I was glad to be able to share with such an important audience.” He shared some of the following data:

Stats on employee burnout and turnover

· US$125-$190 billion in annual healthcare spending is due to workplace burnout.

· A burned-out employee costs US$3,400 out of every US$10,000 in salary through disengaged and less productive work.

· Disengaged teams suffer a turnover rate up to 43% higher than engaged teams.

· The replacement cost for the average worker is one-half to two times the annual salary.

High risks for not focusing on traveller wellbeing

· 87% of travellers feel that the quality of their business travel impacts their business results.

· Road warriors grapple with health issues, including obesity, poor sleep patterns, hypertension, increased smoking and alcohol usage, and high levels of anxiety and stress.

· A World Bank study showed 75% of staff reported high or very high stress related to business travel.

Why travel is good

· Travel has the ability to decrease stress and anxiety, and improve mental, physical, emotional well-being.

· Travel, according to scientists, can boost creativity by breaking the cycle of stagnation. Travel also provides an opportunity for employees to mentally unplug, allowing them to recover from potential burnout.

· Travel has the potential to increase job satisfaction, employee engagement and revenue growth.

· Face-to-face interactions are 34 times more successful than an email.

Examining data points

Simple ways to measure traveller wellbeing can be done using existing travel data. Johnson’s demonstrated instances of the types of data points that could be examined and how planners can transform transactional data into employee wellbeing insights.

He said: “We conducted a poll on LinkedIn leading up to the GBTA event and asked people to weigh in on the aspects of travel that impact them the most when traveling. The top three responses from voters were: cabin class for long-haul flights; stress from balancing workload; being away from home (family and friends).

“Leveraging the insights and feedback form this poll we created a virtual ‘whiteboarding session’ as I wanted to walk the audience through simple and straightforward ways to measure and track wellbeing impacts like the ones mentioned above.”

Johnson added that the goal of this exercise was to show that after planners have established their criteria, they can then begin to place an impact score on each of these factors by forming a threshold of what they would consider to be acceptable, unacceptable and in between.

For cabin class, he cited an example of having thresholds set at five and seven hours. “We have determined that if an employee travels business class, that is the best experience they can have, regardless of the conditions, so that cabin class would get 100% in every scenario. However, for those of us who must travel economy, our comfort levels are often influenced by the length of our flight. We applied thresholds and scores, such as flights of less than six hours in economy are acceptable and will receive a score of 100%. Flights from six to eight hours start to negatively impact wellbeing and would therefore receive a score of 50%, and flights of over eight hours in economy will likely be physically impactful for most and therefore would score a 0%.”

Other categories that could be examined include Work-Life Balance, Departure and Arrival Times, and Jetlag. Other tangible ways to incorporate wellbeing metrics into travel programme strategy and reporting include:

· Travel policy reviews

· Sustainability initiative impact analysis

· Business leader reporting

· Traveller level reporting and education

· Supplier evaluations and discussion.