Banish business traveller burnout with CTM Wellbeing Scores

 

At Corporate Travel Management (CTM) we serve business travellers and international companies while also being a global company ourselves, with many of our team travelling frequently for work. How our own people travel and connect in person brings real-life experience to our service and products, but also helps us understand the pitfalls and potential impact high-intensity travel can have on our personal wellbeing.

To help companies and travellers take the guesswork out of traveller wellbeing we’re launching our new Wellbeing Score as part of an updated Traveller Trips product in CTM Portal, the home of our customer’s travel programs. We’ve done the hard work by calculating the impact of overnight trips, time-zone changes, last-minute weekend travel and much more to show you which travellers are on the road to burning out or ready to fly.

How much travel in one month is too much? What role does jet-lag recovery play? How does the mode of travel, the duration, the cabin class or even which days of the week we’re away from home impact a traveller’s wellbeing? We believe it’s time companies and travel program managers had quantifiable metrics to work from combined with intuitive tools and analysis.

The addition of Wellbeing Scores has been the result of a significant combined effort from across CTM. Chief Product Officer, ANZ, Cherie Drummond is excited we’re bringing it to market at such a critical time in business travel. “Quantifying traveller wellbeing was a big challenge, and many travellers and companies have had time to evaluate and reset what travel means to them at an individual and organisational level. We needed to focus on specific, measurable factors like time zone changes, time spent travelling, class of travel but also some other factors that add stress and pressure to travel. Thanks to our end-to-end approach we’re able to utilise data from across the lifecycle of a trip to create a true picture or score of how that trip will impact a traveller.”

“When you look at trips in that way and multiply them by how many of varying intensity a traveller has completed, or more importantly are planning for in a 90-day window, we’re able to provide very clear guidance on if this person is fit to fly, in need of recovery, or should adjust their upcoming travel.”

Making people a priority

In CTM’s 2022 global customer survey, when asked for their top travel program focus areas, CTM customers ranked “Traveller risk, safety and wellbeing” as a top three priority, narrowly behind “Cost reduction” and “Customer service”. In the same survey, we found that “Health, Safety and Wellbeing” was the most important sustainability consideration for our customers, with 92% of respondents ranking it either “Very Important” or “Important” to their travel program.

Dynamic by design

The Traveller Trips product is much more than a static report or monthly dashboard though. When the team was designing it a key component was making it as real-time as possible and intelligent enough to help program managers make decisions. Product Designer Andrew Huynh/Nathan Johnston explains our design approach with Traveller Trips “We wanted to make Traveller Trips interactive but also highly intuitive, that’s why we took our Wellbeing Score of 1-100 and translated it on the screen into a traffic light display where you can immediately hone in on who’s at risk. You can then open up their full itinerary, even add it straight to your calendar, which is great for line managers.”

Sustainability for people and the planet

“Business travel is such an integral part of how so many global and local companies thrive that there needs to be a a strategy around how it needs to work for the good of both the employee, the company, and the longer-term sustainability of our environment.” Says John Nicholls, CTM Global Head of ESG & Sustainability, who was integral to the project. “It was important for us to show emission calculations alongside individual traveller trips and their wellbeing to give travel managers and company leadership the same level of insight an individual has when they’re booking a trip. It encourages better decisions and helps our customers raise awareness around emissions and sustainability in their own organisations, helping generate buy-in.”

A window into wellbeing

Traveller Trips lives right inside CTM Portal, so travel program managers and approved admins can immediately see where their attention is needed, both from a traveller wellbeing perspective but also quick and simple access to colleague itineraries, perfect for busy travel arrangers and executive assistants.

The new Traveller Trips product and embedded Wellbeing Scores will be available to CTM customers in Australia and New Zealand from March 6^th onwards, with other CTM regions to follow. If you’d like a full demo of Traveller Trips and to learn more about our Wellbeing Score calculations, just talk to one of our team today.

It’s easy to think of business travel as no different from a personal trip. Business travellers can enjoy the perks of travelling for work, like visiting new cities, attending events, socialising with colleagues or even flying business class. However, our health and business travel are intertwined, so companies are taking steps to track traveller wellbeing while expanding their risk management and duty of care efforts. Get started today with CTM Wellbeing Scores.