As we have seen with the release of our new study in partnership with Forrester Consulting, there is a growing awareness that travel and expense (T&E) processes will change significantly in the coming years.
Whereaspreviouslywe explored what this transition might mean from atechnical perspective , what will this digital shift mean from an employee perspective? This question becomes all the more relevant in a world where many companies are being forced to ask themselves how do they retain and attract talent, how to they keep teams motivated, connected and engaged? In all conversations I am having across a broad range of verticals, the search for talent is real, the importance of social capital is being carefully balanced with the risk many companies are facing with the ‘silent resignation’. Our Forrester study confirms the importance and the opportunity we all now have by putting the employee as a core consideration for technology and process decisions.
Demand for change
For this research, we spoke with 525 decision makers involved in expense management for large corporations, across nine markets as well as five in-depth interviews. What we observe is that the post-pandemic world of hybrid work has left many organisations struggling to deliver the much-anticipated employee experience when it comes to how to optimize collaboration and engagement in line with CSR commitments. Whereas previously, travelling from the office to meet clients or teams was a non-complex task, this is no longer the case today. In today’s world, meetings and collaboration are being conducted from multiple locations, some travel, others connecting remotely with the expectation for an optimal experience for everyone. When you add to this, the strong sustainability agenda all corporations have on their minds, it is easy to understand the question leaders are asking themselves: ‘Where do I even start?’
Compared to ourprevious study , carried out in 2020, what is concerning and where we see significant opportunity for change, is in the considerable drop in satisfaction amongst leaders with their current T&E tools and processes. Add to this the spike in expectations from employees increasingly demanding the right workplace technology to enable them to do their best work from anywhere, we can start to understand the delicate balance in the decisions which will have to be made.
It’s not all doom and gloom however, as on the upside, this can be fixed!
New look digital experience
If corporations need to deploy new digital tools to meet the changing expectations of their employees and address these concerns above what do you need to consider from an employee perspective?
We can see two clear avenues ahead. The first, on how to improve collaboration and the second, on how to remove friction from the in-trip experience.
It all starts with an end-to-end collaboration experience, and this will be central to the new world of T&E. It was with this in mind thatCytric Easy came to be. Embedded in Microsoft 365, Cytric Easy allows users to plan trips and share travel details with colleagues without ever leaving their day-to-day applications such as Microsoft Teams. In the same environment where employees connect today, travellers can exchange, create, and share a trip making the business travel process faster, easier, and more collaborative than before.
Personally, as a user of the experience, the biggest advantage for me is twofold, first and foremost it is the reduction of my time spent planning and discussing trips with colleagues, as well as offering me the option to boost chances to connect and collaborate as I can share my itinerary with my colleagues and customers and even share a ride from the airport. However, I have to admit that my personal favourite is the ability to finalise my expense report in Microsoft Teams on my return!
The second area of focus will be around addressing the expectations and the current pain point of employees on spend. The democratisation of virtual cards for on-the-go expenses, will allow corporations to overcome employees concerns around spending their own money, it will also facilitate the lives of finance departments, auditors and approvers who will also benefit from a better all-round process and experience. If corporations were to deploy virtual cards, supplying travellers with a pre-approved expense budget for each trip, with spending coming from company funds, think about the friction this removes and the greater transparency this offers on spend categories, on supplier relevance, on driving decisions and so much more. A true game-changer in my view.
This innovation will also mean that expense reports will become a lot simpler, as payments are made from a defined and agreed budget, greatly simplifying expense management for travellers, their managers and finance teams.
When you compare the above two changes to the historic experience of liaising with travel management departments to book a trip, share trip details with colleagues, or wait on the finance department to reconcile and repay expenses, you can see how with a few small changes, and an integrated, digital experience, can you rise up to the expectations of employees while meeting your corporate strategic goals.
We believe it and we live it. Exciting change is coming to the T&E experience, with a new digital world emerging. Amadeus is working to develop the solutions company leaders and employees need today and tomorrow to succeed.
If you want to know more, we would love to talk to with you and help you build and protect your social capital. Read the full report:A new employee experience:new digital workplace .
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