Office managers are usually busy employees who handle everyone’s problems from managing meetings to booking trips for the team and the managers. To become a better office manager, the latter should acquire several skills.
This article shows you the ultimate skills to establish a successful travel management strategy for your company.
1. What is corporate trip management ?
Corporate travel management is the strategic and efficient administration of corporate trips. It aims to optimize cost, enhance productivity, and ensure seamless corporate travel experiences for employees. Office managers play an important role in enhancing efficiency, containing costs, and providing employees with a smooth and productive travel experience. This article guides you through the role of office managers in corporate travel management.
2. What's an office manager's role in optimising corporate travel?
An office manager in corporate travel management wears multiple hats to ensure that business trips are organised and aligned with the company’s objectives. Here’s a breakdown of their responsibilities:
- Travel Policy Development
Develop and enforce travel policies that align with company goals, taking into account budget constraints, employee preferences, and compliance requirements.
- Booking and Coordination
In certain companies, office managers take charge of the selection of suitable booking platforms and negotiate with travel service providers to secure cost-effective rates.
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Office managers also coordinate and plan travel itineraries, considering factors like meeting schedules, time zones, and employee preferences.
- Expense Management
Another important task for office managers is to monitor and manage travel budgets to ensure cost-effectiveness. They also do implement and oversee expense tracking tools to maintain financial transparency and control.
Check how Ayruu statistic reports work.
- Employee Support
Successful office managers provide support to employees during the travel process, addressing concerns, and ensuring a positive travel experience. They facilitate clear communication regarding travel policies, updates, and any changes that may impact employees.
Download the Office Managers' guide
A complete guide to optimise business travel management.
Practical recommendations and free templates to follow.
3. How to successfully manage corporate travel?
- Be innovative
Technologies are developed to facilitate our daily tasks. Advanced tools (software, apps, websites, etc) are designed to help office managers decrease their workload. When managing business trips for employees, office managers have to follow the latest changes in the domain. Traditional travel management tools require a lot of time to implement, and for that reason, get informed on the latest technologies to save your company time and as a result, money.
Ayruu for instance is an alternative to traditional travel management tools. We have developed an innovative travel aggregator that will enable your company to save time and money on business trips. Intuitive, ergonomic, and user-friendly. Check the advantages of our tool here.
- Put the travellers at the centre of your strategy
Once you find the appropriate technology. It would be best if you start thinking differently. The traveller is the most important circle of the strategy. In this context, Ayruu puts the traveller at the centre of the solution. We have established our features based on travellers’ needs and welfare.
When choosing the travel management solution, put all your focus on the travellers’ needs and of course your company’s values.
- Communication is key
Having the best tool is crucial. However, communication about the features of the tool and its operating modes is more important. Make sure to make training sessions for the technology’s users. Inform them of the latest updates and more importantly, explain the reason behind adopting the new tool.
Communication is also helpful when putting in place a travel policy. Travellers need to have access to these guidelines in order to respect them.
- Time Management Skills
In business, saving time equals saving money.
A successful office manager identifies time-consuming tasks and tries to find solutions for them. For example, he/she looks for a solution to automate the process or delete certain intermediary tasks.
Using Ayruu, we delete an important time-consuming task for office managers which is treating expense reports. We encourage digitalizing this task or even better, the suppression of those reports.
Do you know why? The answer is just below
It’s time for changing traditional business travel management tools! We offer you a free demo to discover the advantages of our solution for your company and your business traveller!
Download a FREE Travel Policy Template !
A detailed template with the best practices to ensure compliance with your company policy.
