Here’s how to keep your traveling employees motivated and feeling like part of the team during challenging travel times.
When you are building up your business and trying to harness its potential, you’ve got to expand your reach further and further out. This means that there will come a time when you have to go on the road or, at the very least, have employees go out for meetings with clients and do all-important networking. But as your employees are doing business in places all around the country or the world, it can prove challenging to keep them motivated as well as make them feel like part of the team. So what can you do to make sure that you are keeping them on-side but also make sure you are managing them well?
Important Protection On The Road
They are out in the open and this means that anything could happen, especially if they are using a vehicle to get from A to B. When they are traveling long distances it’s vital that you have protection in place, whether this is car accident legal help or medical insurance to cover them if they get caught up in a dangerous situation. It’s also important to have other assistance in place, like roadside assistance or a travel agency to look after their flights. It’s also important for you to have adequate contact with them. If you can’t provide this, make sure they have a way to get in contact with their team leaders if something happens.
Be Clear In Your Communication
We’ve got to be strict in terms of deadlines. For example, if you send a telephone call or an email you may want to implement a “two-hour rule” for them to respond. But there can be boundaries for those specific guidelines. If you send a message at 11 p.m. it would be unrealistic to get them to respond within two hours. But you’ve also got to make sure that your employees feel connected to the main office. You can do this by having regular contact with them at a specific time every few days. This doesn’t just give the employee the feeling that they aren’t forgotten about, but it also gives them a platform to voice their concerns. When they are out on the road a lot of things are beyond their (and your) control.
Think About Their Well-Being
When employees are out on the road traveling from hotel to hotel it can be a very lonely existence. Ensuring that you are keeping in contact with them is one thing but if you can give them support in other ways, this will work wonders for their frame of mind. It doesn’t have to be anything massive; something as simple as booking a spa session or sending them a voucher to spend on something for themselves can keep their morale up. Traveling on the road can be a very lonely pursuit. And when they aren’t in the office they can be a different sort of person. But if you can focus on keeping their well-being up this will help everyone.
