Some people love to travel for business. Others hate it with a passion and will avoid it at all costs. It can be a beneficial process that helps to train employees in a new skill or help a team get onto the same page. It can also be a very costly experience that provides little in actual benefits.
Here are the primary pros and cons of traveling for work which should be considered before scheduling your next business trip.
What Are the Pros of Traveling for Work?
1. Traveling allows for a greater level of independence.
Many workers leave their bosses when they find a new job instead of being dissatisfied with the actual tasks their asked to complete. Traveling for work gives employees a break from the micro-management and other stressful issues they have with their boss or environment, giving them the independence they need to remember why they love what they do.
2. Travel generally creates longer unbroken times at home.
Although there are some exceptions to this benefit, most jobs which require travel will allow the worker to have longer periods of time that are unbroken at home after they return. This can sometimes give workers more time on the net with their family and friends than if they were working the regular shifts that are required of them.
3. There are benefits that can be maximized.
When you are traveling for work, you can often get the rewards perks onto your personal accounts even though the company is paying for everything. This means you’ll be able to accumulate frequent flyer miles, rewards points for hotels, rental car rewards, and points from several other programs. This can help to supplement your income in some surprising ways.
4. It helps a business stay on the cutting edge.
By traveling for work, a company can increase their exposure through that worker. Their brand becomes a reflection of that employee’s conduct. It’s a cost effective way of advertising or closing off a sale, creating training opportunities, or entering into a new market.
What Are the Cons of Traveling for Work?
1. It forces people to spend time away from family and friends.
If you’re out on the road for work, then you’re spending time in hotels and restaurants instead of spending time at home. You still get to speak with family and friends on the phone or through video calls on Skype or FaceTime, but that’s not the same as being there in person with someone.
2. The costs of traveling for work add up quickly.
Supporting a worker on a business trip can become an expensive proposition for a company. Not only do you need to pay for their meals, but there are also hotel costs, training costs, meeting costs, mileage costs, and other miscellaneous expenses that must be considered. This is in addition to the salary and benefits that are being paid to the worker. It can be several hundred dollars per day in some circumstances.
3. It is difficult to directly supervise a traveling employee.
Even if a worker is traveling for just a week or two on a business trip, direct supervision of that worker becomes more difficult. This is true when supervisors travel along. There must be a level of trust in that worker where the requested tasks will be completed based on an individual effort. It can be pretty easy to “fake it to make it” when traveling.
4. It places a burden on those who are at home.
If you travel a lot and have a family, then the parent who is left at home has a greater burden. Without an effort to take that burden off of them at some point, stress can develop within the relationship to the point that it causes things to break. Consistent traveling for work often requires hiring a house cleaner, a sitter, or even premade meals and that means added costs.
5. Extra time off after travel isn’t always a good perk.
A long period of travel can be very stressful on a person. By the time you make it home, the only thing you may want to do is rest. That means even though you’re back, you’re not really back in full.
The pros and cons of traveling for work are often individualized by the very nature of this subject. Someone who is single and loves to travel will love taking constant business trips. Someone with a family at home may find it to be a burden. By matching up the right worker with the right opportunity, business travel can be an enjoyable experience for everyone.
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