The Business & Corporate Travel Management Platform | RoomexThe Business & Corporate Travel Management Platform | Roomex
The city of London is a central location for many organizations; their European operations are based there. One of the major venues in the business of business travels pertaining to a variety of activities from client meetings, collaborations, conferences, and exhibitions with training and development programs catering to the business purpose.
October 31st has always been a spooky date, but this year it promises to be extra scary. ThatÂ’s because it coincides with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (EU) – otherwise known as ‘BrexitÂ’.
If youÂ’re leading a team of regional contractors, or you have a team of merchandisers across the country, itÂ’s likely they youÂ’re already familiar with the disadvantages they face when travelling for work.
The summer is a prime time for travel of all kinds, and once again business travel news UK has been dominated by Brexit, hotel openings and well being issues.
As September rolls around again, a whole new generation of children start school for the first time, while millions of others return for a new school year. Exciting and unsettling in equal measure, September is a challenging month for any working parent. Trying to find a work-life balance is something made even harder with pressing work commitments, work travel and looming deadlines. With 4.9 million working mothers (not to mention dads), it can be an especially challenging time for those re-entering work, or managing it with children in tow. As children ease themselves into school life, here’s a few measures you can take to make those first few weeks and months easier for everyone. Get Organised As with all things in your working life, preparation is key. It’s a good idea to buy uniforms and school shoes, as well as order name tags at least four weeks in advance of starting school. This gives enough time for fittings, alterations and washing before their first day. Have a Routine Children respond well to routines, so even if you have to go away on work travel, they’ll know what to expect in your absence. This starts with regular times for going to bed and waking up, and mealtimes where possible. Even if it’s just breakfast try and eat together once a day as a family – it’s a beneficial habit to get into. Having a schedule to follow will make it easier for everyone to transition, and helps children understand the other commitments you have outside of them. Be Strict on Time Speaking of routines, the same applies to you. The best way to enjoy a work-life balance is to ensure you’re dedicating adequate time to both your working life and family. Set your working hours and be strict. If you aim to leave at 5pm every day, be sure to do so. You’ll soon find that urgent matters can wait until the next day. It can even streamline the way you work. If you plan to pick up emails later in the evening, dedicate a time to do this, say 8-9pm, so that youre not constantly answering messages. Colleagues will soon get into the habit of not bombarding you, if you start as you mean to go on. On the same note, be sure to dedicate your free time to yourself and your family. Be strict about how you use this, ensuring work doesn’t creep in. It might be useful to plan things to do at the weekend so that you’re forced out of the house and off the laptop! Limit Travel Especially for those first few weeks in September, you may want to embargo unnecessary work travel. While this is an important part of most jobs, it’s also important to be able to travel without stress and anxiety; made harder when there’s children in the mix. Once routines are established and your children are settled, you can resume work travel without the same fears about leaving them. Get Flex Working Hours Flexible working has been a buzzword in HR circles in recent times. With more and more people striving for a work-life balance, businesses are slowly accepting the idea of working remotely, or adjusting working hours to help accommodate individual needs. Why not speak to your line manager about the opportunity to tweak your working hours to fit around your home life. With some give and take, you might find they’re quite receptive. Alternatively, you could think about using annual leave to reduce your working days to four or less. Having more time to spend with your children during a time of change, is one way to achieve a work-life balance. Use your Support System Grandparents, siblings and close friends, are just some of the people you find yourself relying upon more as a parent. If you’re under work stress and can’t afford time away from the office, the next best option is to call upon a family member or close friend for help. From early pick-ups to overnight stays when you’re on work travel, that’s what your support system is there for don’t be apologetic in using it. Look After Yourself In the throes of change, it’s easy to think about everyone but yourself. If you want to achieve a good balance, you need to take good care of yourself, so your colleagues and kids get the best of you too. This means, taking time to eat well, exercise and get enough sleep. Acknowledging that you’re going to have to let a few things go during this time is no bad thing either. Talk to your team and let them know that September is going to be an especially challenging month, they will likely understand. Wellness of a working parent is extremely important for your family, but we’ve found that your wellness also impacts the wellness of the business you’re working for in general. Check out our guide on the impact of wellness on the businesses bottom line. And finally, one of the upside’s of being a working parent is the October half-term to look forward to. As if you needed one, it’s the perfect excuse to book a family holiday away (Dubai is lovely this time of year), and make the most of your time together.
Sometimes it can feel like youÂ’re living out a suitcase when youÂ’re away on business. Whether youÂ’re staying in a trade show hotel, or in five-star digs, it can take a while to get your bearings for a city and know your way around.
Organising a corporate hotel booking is very different from making a personal one – or at least it should be. For starters, hotels often have a reduced corporate rate for business travellers. On top of this, personal bookings can require prepayment, a deposit or payment at check out. This is fine for personal travel plans, but spells disaster for corporate hotel bookings. This kind of system will see a company’s accounts manager driven up the walls at the end of every month trying to source receipts and figure out who needs to be reimbursed. Streamline all corporate hotel bookings with Roomex. Learn more to get started. When making corporate hotel bookings, it is also important to have oversight. Whether you want to see how much your business spends on hotels or simply want to be able to check what part of the country your team members are in at any given moment, this isn’t possible through personal bookings. Corporate hotel bookings have different requirements, such as, if the hotel offer group bookings, in stay allowances, breakfast, WiFi, and parking. But it’s easy to understand how some businesses can end up not availing of corporate hotel bookings and booking as if it’s personal travel. It’s difficult to manage- and difficult to learn about the options out there for corporate hotel bookings. Booking business travel from the mindset of personal travel is disorganised, haphazard, and costly to your bottom line. Then add the layer of giving your employees the flexibility to book their own hotel room. However, one easy-to-use tool makes it so effortless to take advantage of corporate hotel bookings, you’ll never look back. Here are five ways Roomex’s workforce travel tool can save your business time and money: 1. Search corporate rates for the best value stay Comparing websites and hotels to find the best value for your requirements can be overwhelming. But, through bed banks and specially negotiated rates, Roomex has access to prices that canÂ’t be found elsewhere. With 1.2 million hotels to choose from, this guarantees the best corporate rates and saves our clients up to 21%. If you’ve already negotiated some special rates with certain hotels, this can be added to your account too. 2. Make corporate hotel bookings quickly Once you’ve found the perfect hotel, you can book it with the click of a mouse. There’s no messing around with credit cards and no need to request prepayment. You don’t even need to pick up the phone and confirm your booking, because Roomex does that for you too. The hotel will know it’s catering for guests on business, rather than tourists, and Roomex will make sure the hotel is ready when they arrive. Because Roomex bills on account, checking in will never be a hassle – very important for workers finishing overtime late at night when the person who made the booking has gone home for the night. For businesses who want to give their employees the freedom to choose their own hotel, they can also be given access to the platform to make corporate hotel bookings within the company’s budget requirements. 3. Travel management with Roomex reduces unnecessary admin Roomex provides oversight that just isn’t possible through personal bookings. Instead of keeping a list of where the members of your team are at any given time, you can just log into Roomex and use the map view to see who is where on any given night. It also abolishes the need to collect hotel receipts and invoices, as they are already in the platform. 4. Payments are efficiently streamlined Roomex consolidates all your hotel booking expenses into one monthly invoice. Gone are the days of reconciling multiple payments with company credit cards, expenses and hotel invoices. There’ll be no more chasing staff for hotel receipts at the end of the month and no need for reimbursements. 5. Reduce business travel expenditure with Roomex reporting After using Roomex for a couple of months, you’ll be able to identify trends and cost-saving opportunities through the data collected. You can view your total spend or delve further to see the average cost per night. Within the single monthly invoice, all of your company’s internal cost codes can be itemized to enable fast and easy cost allocation to projects or workflows. Business travellers have different needs to tourists, but those organising a company’s accommodation won’t always have the bandwidth to negotiate the best corporate hotel rate or, even, to confirm every booking. But Roomex will. Get in touch with one of our experts today and find out how to reduce the money and time your business spends making corporate hotel bookings.
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