This text is part of the special Business Tourism section
While the democratization of teleworking since the pandemic has led to a feeling of detachment among some employees, business travel can have positive effects on them, according to a study published by Amex GBT and Harvard Business Review. These escapades would notably rekindle their feeling of belonging to their employer.
The report, released last December, concluded that business travel can have a positive impact on workers who feel detached from their work obligations due to teleworking.
In order to revive the feeling of belonging of their troops, more and more managers are organizing such getaways for their staff, notes Marc-Antoine Vachon, holder of the Transat Chair of Tourism and professor in the marketing department at the University of Quebec to Montreal (UQAM). “There are teams that are entirely virtual and who meet less and less. The business trip then becomes an opportunity to build relationships and unite the group,” he observes. He also led a study which concluded that 69% of teleworkers believe that travel plays an important role in mental health.
If lacs-à-l’shoulder are not new, professional trips intended to motivate teams are, however, a relatively new phenomenon, adds Mr. Vachon. “We see meetings outside the office for companies which no longer have a base or which have employees dispersed throughout the territory. These become interesting solutions for recreating the organizational fabric,” he notes.
Ariane Ollier Malaterre is a professor of management at the School of Management Sciences of UQAM and holder of the Canada Research Chair on the regulation of digital technology in professional and personal life. For her part, she has certain reservations about the results of the study financed by Amex GBT. “It should be taken with a grain of salt, because there is probably an objective behind it. I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of these business trips. And I would say that they must be limited,” she specifies.
Benefits, but not only
These business trips have the effect of enhancing the employer’s brand, believes Mr. Vachon. “Organizations these days have an advantage in showing flexibility in relation to the mobility of human resources,” he says. He cites as an example the authorizations granted to business travelers to extend their stay in order to add an element of pleasure. “This allows for better acceptability of business travel which, [de manière générale]generate more resistance than before,” he observes.
This flexibility also allows employees to develop their feeling of belonging to a company. “If I find a similar job elsewhere, will there be the same opening? »
But the main risk remains that of profitability, believes the researcher. “Costs have increased significantly and many virtual activities have become profitable. The challenge remains to make the trip profitable. Often, it’s difficult to assess in a tangible way,” he says.
For his part, Mme Ollier Malaterre believes that business trips and their preparation weigh on the workload. “We fall behind the normal course of things when we are, for example, in a seminar. This therefore increases the workload and creates fatigue,” she explains, adding the impact of the carbon footprint of travel on the environment and climate change.
If a boss still wants to organize this type of trip on a limited basis, he must emphasize human relations, believes the professor. “You should not bring employees in and ask them to make Zoom calls in front of a screen, or hear a speech from a manager to which they will passively attend without interacting with their colleagues,” she illustrates. . She emphasizes that it is informal discussions that create a feeling of belonging among employees.
Bringing teams together in the office
At the heart of the pandemic in 2021, 35% of Canadians said they did not have a sense of belonging at work, compared to one in four who did so before the health crisis, according to a survey by LifeWorks Wellness Solutions . “Trying to recreate an affiliation between workers and their professional environment is a challenge for employers,” underlines Ariane Ollier Malaterre.
She concedes that it can be tempting for some leaders to resort to seminars or other types of business trips to unite the troops. But she believes that it is also entirely possible to do it in the office. “If you ask everyone to come on a specific day, you have to have something planned, otherwise it’s not going to work,” she says.
For teams entirely deployed in teleworking, she suggests setting up virtual coffee meetings where informal discussion between colleagues is encouraged. “This was done a lot during the pandemic, and it works very well. »
This content was produced by the Special Publications team at Dutyrelating to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part.