Travelling for business can be hugely rewarding, but travel fatigue is a real risk for team members who find themselves on the move often.
Frequent business travel can lead to employee fatigue, decreased productivity, and even a drop in employee retention. Guarding against travel burnout is key to making sure your team can make the most of corporate travel without having it come at the cost of their personal welfare.
In 2023 alone, 6.3 million Brits took international business trips. Remote and hybrid working may be the new norm for many companies following the travel bans of the pandemic, but the business trip has proven that it can’t be replaced with a video call — 88% of employees still insist that face-to-face meetings are crucial for building relationships.
However, while business travel may have reclaimed its place as a company priority, there can be downsides. Travel fatigue is a very real risk for any employees on the move, especially if they travel frequently or long distances.
In this guide, we’ll look at how to manage travel burnout or prevent travel fatigue from posing a risk to your team. We’ll take a closer look at how you can mitigate frequent flyer mental health risks.
Travel fatigue refers to the sense of exhaustion travellers feel soon after making a journey, similar to jet lag. Symptoms include:
Feeling tired after travelling isn’t uncommon, and even a small road trip to the next city can cause motion sickness. The impact any journey can have on your team should never be minimised.
As crucial as business travel is, and as much as travel is truly incentivising for teams, corporate travel can also come at a personal cost to your team members. With this in mind, you should take steps to prevent travel burnout and help your team manage travel fatigue.
Several factors can contribute to business travel burnout, including:
Those who travel often are more likely to experience travel burnout than those who don’t. Keep track of your team and how often they’ve been required to travel, and try to minimise it to once every few months.
This is especially true if your trip involves international flights and/or changes in time zones. If these long trips are unavoidable, consider breaks in the journey, like a day-long stopover midway, or a break between trains. Being stuck in a cabin or carriage for hours at a time is never ideal and can lead to motion sickness and nausea that lasts long after the journey. If you’re not sure how best to arrange a trip to minimise travel fatigue, just check with your team directly; some might even prefer a direct night-time flight so they can board, sleep, and not worry about travel burnout.
Business travel burnout is assured if you don’t give your team time to relax and unwind. Keep that in mind as you make up their schedules, consider adding half a day or so directly after arriving, so if they feel tired after travelling, they have time to recover.
Flying into different time zones will inevitably disrupt the body’s natural sleep cycle, and over 70% of travellers reported experiencing the effects of jet lag after international flights.
Precisely where you sit on a plane can increase your risk of becoming sick during your trip. Being seated in an aisle seat or near the toilets makes you more likely to be in close contact with other passengers as they queue to use the facilities or brush past you on the way to or from their seat.
This could be a good reason to consider business class flights if your travel management policies and budget allow it, as it means more space and less cramped conditions. It also allows for better comfort, can help lessen the chances of feeling overly tired after travelling and positively impact frequent flyer mental health. Tripeden.com for Business makes it easy to search flights alongside millions of accommodation options.
Increased feelings of tiredness can cause a lack of focus, and result in sub-optimum results from a business trip you’ve invested time in planning for. A poor experience travelling may also cause team members to avoid it in the future, and this may cause a difficult situation if you have particular team members who are expected to travel to certain offices or clients.
Overall, it’s in the whole business’ interest to support colleagues when they’re travelling and help them prevent or manage travel fatigue, while also arranging their travel plans in a way that doesn’t ultimately lead to business travel burnout.
While travel fatigue may seem inevitable when it comes to long or frequent business trips, there are some tips you can incorporate into your route to try to stop business travel burnout before it starts:
There is no magic pill to stop travellers inevitably feeling tired after passing through multiple time zones, but there are recommendations from the NHS:
You may be travelling to a well-known client to carry out business as usual, but if you’re headed to a new country, culture shock is very much a thing. Make a travel checklist to make sure your team is fully prepared, including:
This should include basic details like the local language and currency (and preferred methods of payment, make sure everyone has their currency converted or a suitable corporate card that can be used abroad). Rushing around last minute to find a bureau of change will only contribute to travel fatigue.
You don’t want anyone to cause friction for failing to follow cultural norms. This is especially important if you know you’re travelling to countries that are particularly religious, for example. On that note, you also need to be aware of your own team members’ security. Are they headed to a country where LGBTQ+ people are likely to encounter hostility or where women aren’t expected to travel alone? Your team may be safe within the confines of the convention or office they’re headed to, but your duty of care needs to apply to every moment of their trip.
It may seem like micro-management to tell your team precisely what to pack, but you should aim to keep people as informed as possible. Being underprepared (or weighed down by being over-packed) is sure to contribute to general travel anxiety, so try to assist your team as much as you can, including having any contingency plans for those forgotten laptop chargers or plug converters.
Make sure your team knows precisely what they’re expected to do during their trip. Include everything, from who they’re meeting to where the meetings are taking place, plus any free time so they can arrange their schedules accordingly. Try to avoid filling every hour with something business-related; your team needs time to decompress and unwind. Failing to do this is a sure path to travel burnout.
This includes things like making sure their accommodation is comfortable and complete with the facilities they need, and is close to any amenities they may desire, such as restaurants and shops. It’s a great idea to work with your team directly here to see what sort of accommodation works for them. They may prefer separate hotel rooms, or staying in a shared serviced apartment to avoid a sense of loneliness. Solo travellers will especially want guaranteed Wi-Fi so they can stay connected with colleagues and loved ones back home.
With Tripeden.com for Business, you can search over 3 million properties to find the perfect fit for your team. Book for up to 30 team members at a time, and you can search for car rentals and flights, too.
The act of matching business and pleasure, bleisure trips can combat feeling tired after travelling. Bleisure trips let team members extend their stay to include a few days to themselves. They can take in the sights, have loved ones join them, and benefit from the positive impact over 75% of travellers say they gain from business travel.
Being able to unwind and really process the work and developments of the last few days can also help team members really hit the ground running with their new insights and learnings once they return to the office.
Allowing for bleisure trips can also improve:
Safeguarding your team’s health and welfare during business trips is a vital part of your duty of care, so make sure your travel plans consider their personal needs alongside your business goals.
Successful business travel is all about finding the right balance between cost, employee satisfaction and welfare and business needs. Consider things like local boutique accommodation to help drive costs down while also offering invaluable insight into local cultures and hospitality and ensure a more personal touch than a room in a chain hotel. Tripeden.com for Business can help there, with over 3 million properties to choose from, as well as allowing you to search for flights, car rentals, and accommodation all in one place.
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