Is biz travel sabotaging your wellness program?

Finance sees plenty of expense reports for business travel – good thing you don’t get to see everything going on during those trips!

A brand new survey says employees are worried about a lot more than when that reimbursement check will be cut when it comes to T&E. In fact, many folks are pinning some pretty serious consequences on business travel.

Take a look at what more than 2,000 people recently told ON24, Inc. about the toll hitting the road for work takes on their lives:

• increased stress (75%)
• a failed marriage or relationship (70%)
• health problems (63%)
• rebellious kids (54%), and
• the increased probability of affairs (45%).

But it goes deeper than that! Business trips could undermine everything your wellness efforts work to reinforce day in and day out. Employees attribute a whole slew of unhealthy habits to business travel, such as:

• drinking too much alcohol (71%)
• cheating on a spouse (66%)
• spending too much money (54%)
• eating fatty foods (53%)
• not sticking to exercise routine (43%)
• going to bed late (42%), and
• taking illicit drugs (31%).

Of course it’s certainly not Finance’s job to patrol people’s habits when they hit the road on company business. But these attitudes do make a pretty strong case for increasing your company’s reliance on tools like video-conferencing and online training.

Yes, there will always be times when folks have to take to the air or the roads, but by leaning heavier on technology you can conserve not only your budgets and perhaps even your healthcare costs, but employees’ family lives and health!

A little levity

You might even be able to use the survey results to inject a little levity into employees’ day. Business travel might not be everyone’s favorite, but at least many of them probably haven’t had to endure any of these moments:

• checking into a hotel room that already has a large nude man asleep in the bed (38%)
• receiving an illicit drug delivery to a hotel room that wasn’t ordered (21%)
• getting food poisoning from an airport food counter (9%), and
• being scolded by the TSA for wearing an underwire bra (6%).

A/P might even hold a contest for your road warriors to share their own traumatic T&E moments!