Employee Travel: 8 Tips for Keeping Employees’ Fear of Flying from Grounding Your Business Interests

One of the more perplexing issues employers have been facing as our country grapples with war and terrorism threats is employees’ fear of flying. Indicators of this troubling problem show up in scaled-back plans for work travel for the near future. In addition, recent concerns about the contagious severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak is affecting international travel plans. Thirty percent of surveyed business travelers, for example, planned to reduce international business trips this year, and approximately 25 percent said they intended to reduce domestic travel, according to a recent USA Today survey. Similarly, about half of the companies recently surveyed by the Business Travel Coalition said they planned to limit employee domestic travel, 21 percent have already banned international travel, and one third of companies with frequent travel to Asia have restricted those trips.

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8 Practical Tips

Diana Gregory, human resources director for Pitney Bowes, GMS Western Division, says HR professionals across the nation are struggling to deal with employees’ feelings of fear and edginess about work-related travel. Here are some recommendations to help you balance your business interests with employee concerns:

 

1. Be flexible. It’s best not to push employees who are now fearful of getting on an airplane. If travel isn’t essential, consider giving employees the option to postpone their trip, and try to minimize elective travel. Also, assess whether technological alternatives—such as videoconferencing—can permit a business trip to be canceled or postponed. And, says Gregory, if you keep track of what your employees are working on, you’ll be in a better position to figure out who else might be available to go on the trip.

    

2. Offer alternative means of transportation. If the business trip is a short distance away, train and car travel are obvious choices for employees who don’t want to fly. For longer distances requiring plane travel, offer to book flights out of smaller commuter airports or in short segments. Some employee travel concerns may be allayed simply by not having workers fly out of large international airports or on nonstop transcontinental flights.

    

3. Activate your EAP. EAP professionals can meet with employees to address air travel fears. Gregory also advises employers to consider offering anxiety management training.

    

4. Address personnel issues. If travel is an essential part of an employee’s job and a business trip can’t be postponed, it’s important to handle an employee’s refusal to travel as you would other job expectations. Make clear to the employee that air travel is part of their job responsibility, and follow your personnel procedures to the letter. Also, consider whether there is an alternative position the employee can perform that doesn’t involve travel. To avoid disputes over whether air travel actually is essential to a particular job, be sure to update job descriptions to clearly reflect when it is. Keep in mind an employee’s anxiety over flying could, de- pending on the circumstances, amount to a protected mental disability that needs to be accommodated.

    

5. Get specific. If an employee refuses to travel, try to find out his or her precise fears and objections. This information can help you work around the employee’s specific problem and find a solution that satisfies both of you. Be sure to keep detailed records of your discussions and the resolution.

    

6. Keep employees in the loop. Good preparation and communication can help allay some employee fears about business trips. Give traveling employees emergency contact numbers, and have a contingency plan should sudden issues force last- minute travel changes. Gregory also advises keeping employees informed about travel issues by using voicemail and your intranet. For example, you can post information about what to expect at airports and provide links to websites with safety information.

    

7. Urge safe overseas travel. The State Department has issued a “Worldwide Caution” memo for Americans working or traveling overseas. Advise these workers to stay in touch with the office and their families in the United States as frequently as possible. Make sure they have an evacuation plan and quick access to cash should they need to leave the country on short notice. Advise employees to check in with the American embassy or consulate when they arrive in a foreign country. You and your overseas workers should stay abreast of updates or new advisories from the State Department website. You can also monitor SARS advisories through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO).

    

8. Build a mobile workforce. If travel is essential to your business, take this into account when hiring new people. Make sure applicants know travel is a key part of the job, even when circumstances are less than ideal.