An independent research commissioned by CWT has revealed that homelife deterioration and pressure on colleagues are the two biggest worries that affect frequent business travellers across the world.
When it comes to their personal life, 22% believe their business travel commitments erode the quality of their relationships and homelife. While 21% worry their families think they prefer travelling for work more than their day-to-day homelife responsibilities.
On the professional side, 22% feel guilty that their colleagues have to bear the load of their work while absent, 21% stress over spending too much time with coworkers or clients, and 14% are concerned about the difficulty of staying in touch with people in their main office.
“Even though the same research reveals that business travellers feel that positives outweigh negatives at work (92%) and at home (82%) when travelling for business, companies need to be aware of the concerns that business travellers face and help to address them head-on,” said Catherine Maguire-Vielle, CWT’s executive vice president and chief human resources officer. “Relationships are a fundamental part of a person’s wellbeing and companies have the obligation to ensure their employees’ travels are not jeopardising them at home or in the office.”
When looking at regional differences among frequent business travellers, Americans are in general the biggest worriers versus their European and Asia-Pacific counterparts.
Twenty-six per cent believe their home and personal relationships suffer versus 23% of Europeans and 18% of Asia-Pacific travellers. Meanwhile, 23% claim that spending too much time with co-workers or clients on the road can be stressful versus the same percentage of Europeans and 19% of Asia-Pacific travellers. Next, 22% are concerned that their families think they enjoy traveling for work more than their day-to-day homelife responsibilities versus 17% of Europeans and 23% of travellers from Asia-Pacific.
That said, Americans are less concerned about the difficulty of staying in touch with people in their main office (13% versus 14% of Europeans and Asia-Pacific travellers) and coworkers picking up the slack (16% versus 25% of Asia-Pacific travellers and 24% of Europeans).
Generational differences
Boomers in Asia-Pacific and Europe are more likely to say that home and personal relationships suffer when they travel. However, in the Americas, Gen X travellers take the lead.
Gen X travellers are also most worried about colleagues picking up the slack. They scored the highest percentage in the three regions.
Millennials score higher than the two other generations in every region when it comes to being concerned about their families believing that they enjoy traveling for work more than their day-to-day home life and responsibilities, and about the difficulty of staying in touch with people in their main office.
When it comes to the stress caused by spending too much time with coworkers or clients on the road, generational differences vary in every region. In Asia-Pacific, Millennials come first; in the Americas, Boomers and, in Europe, Gen X and Boomers are even.
