If you’re a business owner, then you may have to arrange for a
business trip at some point. Perhaps you need to fly out with some colleagues to
meet an important client. Maybe there’s an industry-leading conference that several of you need to attend to help keep
your finger on the pulse. Whatever the reason, it’s an exciting thing. Getting
people out of the office is rarely a bad thing, after all! But arranging a trip
and keeping everything [and everyone] together while you’re out there can be a
headache.
Follow these steps to ensure your business trip goes as smoothly
as possible!
Make sure you have every single document you need before you leave
When there are several people from your office going on the
trip, then you suddenly have a lot of documents and belongings to worry about.
You need to make sure everyone has their passport and any other travel documents
they might need. If you’ve handed plane tickets to employees, then you’ll need
to make sure they have those too. I’d recommend holding onto the plane tickets
from the moment you get them to the moment the employees actually need them at
the airport, though.
The day before you leave, get everyone to bring what they need to the office. Ensure everyone has everything.
If yes, then just leave it in the office overnight, ready to go the next day.
Do you have transport sorted for when you get there?
I’m assuming that the business you’re attending to isn’t at the
destination airport. You need to make sure transport from the airport to the
hotel or the venue is arranged. This could be a simple as making sure there’s a
big enough taxi available when you get there. You may even choose to use public
transport. This might be a headache if you have a lot to carry, though!
If you’re in a big group with a lot of items, then you could
consider car rental. In fact, if there really are a lot of you - as in, closer
to and more than ten - then you could even rent a bus. If you’re going to New
York City, for example, there are several options for NYC charter bus rentals. This could
actually end up saving you money, as opposed to hiring several cars.
Ensure everyone stays in contact
Here’s a silly and sad truth about business trips. They’re going
to be more like school field trips than you could possibly imagine. A curious
employee may break off from the group to explore something. Then they find
themselves lost if you’ve moved on without noticing that they wandered off.
If they’re on the business trip with you, then I doubt that lost
employee is expendable. You need to make sure you know where everyone is. And if
you are all in different places and you need to pass information to all of them
immediately, then you need to be able to do that. Sure, you could call everyone
individually. [On that note, make sure you have everyone’s mobile number!] But
you should probably consider using group instant messaging on your smartphones.
Even something as simple as a group chat on
WhatsApp will work wonders!
