How to Write a Corporate Travel Policy

Define air travel policies within the corporate travel policy.

Corporate travel policies dictate what is acceptable for employees to spend on job-related travel and accommodation expenses. Writing corporate travel policies involves deciding the purpose of the policy, what the policy document will cover, whether to use only certain vendors for travel and accommodations and what payment methods will be authorized. For a professional appearance, the policy should be made using word-processing software.

Things You'll Need

• Word processing software
• Internet access (optional)

Instructions

1. Title the first page with the name of your company and write "Corporate Travel Policy" underneath it. Consider bolding or italicizing the font.

2. Break the document into sections. These might include: "Purpose," "Overview," "Manager Responsibilities," " Employee Responsibilities," "Air Travel," "Train Travel," "Car Rentals," and "Accommodations."

3. Fill out each section with the proper corporate travel polices. For example, use numbers to separate issues within sections such as, "1. Managers must decide if travel is necessary for the employee and obtain approval from higher management prior to the employee traveling. 2. Managers must provide the employee with a copy of the corporate travel policies found in this document." Some other items to include would be guidelines such as, "Rental cars are only permitted if the destination location is more than two miles one way from the employee's approved accommodation location." In addition, "Employees must provide all receipts to the budget committee at the end of the month to be reimbursed for travel expenses incurred for the same month." The goal is to be as precise with each policy as possible to avoid confusion later.

4. Type in the contact information for the staff member who is responsible to provide approvals for the employees.

5. Review the document for errors in spelling and grammar. Have the corporate travel policy double-checked for the same by another staff member.

6. Provide the corporate travel policy to your legal department for review. Make any changes the legal department advises you to make and disseminate the corporate travel policy to your staff.

Tips & Warnings

• Making the corporate travel policy available as a ".pdf" document on the company intranet will allow all employees access to guidelines and policies you've created.

• If you change any part of the corporate travel policy once the policy has been instituted, published or otherwise disseminated to employees, you will need to republish and redistribute the updated information to employees to avoid confusion and miscommunication later. Make sure you define, with clear language, corporate definitions of terms such as "luxury" or "lowest cost" when discussing travel and accommodation choices.

References

• WesTrav: Corporate Policy Guidelines
• WesTrav: Corporate Travel Policy Example