BA Supplement - Leisure - Work and perk.

(From Financial Director)

Byline: Anthony Harrington.

Maintaining a work-life balance is difficult these days. And while take-home pay is among the most attractive aspect in recruiting staff, salary alone is no longer incentive enough. To differentiate themselves as employers, companies need to consider the total work-life balance they provide for their employees.

This can, of course, mean many things in different contexts, but the basic ingredient is the employer's ability to provide some form of flexibility in working. For a company's business travellers, the work-life balance can mean setting a travel policy that is at odds with the kind of cost-cutting, 'fly economy' travel policy that seems to exist in so many of today's corporations.

For example, a company might consider allowing a business traveller to do more than merely jet in to a major city, hold a meeting and jet out. It means allowing the executive to combine a few days' holiday with their company business, staying on at the company's expense in the same accommodation they have booked as part of their corporate travel. It probably won't mean the company standing them opera tickets at La Scala or the Met, but it may well mean allowing someone on a trip to be accompanied by their significant other.

However, as Keith Mullineux, European travel manager for General Electric observes, companies such as GE that pride themselves on running a prudent and frugal ship are intrinsically opposed to the idea of giving their executives freebies. "We do not pay for videos rented by our executives to entertain themselves in their hotel rooms. We don't pay golf club fees if they fancy a round between meetings and we try to winkle out anything that might be seen as subsidising what people should be paying for themselves. But if someone has to travel, then it is much better for GE to have a happy traveller," he says.

Mullineux cites the following example to illustrate what this might mean. A GE executive, for example, is about to go on a business trip that might cost GBP1,500 on business class departing on Tuesday and returning on Thursday. Being an astute and well-coached GE executive, he thinks laterally and peruses the schedules a bit further. He finds that if he extends his travel to Sunday, he will be treated by the airline as a leisure traveller who needs to be woo'd, and so the price drops by GBP600. Under those circumstances, GE would happily ...