The healthy state of UK business travel has brought enhanced benefits for staff in the past year as travel management companies (TMCs) seek to recruit and retain employees.
A survey by the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) found 90% of its members offered childcare vouchers in 2011, up from 76% in 2010. The same proportion offered season ticket loans, up from 80% a year earlier.
One in three members (32%) offered enhanced maternity and paternity pay, up from one in ten in 2010.
The GTMC’s 34 members account for about 80% of business travel spending in the UK and made more than 11 million transactions last year.
The annual employee benefits survey found flexible benefit schemes – such as private medical insurance, pension contributions and dental and eye care – were on offer from 42% of members, compared with 20% in the previous year.
Three out of five members paid incentives to staff who helped bring in new recruits – up from 48% in 2010 – and 70% offered study packages in 2011 compared with 58% the year before.
The sole area in which the GTMC reported a decline in benefits was in sabbatical leave. This was on offer from 50% of members, down from 70% in 2010, reflecting the increased volume of work in the past year.
GTMC chief executive Anne Godfrey said: “Members have been telling me they are recruiting again, but that there is a dire shortage of experienced personnel in the job market.
“The survey appears to collaborate this, with improved benefits packages offered as an incentive to join a company or stay with it.”