Why it's important to put people at the heart of your travel business

Reward and recognition

Creating policies and rewards to incentivise staff can help create
a people-centric environment. These don’t necessarily have to be traditional incentives, advises Kelly. “While salary is, of course, important, people nowadays are looking for a company that gives them an experience, rather than just a job that pays the bills.”

Agencies should look beyond salaries and towards what helps employees enjoy their job, she adds. “Forget about the start and end time of work by having flexible working. Help people to get involved in their personal passions,
such as recycling, volunteering and learning about how to better themselves and their skills. [Help] them to look after themselves.”

Allow individuals to pursue passion projects and contribute to the local community, agrees Barrett. “Community work is great for staff morale. We give branches an annual budget to spend on community projects as they wish.”

Barrett also emphasises the need to reward both individuals and teams for good performance. “We hold a prestigious yearly event for our elite sellers, and
at our Christmas parties we recognise numerous achievements, such as branch and team of the year.”

Ensuring individual rewards are shared around the office recognises the team effort required, says Claire Moore, managing director of Shropshire agency Peakes Travel Elite.

“More than one staff member is always involved whenever we are providing a service, whether that’s resolving a tricky issue or dealing with a difficult customer. It’s always a team effort and that’s why we share the rewards. We get loads of lovely gifts from the tour operators we work with. Someone from the long-haul team might have made that booking, but we are one team, so we pool any gifts together and split them.”

Focus on communication

Ensuring your staff feel listened to and encouraging an environment where they feel confident to speak up is an easy, costless way to put people first. Hays Travel has an Employee Focus Group comprising staff from different areas and departments of the business. The group members act as a voice for their colleagues, says Barrett.

Employees should be encouraged to give their opinions and feedback and be included in any business decisions, she adds. “We value staff input in meetings. We are open and honest, and staff have the opportunity to disagree or propose a new way of doing things. We involve them in setting the customer service excellence standards and contributing to their local community.”

Collecting feedback is another way of finding out what people in your business want, as long as they are made to feel like individuals, says Kelly. “Avoid blanket approaches. Every individual is different; embrace the differences by having a ‘menu’ of services, products and opportunities that your people will feel valued by.”

Pay it forward

Respecting individuality and difference within your team also helps build a rapport with customers, extending the people-centric sentiment to outside the business. “At Hays, we ask our
staff to be themselves. We ask them to use their personality; they do not have set questions and robotic statements they need to say. We gain new customers by building a friendly rapport in relaxed surroundings with team interaction,” says Barrett.

Moore agrees that asking staff to go “above
and beyond” for each other, as well as for clients, garners positive reactions. “We get lovely feedback from our customers, who comment on the family feel. This is very much a family business, and our team and our customers are an extension of that.”