Since the onset of Covid-19 and its
devastating effects on the lives of millions around the world, I’ve had many conversations
with travel and meeting buyers and suppliers, and I have done my fair
share of webinars and discussions about what’s happened and what we can expect
when restrictions are lifted.
Bizly chief strategy officer and industry veteran Kevin Iwamoto offers advice about building your organizational value during the Covid-19 travel slowdown.
What continues to baffle me is when companies
and individuals say, "All travel and meetings are cancelled and/or
postponed, so there’s not much we can do." Are you kidding me? As a
veteran of this industry as a buyer and supplier, the one thing I can assure
you is if you aren’t continually demonstrating your strategic value and skills
as a category leader, you will never get the respect and valuation you crave
from your executives. You are paving the way for your company to diminish your
contributions and value. You are setting yourself up to be furloughed until
things pick up or, worse, to be let go permanently.
Don’t believe me? I recently asked some
executive friends who aren’t in the hospitality industry but hold key
decision-making roles in their organizations who clearly don’t recognize the
value of a well-managed strategic travel and meetings program. I had to
convince one of them not to let their travel manager go. He didn’t see the value of the position and
felt he could outsource it to their agency to not only reduce cost but also headcount
for what he described as a “non-essential” role. Ouch!
During the Covid-19 pandemic, if you are not
proactively working on your travel and meetings programs and how they will change—everything
from policies, processes, preferred suppliers, post-Covid negotiation
strategies, relaunching communications, and collaborating with HR, legal,
administration, procurement, finance and more—then you haven’t advanced the
strategic value of your role and corporate contributions. Ask yourself honestly:
If you were the corporate executive overseeing this area, based on your current
work contributions, would you keep or cut this position? As one travel manager
friend of mine said to me out of personal concern, “It’s not helping me to keep
my job when there’s only about five tickets a week being issued.”
I realize it is scary to go out on a limb and
hypothesize about what the world is going to look like for your company coming
out of Covid-19 and cranking up the engine to start getting back to business,
but that day is coming, and you have a choice to make.
- "I'll be brave and use my
experiences and learnings to help the company craft new policies and processes to
come out of this pandemic and get back to business."
- "I don’t know what’s going to
happen and I don’t want to take risks, so I’ll just wait and see what happens
and what others are doing, and then I’ll take action."
The first option says that you are a valuable
strategic contributor, and your help and guidance will generate positive notice
of your role and capabilities. The second option says you are a tactical
contributor that could be outsourced with little to no negative impact to the
company and doing so will provide cost savings. The bottom line is this: Companies
do not outsource strategy, but they will outsource tactical work skills, no
matter how excellent your skills may be. Choose your options wisely as keeping
your job is what’s at stake.