Good morning!
Business travel is up and running again after practically grinding to a halt just a few years ago.
Despite the usual annoyances like delayed flights and charmless hotels, employees in general seem eager to get back on the road. Around 67% of workers who travelled three or more times in the past two years believe that business travel is important for their career growth, according to a global survey of 3,750 business travelers from SAP Concur. But many employees also believe they’re not given equal travel access to the opportunity.
Younger workers are more likely to believe business travel is important for their career progression compared to older generations, but they’re also most likely to say they’re being held back. Around 19% of people chalk up their dearth of travel opportunities to a lack of seniority, and another 18% boil it down to their age, according to the report.
Around 14% believe they don’t get the chance to travel because they’re caretakers, and another 11% of people say it comes down to their gender. Broken down further, those numbers show that women more often feel they don’t have the same opportunities compared to their male counterparts.
When it comes to addressing challenges to corporate travel programs in general, SAP recommends employers think about three basic steps. First, connect with employees to see where the pain points are, and ask if they feel like they have the same opportunity to take business trips as their coworkers. Second, act on those insights; make sure that employees have the right tools they need to travel successfully. And third, get help from outside resources if necessary.
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- Once an arbitrary legal agreement intended to prevent individuals from sharing corporate secrets, NDAs have taken on a larger role in today's society. New York Magazine
- Brooke Shields is adding another job to her varied career: union boss. The actress, author, and businesswoman is now president of the Actors’ Equity Association, a union representing theater actors and stage managers in the U.S. New York Times
- Warehouses that are cropping up in rural America to support our online shopping frenzy are transforming the towns in which they’re built. Bloomberg
- Big Law’s fight for talent is starting to resemble sports teams’ bidding wars for drafting professional athletes. Lawyers at the top of their game are netting eight-figure salaries as law firms take on bigger revenue-generating clients. New York Times
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
DEI alienation. Tractor Supply recent announced it was cutting all diversity positions and withdrawing other diversity and ESG goals. But the decision could hurt the retailer by alienating customers in increasingly diverse “exurban” areas. —Phil Wahba
Strike deal. Canadian airline giant WestJet reached a deal with its mechanics to end a strike that caused more than 820 flight cancellations between Thursday and Monday. —AP
Vacation deprivation. Despite getting nearly two-and-a-half times more PTO than Americans, German and French workers are more likely to feel deprived of a vacation than their U.S. counterparts, according to a new study. —Prarthana Prakash
Keys to resilience. Prudential Financial CEO Charles Lowrey says there are four key components that make up a resilient company. —Fortune CEO Initiative
