work travel

[azucena]

So my view of covid changing work travel was likely a pipedream.  Corporate is still sending messages about limiting travel to business necessary, but the two newer (<6 mo) senior managers are making all kinds of noise about us getting back out face to face.  Fortunately, most of my clients aren't accepting visitors yet.  Our own office is open to 10% capacity and not allowing visitors yet either.

I was so hopeful that we'd proven that we can manage clients and even build relationships through video conference.

Our industry mtg will be both in-person and virtual in Oct in Pittsburgh.  Only one of my clients has committed to attend so far, so I can likely dodge that one.

What are others doing so far?

[flamingo]

Our industry conference in November is likely to be in person. That's how we are proceeding right now, and we'll make a decision one way or the other by August 1. But unless something drastic happens, I think we'll be in person.

Visits to clients are client specific. Our current travel policy says that we can travel if it's a necessary business purpose AND if the employee traveling is vaxxed. Our group is pretty new, though, and our product is even newer still, so I have no idea how much we'll be on site with clients this fall. But our other group that's more established is already traveling, so I'm sure it's coming. 

I was hoping that travel would cut down just a bit. Like, a 10% reduction would have been welcome. But I don't think that's actually going to happen.

[giramomma]

I work at a university. Folks are now permitted to travel for work to their heart's content, I think starting in June.

Half of my unit's business relies on people traveling to our state for face-to-face professional development courses. Yes, we proved we could offer our products/services online and there's a lot more work to be done in that area, but folks in charge are content to let others go back to doing business as usual.

In terms of credit courses, the university is doing 100% face to face courses. No vaccination requirement.

The interesting thing to watch will be what happens if there's an outbreak on the dorms. Last year, the spaces that we used for our prof. dev. courses are the same spaces the university used to quarantine students that had covid or were exposed. I haven't heard anything about where the quarantine spaces are this year..

[Wisconsin Beth]

City isn't allowing travel.  The big conference in Vegas that I go to every couple of years is both in person and online this fall.  Not sure how that's going to work though.  There's no way I'll be in any shape to travel, even if it was allowed.  

[gs11rmb]

I'm in non-profit development and expect to be back face-to-face in the next few months.  I discovered that virtual meetings are not particularly effective at developing relationships.  We also offered some virtual programming that wasn't anywhere near as popular as we expected.  I think people are just 'over' doing anything virtual.  I know I am!

[Deleted]

This is second-hand since I'm retired but my former professional society is having a hybrid Zoom/In-Person meeting in San Diego in November, the first with an in-person option since COVID. I also asked a friend at church recently how his business is doing- he had a hugely successful family business arranging incentive travel- luxury resort events and similar that companies award as a perk to their high performers. Things got very bad last year- his daughter was still running things but he had to fire his SIL. Now he tells me that so many of the smaller businesses that did this work didn't survive, and companies that had someone do this work in-house let them go, so they're doing extremely well.

I'm fully vaccinated and if I were still active in the business and employer wanted to send me I'd go to San Diego. I love San Diego.  I'd be less enthusiastic about travel for vanilla office meetings.  I still consider flying a bit of a risk, and even less pleasant an experience than it used to be.

[TheOtherMe]

DN1 said the academic conference in September is hybrid so people that can't travel can attend virtually.  However, he said the networking happens at the social events, not during presentations.

[tractor]

I’m in the electric utility industry, we’re wide open for travel. I typically fly somewhere different every month (pre-COVID) so I’m just waiting for more opportunities to open up. There’s a possibility of more in-person conferences this fall, but it’s more likely that things won’t really start to pick up until next spring.

[plugginaway22]

My company is in the process of being acquired and we have had multiple groups flying in here since January '21, even before all vaccinated when I refused to meet in person with them.

[azucena]

Curious about what's happening outside the US - if those posters would care to comment.

[Deleted]

Jul 20, 2021 12:30:42 GMT -5 plugginaway22 said:

My company is in the process of being acquired and we have had multiple groups flying in here since January '21, even before all vaccinated when I refused to meet in person with them.

Wow- I've been though acquisitions and I know how everyone wants to give their best "team player" impression.  What an awful position to put people in- telling some they have to get on planes and others that they have to be in meetings where there's an option for in-person and they have to make the hard choice between looking like a team player or risking their health.

Doesn't say a lot about the acquiring company.  How is it turning out for you?

[chiver78]

I manage CMOs around eastern US. we have been on a travel lockdown since the Biogen mess in Boston (same industry, my office is a few streets away from Biogen HQ) and are just starting to lift travel restrictions....except travel to *our* HQ in Japan b/c of their restrictions. 

while we were locked down, our in-house travel department decided to take the opportunity to revamp the booking interface, complete with tying in the expense reporting system. we have actually had some "training" presentations about it in the last week or so, the system won't go live for another few weeks before we can actually play with it.  it looks good so far, I guess. 

I'm not sure I'm up for work travel just yet. I do have a vacation involving air travel in November and I'm really hoping I'm okay with flying by then. either that, or I get some Xanax or something. I'm still not really out and about much indoors yet. 

[wvugurl26]

The travel policy was updated recently. Those who are fully vaccinated may travel as needed. International travel is still limited to mission critical. For those who are not vaccinated, travel is not recommended and is limited to mission critical.

In practice, travel is still very limited and only happening for mission critical needs. Other than law enforcement needs, the only travel I've heard of was to the southern border for the unaccompanied minors work. No international travel is happening.

Our offices are still closed. The re-opening plans were due recently. With the scope of those requirements, I can't see a hasty return. They would also make impossible the desire to consolidate offices and move towards shared spaces.

If testing, PPE, contact tracing, etc are requirements, I can't see any cube or office sharing going on.

[plugginaway22]

Athena_ thankfully I am opting to retire at age 60, I have been with this company a long time and am not interested in going through all the changes that will be happening, but I didn't make that clear until the months after Letter of Intent signed and DD was happening so yes, it was difficult to pretend all was well during a pandemic! Will be finished by September and cannot be happier.

[movingforward]

We got back to normal travel starting June 1st. I'm glad...I was ready and feel comfortable having been vaccinated.

There are (2) meetings each year though that I wish would have stayed virtual. I have never enjoyed going to those like I do the others.

[tcu2003]

I’ve been traveling again since June 2020 - we do building design, and have to visit sites to review the work done to make sure it complied with the construction and permit docs, and/or do scopes to confirm what is on site before we do design. It’s been fine - I’ve actually felt okay as last year people seemed to comply better with airport/airplane masking requirements and my clients require masking on sites by contractors and their employees.

The major conferences I typically attend are still virtual, so no travel for those.

I don’t typically travel to our other offices, but that travel is very slowly starting to happen again. We have a principals meeting next month that was supposed to be in person for the first time in a couple of years at our corporate HQ (which is where I’m located, so I wasn’t going to need to travel), but they just announced it’ll now be virtual. Though if the non-locals have already booked travel and want to still fly/drive in, they can, but will have to use zoom for the meeting like everyone else.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

My professional realm stopped holding all in-person meetings, trainings, and conferences in March 2020. In our state, we started having limited quantity, in-person ones this spring but only fully vaccinated may attend. I've not been on a plane since March 3, 2020. I've only stayed in two hotels since the shut down, and both stays were after I was fully vaccinated. 

[Deleted]

I've posted elsewhere but I took my two too-young-to-be-vaccinated granddaughters to a local Hilton for an overnight.  We've been doing this on my visits- well. I can't take them on plane trips!  Business is picking up and now I see meetings going on.  They allow unvaccinated staff and customers to go unmasked.  About 95% of the adults were unmasked.     We wore ours in al the public areas.

I wish they'd make masking mandatory for anyone 2 and over.  I do not trust every unmasked person to be fully vaccinated.

[TheOtherMe]

Aug 1, 2021 13:40:09 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

I wish they'd make masking mandatory for anyone 2 and over.  I do not trust every unmasked person to be fully vaccinated.

We know most of them are not vaccinated.

My sister's county is at the highest risk level.

I got laughed at for wearing a mask back in May at a hotel and again on Friday when I did grocery pick up.  I don't care.  I'm wearing the mask.  

[wvugurl26]

So an interesting fact I learned today. My organization is not allowing any in person training. If you are trying to take something it better be virtual.

We are on paper allowing travel for the vaccinated and mission critical travel even if you are not vaccinated.