Frequent fliers either flourish or flounder

Frequent fliers and those who regularly travel on business can either revel in their hypermobility, seeing it as integral part of their happiness, or see it as a source of unhappiness that endangers their health and psycho-social wellbeing.

Researchers at the University of Surrey and Lund University published their findings in the journal Transportation Research Part D, with an analysis of first-hand online responses to media reporting on an earlier research paper titled ‘A darker side of hypermobility’, which looked at the different ways that frequent travel can affect individuals.

The new study highlights that individuals tend to either ‘flourish’ or ‘flounder’ in careers that include frequent business travel. A large proportion of business travellers want to reduce the amount of time they spend on business travel. However, the research shows that these individuals do not take the necessary steps to reduce travel as they believe it’s not something they have the ability to control. The report concludes that it will be up to organisations themselves to develop policies to help protect their employees from the darker sides of business travel.

Speaking about the publication of the new research paper, lead author Dr Scott Cohen from the University of Surrey said: “As more and more people are required to travel frequently for work, the impacts of travel on the workforce is an issue of rising importance on the public agenda.

“In the next 10-15 years it is very possible that we will see lawsuits being brought against companies who don’t take actions to help reduce their employee’s business travel. As this paper concludes, business travel reductions for individuals are unlikely to take place unless they are driven top down by a Human Resources department with a clearly defined wellbeing strategy for corporate travel.”