A large percentage of the jobs in your department require travel, and those that travel are infrequently in the office. The perception in the office is that those people who travel are off in exciting locations being wined and dined or taking a vacation. Their infrequent appearances in the office are also construed as slacking off. You overhear the following conversation:
"Hey Donna," Mark pokes at the newly-returned account manager. "How was the trip to the Honolulu site? Did you see the volcanoes?"
"Pretty busy," she responds. "We actually didn't have a lot of time to..."
"Pretty busy," Mark interrupts. "Yeah, busy hangin' ten at the beaches! It must be nice to get to travel all the time."
"No, Mark," she says. "Turns out they work pretty hard at the Honolulu office."
"Oh yeah? Puttin' on a show for the reps from Corporate, huh?"
Donna sighs and looks at you for support.
Discussion
You need to work to help your employees who spend their time in the office get a sense of what it means to travel.
One strategy that may work is to have an office person accompany a traveling person on a week-long trip. Pick a typical trip and have them shadow the traveler on their daily routine.
Another way to help the office people see what the travelers are doing is to send out emails or set up regular meetings to discuss trips people are taking, what was accomplished and how that impacts the company.
If you get complaints regarding travel as a vacation, it might help to mention that frequent work related travel can require a lot of sacrifices. It is easy to focus on the destination and forget that those individuals cannot have dinner with their families or go for a walk with their friends when they are away. It often involves long hours trying to maximize time in a location and a lot of time waiting in airports. Travel can also be unpredictable and leave you stranded in a location unable to make it back for an important personal event.
The understanding should also go both ways. People who work in the office have different schedules and should not be expected to drop everything when someone happens to arrive back from travels. The travelers need to know that just because the people in the office are not required to travel does not mean that they aren't working hard.
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