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Corporate & Culture Blog Series Corporate Travel Management

As part of our Corporate & Culture Blog Series, today we showcase Corporate Travel Management (CTM), an award-winning provider of innovative and cost-effective travel management solutions to the corporate market.

Its focus on team culture

CTM was established in Brisbane, Queensland in 1994 by founder Jamie Pherous, and a team of just two staff. Today, the CTM network provides local service solutions in more than 70 countries globally.

CTM believes the key to its success is its people, and strives to provide a progressive, innovative and rewarding workplace for all.

With a strong focus and commitment to fostering a positive internal culture, CTM rewards and recognises their staff with a range of employee benefits including their employee share scheme, travel discounts, staff and service awards, professional development, social clubs, casual dress Fridays, fundraising drives and charity days. Check out this recruitment video about working at CTM.

Q & A with Susan Connor, General Manager Victoria

Susan is a member of CTM’s Australia and New Zealand management team and mentors a team of 86 individuals in Victoria. Let’s quiz Susan about why CTM has created such a team-focused culture.

Q: What does a great team culture look like at CTM?

A: It’s defining what success looks like, breaking it down into tangible goals and identifying the necessary steps required to achieve the end goal.  It’s equally important to have the necessary internal processes and systems to ensure everyone is supported in their role. At CTM, we believe in recruiting the right people with personal and professional values that align with ours. Having the right skill-set is important, however you can always teach a person how to use a system, attitude on the other hand, is in-built. Our seven CTM values underpin everything we do and represent our people, our customers and our enjoyment of coming into work for CTM every day. They are: Exceed to Service, Innovate to Generate, Trust to Succeed, Empowered to Achieve, Collaborate to Perform, Recognise to Reward, and, Play to Win.

Q: How important is internal culture for CTM?

A: Internal culture is one of our most important factors in gauging success and is one of the key drivers of our measurement of staff engagement. Each year we run an internal employee engagement survey, the VIBE survey, which is a great opportunity for us to gather everyone’s valuable feedback across all parts of the business.  It’s important for us as leaders to seek feedback and get a clear understanding of what is working well in the business and what areas need improvement. Once the survey results are collated, the leadership team work together with their teams to decide action items that relate to the feedback. These action items are then built into our business plans and to continue to do the things our people think work well and remove the things that don’t.  This not only includes an annual survey, but all leaders are encouraged to perform monthly one-on-one check-ins with their team members which focuses on performance, wellbeing and future development opportunities.

Q: What do you do at CTM to promote a positive team culture?

A: Our CTM Star Awards is a local reward and recognition program that acknowledges CTM performers who contribute positively to the business through living and breathing the CTM values. Employees are encouraged to nominate their peers under this program across the Australia and New Zealand region. It’s an opportunity to recognise employees across all departments who have gone ‘above and beyond’ and embodied the CTM values. Nominations are reviewed bi-monthly by a judging panel on how the nominee has continually demonstrated a CTM value and how their performance has benefitted others. In addition, we have an overall All Stars presentation at our annual conference each year. The All Stars are exceptional performers who are recognised and reviewed by a selection panel, as those who go above and beyond and are our Top Performers, that best represent the CTM values. Each year, the All Star winners are taken on a reward trip with other CTM winners across the region. Past winners have been treated to such destinations as Dallas, Los Angeles and Paris! Outside of this, we have bi-monthly Business Update Sessions with all staff to make sure that updates are given to local teams on a regular basis from all parts of the business.

Q: Do you undertake regular team building activities?

A: We have a dedicated Social Club that runs regular activities for each location. These can consist of anything from celebrating Christmas to themed activities for the Olympics; to special days such as pizza days, milkshake days and bring your favourite food days. We also celebrated World Compliment Day earlier this year by presenting a personalised, hand-written compliment to every employee which was posted on their desks when they came into the office that morning. Such a small gesture which cost the business nothing but went such a long way in making people’s day just that little bit brighter and made everyone feel great! CTM also supports a number of local and national fundraising initiatives as part of our CSR and offers all staff a paid day of leave per year to volunteer at a charity of their choice. Our local leadership team days will also consist of a half day of training followed by a team building session. We hold 2 conferences a year and these also include team building activities.

Q: Do you have regular staff conferences?

A: We have two staff conferences per year. The first conference invites all CTM leaders across our global organisation to share ideas; get an overview of the business from the MD or CEO from each region so we have a line of sight on our overall performance; workshops from key parts of each business; and, a team building activity. At the end of the four-day conference we announce our All Stars incentive winners at a big gala dinner. Our second conference is in the second half of the year and is a lot smaller, consisting of the management and sales teams only. These sessions are a lot more focused on our own locations and involve learning workshops; updates from each locational GM; and, a team building session. Each quarter the senior management team across all parts of the business also get together to present an update on their locations to the CEO and COO on performance and any special projects they’re working on. This is another great way to engage with internal senior stakeholders, learn from each other on what is working in other locations and build on ideas that other GM’s may have.

Blog brought to you by Corporate Challenge Events – a leader in creating positive team cultures through team building, corporate training and conference planning!