Business Travel With Your Family
Learn How to Include Your Family in Your Next Business Trip
Over the past few decades, a lot has changed when it comes to balancing work and family life. Both employers and employees realize that people are people — moms and dads and husbands and wives — before they are workers, and allowing employees to have more of a family life while they work contributes greatly to their overall job satisfaction. This means companies are able to retain better talent, and employees are able to excel in their careers without damaging those all-important family relationships.
Instead of leaving the spouse and kids behind for all those long, boring business trips, consider packing them up and bringing them along! You might not be able to do this every trip, but including them in even one or two business trips per year goes a long way toward building a stronger, happier family unit. From the airport transfer to the hotel swimming pool, here’s how to incorporate business and pleasure with ultimate success.
Know When It’s a Good Idea (and When It Isn’t)
Business trips aren’t all created equally. Some are more predictable and manageable than others, and some are more or less stressful than others. If you’re going to San Francisco to handle a serious issue with one of your tech clients, that may not be the best time for tag-alongs. Take the family when it’s a routine trade show or conference, with relatively predictable hours and not a time when you might be expected to work late or dine with a big client after the meetings are finished. Bringing them on a particularly stressful trip is likely to cause more hard feelings than family fun. Pick a trip when you can afford a nice airport transfer in a limousine and a fine dinner at one of Frisco’s 5-star restaurants, instead of bringing them when the budget is too tight for any luxuries or perks to make the trip special.
Be Honest With Your Family About Your Schedule
Just as you would back home, be careful what you promise. Kids can deal with occasional disappointments, so long as you’re generally dependable and trustworthy. Don’t promise a 3-hour outing after long day at the conference or tell them you’ll take them swimming before you’ve checked the weather forecast. They’d rather expect a 12- hour day without you than look forward to you being back by 4 and then having to wait (and fume) until 8 or 9 p.m. If you know you’ll be gone an especially long time one day, schedule something fun for them in your absence. Book them a limo ride to Chinatown or one of San Francisco’s amazing museums or art galleries.
Choose the Right Hotel in the Right Area of Town
When traveling solo, you might make budgetary concessions, like staying in a cheaper area of town or in a smaller motel with no kitchenette or cable TV. If you’re bringing the spouse and kids, you’ll need to splurge a bit more, just so they won’t be bored out of their skulls while you’re in meetings or at a speaking engagement. A hotel with a kitchenette really helps keep the food bill down, since the fam can make a quick bite at the hotel instead of eating out several times a day. Swimming pools (especially indoor pools) are excellent time killers, so long as you have someone along who’s old enough and swims well enough to keep them safe. A word to the wise about outdoor pools in San Francisco: it’s notoriously chilly in the mornings and evenings, even in the summertime. Be careful about promising a swim outdoors when the weather might not want to cooperate. Or, pick a hotel close to an area packed with fun things to do during the day, such as shopping centers, parks, or attractions like Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s better to take a longer limo ride to your destination each day so that they can be near something safe and fun to pass the time.
Make the Little Things as Fun as Possible
Most business trips are 80 to 90 percent work, meaning you’ll have to work some fun in edgewise wherever you can. Opt for a limo airport transfer, and treat them to some sightseeing on the way to the hotel. If your conference is at one of the larger San Francisco venues, like Civic Center, bring them along so that they can see the museums and historical government offices while you’re in meetings. Check to see if there are any interesting performances or exhibitions nearby for them to enjoy while you do business. Instead of grabbing a quick bite at McDonald’s after a long day, take them to one of the landmark restaurants like Cotogna or Nopa.
Consider Adding a Day or Two to the Trip Just for Fun
You can eliminate the chances of business completely stamping out your pleasure by adding a day or two to your trip, just for family fun. Don’t let your clients know you’ll be in town extra days, so they won’t be tempted to call you in at the last minute. Go a day or two early, so that you can have fun with them before the grueling work begins, or stay a day or so late to make up for the times when meetings or conferences ran over and ate into family time. Then, shuttle them back to the airport in a limo, to wrap up the perfect kind-of-sort-of family vacation.
With a little planning, you can mix business with pleasure, keeping down on your annual travel costs by piggybacking family and business travel expenses. Bringing the fam along also helps you get over that guilty feeling you get every time you hop on a plane the day before Kayla’s birthday party or Jaylen’s big Little League tournament. Plus, traveling around the country and seeing all the different people and sights is one of the best educational experiences a kid can get!