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Business As Usual
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As a libertarian, it is evident that I take issue with government restrictions on the free-market. However, I have now found myself in the peculiar situation of taking issue with public restrictions on the free-market. This is a slightly more complex issue to reconcile with libertarian values. It is certainly true that the public should decide trends and have control over businesses through their preferences and opinions of products, policies, practices and/or competitors. However, merely allowing businesses in general to do poorly because the public has taken misinformed cues from the opinions of government official’s based upon mere symbolism is unwise.
After the AIG fiasco, people had their minds firmly made up about businesses and their ‘unnecessary’ expenditures in bad financial times. When it comes to giving excessive bonuses to CEOs and members of the Board after laying off other employees, their disgust is justified. However, when it comes to corporate retreats and the like, the situation is more complicated than it may appear at first glance. I understand why the public would be upset to see an image of business executives spending a small fortune on a resort or trip after being given a bailout at the public’s expense. The fact that this resort may very well have been booked in advance and thus be more expensive and wasteful to cancel than attend - along with the fact that these business trips are not merely for pleasure, but actually have their merits in helping people within that business come together and strategize or grow as a unit - could be understandably over-looked in such tumultuous economic times.
What cannot be over-looked, however, is the evidence which shows that businesses are suffering as a result of a paralyzing fear of travelling to build relationships with potential investors or partners and an even greater fear of rewarding or appreciating their employees, team-building, gathering together to plan and strategize or any type of event in which a hotel is booked and activities occur. This is not just the case when it comes to companies which have received bailouts. In fact, most companies in both Europe and America are now cutting travelling budgets and getting rid of any group activities altogether. This is not due to the fact that they can no longer afford such necessities (and yes, travel is a necessity in business), because these practices are often the only way to keep a business alive and growing, but because they are afraid of how it may appear to the public. They are afraid that public opinion will ruin their efforts and so they make no efforts.
In tough economic times, it is mind-boggling that we would want this to happen. This is precisely the time in which we should be allowing businesses to do business. Harvard Business Review recently performed a study of the importance of such travel. Of the business people they interviewed, they found that 70% said they work in more than one country, 79% said that in-person meetings are essential for business practices such as finding clients, 87% said that such travel is necessary to seal the deal, and nearly every respondent (95%) said that in-person meetings are the only effective way to build long-lasting business relationships. Team-building exercises and company retreats are also a vital part of keeping a business afloat. Businessmen and businesswomen do not simply go to a retreat to lay back and be pampered; they go there to do business.
Perhaps the public no longer cares if businesses function the way they should. They could certainly be forgiven for holding a grudge against the big corporations who have been misbehaving and who contributed to our economic crisis. Nevertheless, even if you put aside the fact that there is no way our economy can steadily improve when the companies which help make up that economy are at a standstill, there are entire industries which are quickly becoming innocent casualties of this war on business expenditures. Two industries which immediately spring to mind are airlines and hotels, both of whom have been hit hard by the recession. Business travel makes up a great deal of an airline’s business. Corporate retreats and team-building exercises make up a great deal of a hotel’s business. Just how are they meant to improve sales when we are holding their greatest means of doing so hostage?
Perhaps we do not like the way it looks when business execs are photographed at a five-star retreat or travelling around the world, especially when so many people are in such dire economic straits. Yet, maybe we should remember that there are millions of people worldwide employed by airlines, travel agents, hotels and the businesses themselves, who rely on business-as-usual practices in order to keep their jobs and feed their families. It is time we stopped second-guessing and scrutinizing every decision that a company makes – while still watching out for those who are trying to make matters worse or feeding their greed at the expense of the taxpayer – and allow them to do the things that will keep them, and us, afloat in the long run.
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