For over a decade I worked in a job where I traveled 9 – 12 days each month; 40% – 70% of my days were spent somewhere else.  It seemed normal to me, most of my peers were doing it. If I wanted my career to go anywhere it was clear that travel was a part of that.  My boss and all the executives at his level were “Platinum” frequent flyers, it was part of the job.

I have now gone nearly a decade where I have only had one assignment that I had to fly to perform.  I recently had lunch with one of my colleagues from those days of heavy travel. He’s still traveling a lot and despite the fact that he had a heart attack, he’s overweight, puffy, and his joints are stiff and sore. It got me thinking about the long-term health effects of business travel.

When I traveled for business I ate almost exclusively in restaurants, and often indulged in foods or drink that I wouldn’t have at home.  I exercised less, stayed up late.  That’s just the physical challenges.  There’s also isolation, loneliness, stress of performing at a high level in unfamiliar environments and with people you may not know. The isolation isn’t just on the road, being gone a lot puts a lot of strain on your relationships at home, and with friends in your home town too.  You are not part of the community in the same way that you could be if you were home. Not everyone who travels experiences all of these issues, but I would say that everyone experiences some of them.

Businesses are talking a lot more about their corporate responsibility; they are trying not to externalize the costs of their environmental impact, provide workers compensation to offset the cost of injuries, and try to engage our communities to “give back” to those who help enable our success. In that context maybe business travel isn’t the world’s greatest threat, but the cost of business travel is extremely high, and I’m not sure we are doing enough to avoid it.

I know there are times when you have to be there.  Yesterday I lamented the ability of people who work behind a computer screen all day to build relationships, I know there is nothing like sitting face-to-face.  But if people saw business travel for the health threat that it is, I think that some creative ways could be found to avoid it. I’m not saying we need to eliminate business travel, but I believe it can be reduced or limited.  What if there was a rule that an individual couldn’t travel more than 5 days a month, or 20 days a year?  We’d get really picky about when it was important enough to get on a plane.  Sometimes it would be worth it, but other times…

Study after study tells us that healthy workers are more productive, we know that one of the most influential factors in your health is the community of people you hang out with.  If business owners really care about the health and well being of their workers (and themselves) then making an effort to reduce business travel is essential.

I know there are healthy people who travel a lot.  There are also people who smoke and don’t get cancer, but when we see someone who smokes we want them to stop.  I think if we are honest with ourselves we don’t need a government funded research study to tell us that extensive business travel is unhealthy. It’s time to make a decision to do something different, to find different ways to work, and ways to diminish the impact that working has on our team’s health.

What do you think?  Is it time to get off the plane?

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Brad Farris is a small business advisor with Anchor Advisors, Ltd. in Chicago, Il. Since 2001 Anchor Advisors has been helping creative professional firms to grow, by helping them clarify their purpose, get the most from their people, keep their eye on key performance measures, and implement consistent processes. Brad is also the author of The Business Owner’s Champion: 6 Practices to Build your Nerve and your Business.