Travel Approvals - Associate

Job description / Role

Line of Service
Internal Firm Services

Specialism
IFS - Internal Firm Services - Other

Management Level
Associate

Job Description & Summary
The Travel Support Team sits within the Operations team and is responsible for the implementation/administration of travel booking and management activities. The Travel Support Team is responsible for setting, monitoring and continuously improving the firm's transportation processes including where appropriate travel-related vendor management. The Travel Support manages all day-to-day activities around air/ground transportation, visa requirements and hotel reservations.

Financial

- Support day to day activities in light of the Travel Expense and travel approval principles, ensuring accurate reflection within the Travel Management System for all staff
- Drives and supports a culture of long-term saving on travel and visa costs
- Tracking and upwards reporting of all savings made within the travel team 
- Works with Travel Operations Lead to drive cost efficiencies in processes
- Monitors and records LPO's and invoices

Customer

- Responsible for day-to-day delivery of travel support activities including offline / multi leg and out of policy bookings and approvals 
- Provide first level response on travel queries and escalates complex requests to the Travel Operations Lead 
- Monitor external service provision by vendors and flags service issues to the Travel Operations Lead as appropriate
- Completes reviews and audits of rates displayed within the firm's online booking system (KDS) and highlights errors or anomalies to the Travel Operations Lead as appropriate.
- Input of visa application data onto computer systems and assist with application retrievals, monitor the application status and searches.
- Offer professional and up to date visa advice on rules and regulation mainly to the Middle East countries.
- Works flexibility to accommodate peak times of travel e.g. busy season and graduate induction travel times 

Internal Process

- Supports, reviews and recommendations ways to optimise travel spend including:
- Tickets pricing alignment with market 
- Travel patterns
- Out of policy bookings
- Monitors out of policy expense bookings and highlights to the Travel Operations Lead as appropriate
- Promotes and monitors compliance to the firm's travel booking policy 
- Educates and advertises the travel booking processes and procedures to travelers
- Supports the Business Resilience travel approval process
- Provides on the job training for employees on the us of the use of the firm's online booking system (KDS) 
- Effectiveness in the visa area is about being objective; using sound judgment, evidence and knowledge to provide accurate, expert and professional visa advice.
- Delivering timely performance with energy and taking responsibility and accountability for quality outcomes. 
- Additional tasks as assigned by the management

Learning & Growth

- Adheres to policies and procedures 
- Act as a key resource and liaison to other functional areas of the business, building cross-functional relationships as needed

Requirements

Education

- Bachelor's Degree 

Language

- Fluency in English required, proficiency in Arabic is an advantage

Overall Experience

- 1+ years of experience 

Specific Experience

- Experience in travel management agency and/or call center

Knowledge and Skills

- Strong customer service orientation
- Organisation, thoroughness, eye for detail, time management skills and proactivity 
- Strong verbal and written communication skills 
- Good knowledge in computer skills and managing databases
- Ethical Conduct

About the Company

At PwC Middle East, we've set out an ambitious purpose and strive to live it everyday: to solve important problems and build trust in society.

We're a community of solvers that come together in unexpected ways to build trust and create sustained outcomes. We solve important problems, support one another as we grow, develop and build fulfilling careers.

PwC provides industry-focused services for public and private clients across Assurance and Audit, Deals, Consulting, Tax and Legal. We draw on our development legacy that brings together the collective experience of over 7,000 people in our region with offices across 12 countries to solve for tomorrow.

We're striving to consistently deliver innovative work that builds trust and delivers sustained outcomes. And we're proud of the strength that comes from all our different backgrounds and experiences and we value everyone's uniqueness. We thrive in uncertainty, operate with integrity and leverage the diverse perspectives of our teams.

If you're looking for a place that fuels your ambition to make a difference, that matches your curiosity with continuous learning opportunities and reimagines ways of working to enable you to lead a more balanced life, then you're a future PwCer.