Duty of care for business travel
When your employees are traveling for business, your legal and ethical responsibility is to ensure their safety and well-being. This involves creating a thorough plan that evaluates foreseeable and unforeseeable risks, helping you protect employees from harm and your company from legal issues. This plan is known as the duty of care.Putting your travelers safety first. Learn how today.
Business travel and duty of care
There is a lot that can potentially go wrong when an employee is sent on a business trip—and the company needs to be prepared for whatever happens. To the corporate traveler, this means landing in a foreign city and still feeling confident that the company has their back.Some issues that corporate travelers can face include:- Missing a flight or flight cancellations
- Misplacing a passport or another important document
- Becoming ill while abroad
- Accidents requiring medical attention
- Extreme weather or natural disasters
- Civil unrest
Most risks are out of a travel manager's control. Even though you can't prevent extreme weather or a protest from happening, you can do your due diligence and keep up to date with travel safety notifications, weather advisories, and local news. This way, you will know what to expect and how to prepare your employees before any business trip. In addition to the legal and moral obligations to preserve employee health, duty of care helps companies meet compliance requirements, manage risks, and plan strategically for safe business travel. Let’s see how.Why is duty of care important?
Shockingly, 22% of traveling employees haven't been briefed on who to contact in case of emergency while away on a business trip.Most offices already have some form of duty of care procedure in place. This means employees know where to gather in the event of a fire, or who to call if they locked themselves in the supply closet! But what’s the plan for when an employee needs immediate help when they’re 10,000 miles away?As companies expand their professional ties across the globe, corporate travelers are constantly exposed to new risks. Even employees with vast travel experience need support when confronted with a high-risk situation, such as dangerous illness or political unrest.Companies have to comply with employees’ need for support as corporate travel safety is a legal obligation—it’s not optional!It helps companies fulfill legal obligations
Organizations worldwide are increasingly being held accountable by their governments and employees to conduct business prudently by addressing the many risks in business travel.In the US, a duty of care program has become a legal requirement for all organizations of any size. More and more, employees are being informed of their rights and will file against their employers if they feel a security-related incident was not handled appropriately.For these reasons, providing proper duty of care is becoming a higher priority for companies. Having documented proof that the company provides safety procedures, sufficient resources, and correct training is the best safeguard they have against potential future litigation.At first glance, these regulations may seem like they complicate business travel. That’s not necessarily true! With the proper tools, you can stay compliant while simplifying corporate travel planning.Helps companies with strategic planning and practical prevention
Prevention, response, and strategy are key aspects of every employer’s obligation to uphold the law and safeguard their team.Before authorizing a trip, companies are expected to research and evaluate the risk level by conducting a risk assessment for business travel and to educate employees on safety procedures to follow. They’re also legally required to have a fall-back plan to be implemented should risk become reality.Corporate liability extends to omissions as well as negligence. Travelers should know the recommended vaccines before travel, how and where to access medical treatment and evacuation contingencies. It’s also recommended to brief your employees on cultural and political norms before going to new destinations. This helps inform their behavior and mannerisms as guests in that country.Your responsibility doesn’t end at identifying risk and documenting a plan of action, you must also make sure that your travelers are practically involved. When your employees understand that compliance is mandatory, they will respect the policy and you for making their well-being a requirement. Training and briefings encourage employee compliance with the travel risk assessment policy.Companies who ignore duty of care as a necessity are ultimately putting themselves at risk. Those who don’t often struggle to withstand the morphing threats and disruptions accompanying travel today.This is largely due to a lack of resources or information available on how to write a comprehensive duty of care policy or how to conduct a thorough travel risk assessment. An even more common cause of oversight is that many companies don’t know the difference between the two.Duty of care vs travel risk management
Within the context of travel, duty of care is the legal obligation to research, plan, and implement a strategy to mitigate the risks involved for employees traveling for business. A company's duty of care will contain a statement of its commitment to care for its employees and how far that extends. Within this, there will be a variety of processes and tactics, such as travel risk management, to uphold this commitment. The risk management process is how your company will uphold its duty of care. That’s why you need to know how to perform a travel risk assessment. Before that, draft a duty of care plan first; it will dictate the areas to focus on when carrying out the assessment. A duty of care policy should research, document, warn, and train for any possible risks.How to write a duty of care policy for travel
Given that adequate risk management is difficult to quantify or define, legislators struggle to conceptualize duty of care clearly. However, there are some best practices you can follow regardless of the legal setting.1. Assess your current travel program
- Involve relevant stakeholders: and discuss areas for improvement. Travelers offer first-hand experience in dealing with high-risk situations, and travel managers will lend insight into the logistics involved.
- Discuss what’s gone wrong in the past: research global risk trends, and agree on up-to-date security policies to follow.
- Share the burden with a travel management company: TMC expertise will help you to meet your duty of care requirements by providing advice and tools for travel safety.
Business travel companies are ideal as they understand corporate needs, provide live data and security reports, recommend strategic improvements to duty of care policies, and offer 24/7 support. This is vital as travelers need to be able to contact a reliable entity at any time for assistance of any magnitude.2. Establish a pre-travel process
- Compile pre-trip risk assessment reports: that detail globally consolidated data, particularly when traveling to high-risk destinations.
- Automate travel alerts: and incorporate them into the travel itinerary. Your TMC will likely provide live updates to travelers to inform them of potential risk developments.
- Ensure employee contact information and health records are easily available: and up to date.
3. Domestic vs international travel
- Plan for domestic and international risk factors: an accident can affect your employee while commuting to a meeting across town, so be sure you’re making safety provisions for your people at home, as well as the jet-setters.
Duty of care tips and tools
- Employee engagement: besides helping to customize security measures, employees will appreciate being involved in the decision-making process. They’ll gladly comply because, at the end of the day, it’s their safety you’re talking about.
- Technology for security: automated services provided by TMCs and travel management software have real-time tracking features to pinpoint a traveler’s location for extraction if needed.
- Gadgets and equipment: if traveling to a high-risk area for pick-pocketing, for example, you may recommend travelers use a money belt and book a hotel with a safe in the room to leave their valuables.
Creating a duty of care plan and a sound travel policy is only half the battle. Getting your workforce to comply with your internal regulations is what helps you fulfill your legal and moral obligations to keep employees safe.Get 100% travel policy compliance with TravelPerk
TravelPerk makes travel arrangements easy. It enables travel managers like you to book, manage, and provide support to travelers using a single platform.Plus, with TravelPerk, you can set up and roll out your travel policy and automate compliance. After you establish rules and regulations, the platform guides your employees into booking policy-compliant hotels, flights, and more. You can even create in-app approval workflows for all trips or just those outside your policy.?)
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