Travel and security: how to ensure duty of care in an unstable world

The global nature of today’s business operations and supply-chains mean staff frequently travel internationally on business, often to areas of political, social and economic instability. While essential for businesses growth, the risks to employees can be considerable and if things go wrong, can cause reputational damage and hit profits. Kelvyn Sampson of Willis offers advice to risk managers.

Threats to employees

As businesses expand their global footprint their staff are increasingly travelling to parts of the world with weak governance, where security against threats such as cyber attack, violent crime, malicious extortion, civil disorder and terrorism cannot be guaranteed. Many countries have poor medical infrastructure exacerbating the threat from injury or pandemic disease, such as the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

When staff travel abroad they often visit areas of relative affluence within otherwise-fragile states. Such locations, or where foreigners congregate, can become terrorist targets for attacks such as the Westgate Mall incident in Nairobi in 2013. Additionally, if a business is seen as an iconic symbol of the West, this may attract the attention of terrorists.

Poor public image can make businesses the target of aggrieved groups representing the labour force if the company is perceived as being exploitative. Riots may break out as a result, especially in places frequented by overseas visitors or wealthy shopping areas.

While riots and terrorist attacks can be extremely high in severity, thankfully they are relatively low in frequency. In contrast, the most common threats to staff are risks such as road traffic accidents and street crime.

Attracted to those who may look lost or under the influence of alcohol, opportunist criminals may snatch bags, mug pedestrians or spike drinks with the intent to rob or sexually assault victims. Kidnap is also on the rise as opportunists look for a quick ransom payment from a local office, as opposed to the high-demand negotiated settlement still practiced by established gangs around the world.

Your duty of care

Businesses have a corporate duty of care and a legal requirement to properly prepare their employees for travel and support them during and after their trips. If this is not robustly demonstrated or carried out then the consequences for individual employees and the company as a whole can be severe, resulting in legal proceedings and reputational damage which ultimately impact profits.

In order to demonstrate a robust duty of care to staff as they travel on business and work abroad, companies should ensure that appropriate risk mitigation strategies are in place.

Company travel policy

All effective travel risk mitigation strategies should have clear and simple policies and procedures which enable a company to know where their employees are going, what they are doing and how they can be best prepared and protected during such activities.

A company travel policy should have two aims:

1) To ensure, under duty of care, the highest possible degree of safety and security for employees when travelling overseas. 2) To ensure that all business-related travel to risk-rated countries is subject to a formal risk assessment.

2) The control of the travel policy could rest with either the security function or, if there is none, the HR department depending on the structure of the business.

Considerations prior to travel

A risk assessment process informs an organisation as to whether more robust training or support is required for business travellers prior to deployment.

For the company travel policy to be effective it is important to have access to an up-to-date country travel risk tool. This allows an organisation to risk assess trips in line with its risk appetite and also to monitor situations as they unfold, keeping the business informed in the event that decisions need to be made about its staff in particular locations. Such a tool also enables travellers to access useful information about the country they are visiting including current security issues, cultural and religious sensitivities and local embassy contact details.

If the destination exceeds a pre-determined risk threshold then more support might be required. This may include face-to-face security training, meet-and-greet services upon arrival, or a security escort throughout the trip.

Incident response

While risk assessment and preparation prior to travel are imperative, it is also vital that the company travel policy outlines what employees should do in the event of an incident, for example, who to call and how to behave.

Employee responses to incidents need to be in line with the company’s corporate crisis management plan which is, in turn, informed to some extent by the insurance policies that are in place. For example, if an employee is injured while on business travel they should be aware that they need to call the cover provider nominated on the company’s travel insurance programme.

Kelvyn Sampson is UK industry practice leader, retail, at Willis

Kelvyn Sampson - Willis