Corporate Travel
Many organisations ask people to travel on behalf of the business. Nothing we do is without risk but we can also take action to identify and manage the risks that our people experience whilst travelling on behalf of the business.
Business travel like any other business system will always be changing and adapting not only to technology and health issues such as the 2019/20 Covid-19 pandemic but also due to a change in personal preferences, costs and organisational structures and policy.
There remains an element of travel for key individuals travelling between international offices, staff secondments through to key client relationship or sales meetings.
Duty of Care
Organisations have both a legal and morale responsibility for their employees when they travel on behalf of the organisation. This is known as their ‘duty of care’.
An organisations travel policy should consider their duty of care. Many travel policies mention expenses, methods of travel and those practical everyday steps often governed by financial considerations. The duty of care element should be discussing their safety guidelines and considering what may happen in an emergency such as a terrorist attack or earthquake.
Duty of care is not the same as your travel risk assessment or your risk management policy. Duty of care is the responsibility the organisation has for the security and health and safety of the employees where as risk management is how the organisation addresses that duty of care.
Risks
If you would like a copy of this report then please email me
There are a number of risks that you should consider when discussing corporate travel. 10 of the biggest risks of business travel are listed below, in no particular order of importance.
- The Hotel
- IP (Intellectual Property)
- Terrorism
- Natural Disasters
- Travel Hubs
- Cultural Assumptions
- Possessions
- Entertaining
- Traffic
- Crowded Spaces
Risk Assessments
Most travel insurance policies insist that travel risk assessments are completed but in my experience most organisations either do not have travel or country risk assessments and if they do they are either tucked away in a folder somewhere or on a server that no one accesses. Rarely have I found anyone especially seasoned business travellers who have read one.
The key to people utilising these is to make them accessible which means they must be easily understood and relevant.
If you need help with this then just get in touch