
Duty of Care: More Than Travel Insurance
What Is Duty of Care?
Duty of Care in principle, addresses legal and moral responsibilities of organisations and individuals to act in a responsible manner to avoid any risks of harm or injury to other individuals. In this sense, organisations are responsible for the health, safety and security of their employees, particularly those travelling for business purposes on their behalf.
How Does This Matter For Organisations?
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 153 workers have a work related accident every 15 seconds. Additionally, an employee dies every 15 seconds from work related accidents or diseases.
“ Every day, 6,300 people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases — more than 2.3 million deaths per year. 317 million accidents occur on the job annually; many of these resulting in extended absences from work. The human cost of this daily adversity is vast and the economic burden of poor occupational safety and health practices is estimated at 4 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product each year.” — International Labour Organization (ILO)
Duty of Care obligations for organisations go beyond employees and are applicable to their immediate family including spouses and children, an organisation’s board members, consultants, contractors and so on. Thus, ensuring that an organisation proactively exercises Duty of Care arrangements and policies as part of its respective corporate governance, is crucial to safeguarding the safety of their employees and avoiding the costs of non-compliance; legal and financial penalties.
The majority of nations in North America and Europe, have stringently enforced Duty of Care laws. Notably, a substantial number of global business travellers are Western nationals. More so, many major multinational companies which are based in the abovementioned continents, have business assets abroad in countries such as India.
For example, the United Kingdom in 2008 implemented the ‘Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007’. The law imposes criminal liability upon employers who breach their Duty of Care obligations, in the event of which results in the death of an individual at a project site, an employee or their immediate family during travel.
What Are The Risks Faced By Business Travellers?
Business travel today is a growing requirement of doing business in globally interconnected markets. As a result, business travellers who travel to unfamiliar countries, are confronted with a number of safety and security challenges. Different countries present differing standards in terms of health, law and order, politics and natural environments.
In India for instance, disease infections such as malaria, typhoid and tuberculosis to name a few are prevalent in certain areas. Urgent medical needs may arise at anytime for a variety of reasons beyond infectious diseases such as food poisoning, physical injuries, the common cold or flu and so on.
Political stability and cultural clashes have become an ever evolving global concern, and may present security and logistical challenges to business travellers; for example, sizeable protests and processions, or government instability.
In countries such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the risks of natural calamities such as floods, typhoons and earthquakes are grounded in their unpredictable nature. Remaining prepared to implement a quick and effective crisis response to preserve the health, safety and security of an organisation’s employees in such an instance, is crucial to safeguard a company’s reputation and avoid penalties.
How to Comply With Duty of Care
Every stakeholder within an organisation from the CEO to human resources, operations, finance, legal, risk management teams and so on, has a responsibility in managing Duty of Care obligations.
Compliance with Duty of Care obligations can be divided into four main components:
- Assess Risk Exposure
The first important step is to identify travel security risks. Organisations need to clearly outline and define what constitutes their international travel exposure and requirements much prior to examining potential risks. In the same regard, it is important for companies to take into account their business assets worldwide; employees job functions, locations, business travel, family members accompanying employees are some of many aspects to consider. Unique requirements additionally factor into risk assessments. For instance, expatriates, business visitors and/or contractors have differing sets of requirements with respect to risk exposure, depending on the duration and nature of work at a particular location. - Corporate Travel Policies
With an ever-evolving threat landscape, it has become imperative for companies to implement proactive and reactive strategies towards mitigating travel risks globally. While choosing a comprehensive travel insurance programme which covers accidents, evacuation, kidnap and ransom incidents to name a few, meeting the needs of business travellers today goes beyond insurance coverage. Selecting the right hotels, ground transport and airline services, providing travelling employees with location specific risk assessments, awareness of different local dynamics and a means of 24/7 communication are essential components of a robust corporate travel policy. - Educate Employees
Being informed is essential to instilling travel security awareness amongst a company’s employees. Educating employees about a company’s travel security programme in practice can mean Pre-Travel Briefings to provide destination information and awareness and help mitigate potential risks associated with travel. Such a briefing covers aspects including but not limited to transportation, weather, cultural norms, customs and immigration, medical services and standards, political and security risks, local emergency services and numbers, consular contact information and operational assistance hotline numbers. Security risk management companies today, provide a flexible means of communicating pre-travel information both online and in-person. - Know An Employee’s Whereabouts
Keeping track of an employee’s location is paramount to meeting travel security demands and thereby complying with Duty of Care. Security risk management companies today offer employee monitoring services, enabling companies to track their whereabouts in real time. More so, the use of GPS enabled technology provides flexibility of access for employers to monitor their employees 24/7. In the event of a crisis or emergency of any kind, maintaining communication and knowledge of an employee’s location is paramount to ensuring their safety; having reliable local ground assets, and communication abilities to make phone calls, send emails and text messages are essential to this.
The Need For A Reliable Security Partner
Complying with Duty of Care in summary, assigns companies the responsibility over the health, safety and security of their employees, including those travelling on behalf of their employer. Therefore, appropriately identifying the risks posed to them and also, what is not a risk is imperative to ensuring business continuity and can be facilitated through developing corporate travel strategies and implementing a policy in the same regard.
Security risk consulting firms today help companies bridge the gap between global security risks and opportunities. In the context of Western business travelers, unfamiliar countries such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, navigating socio-political and geographic terrain brings a number of unexpected challenges. While planning and implementing Duty of Care arrangements can at times be a complex and time-consuming task for many businesses, having access to the right expertise can simplify the process and ensure accuracy in compliance.
A reliable security partner thus, reduces an organisation’s need to cultivate and sustain internal resources while providing cost-effective and timely solutions. Timely information is the difference between success and failure in travel risk management. Intelligence driven solutions form the crux of successful travel security solutions, in a truly integrated capacity drawing upon technology and human expertise. As global business travel will continue to bring on a number of challenges for the foreseeable future, vigilance in meeting Duty of Care demands will remain a growing priority for companies worldwide.
This blog was written by GRID91’s Travel Risk Management Team. For any questions, comments or feedback, please contact us at:
+91 22 6236 4401 OR connectingminds@grid91.com
