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In an increasingly complex global landscape, providing duty of care for business travel is gaining importance.
By defining the scope of an employer's responsibilities under UK law and providing a starting framework, travel managers and HR teams will be able to create their own compliant duty of care policy and have the insights and tools required to protect employee wellbeing wherever they are in the world.
What is duty of care?
Duty of care is a corporate policy and legal requirement that ensures companies are committed to the physical and emotional safety and wellbeing of their employees.
For an employer, duty of care obligations involve demonstrating concern for employees’ safety by planning and taking every precaution to mitigate risk affecting them and others, including:
Health and safety
Fire safety
Discrimination and bullying
Stress
Violence
Food safety
In the UK, the obligations of a company to provide a duty of care extend further than the office. When an employee travels for business, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires duty of care to continue to the same standard as when they are in the workplace.
Duty of care vs travel risk management
A common cause of compliance oversight is the confusion between Duty of Care and Travel Risk Management. While they are linked, they serve different functions in your safety strategy.
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 traveller, this means landing in a foreign city and still feeling confident that the company has their back.
Issues that corporate travellers 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 disruptions from happening, you must still 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 travelling employees haven't been briefed on who to contact in case of an emergency while away on a business trip.
As companies expand their professional ties across the globe, corporate travellers are constantly exposed to new risks. Even employees with vast travel experience need support when confronted with delays and cancellations.
For this reason, providing proper duty of care is becoming a higher priority for companies. World Travel Protection’s report on the mental health toll of business travel shows that 40% of survey respondents said their organisation does not take their wellbeing seriously when travelling, demonstrating the need for more vigorous duty of care for people on business trips.
At first glance, these regulations may seem like they complicate business travel, but with the proper tools, you can stay compliant while also simplifying your existing corporate travel planning approach.
Prevention, response and strategy are key aspects of every employer’s obligation to uphold the law and safeguard their team. Before authorising a trip, companies must use the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR) 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 backup plan to be implemented should risk become reality.
How to write a duty of care policy for travel
While duty of care can sometimes be difficult to define, the Travel Risk Management (TRM) Standard ISO 31030 provides a framework as a starting point for creating and implementing an effective policy.
To help you further, here are some best practices you can follow to create your own duty of care policy for travel.
1. Assess your current travel programme
Involve relevant stakeholders: and discuss areas for improvement. Travellers 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 travellers 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 travelling to high-risk destinations.
Automate travel alerts and incorporate them into the travel itinerary. Your TMC will likely provide live updates to travellers 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.
4. Have a plan 'B'
Incorporate contingencies into your employee corporate travel policy, as well as into the plan for specific trips. Employees should know that there is a backup plan for emergencies that is reliable and up-to-date. Refer to our sample company travel policy for employees to find out what your policy should contain.
Most importantly, this plan should cover information on where the nearest embassy or evacuation point is for foreign nationals.
Duty of care tips and tools
Creating a duty of care plan and a travel policy is only half the battle. Getting your workforce to comply with your internal regulations is what helps you fulfil your legal and moral obligations to keep employees safe.
Employee engagement: besides helping to customise 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 traveller’s location for extraction if needed.
Gadgets and equipment: if travelling to a high-risk area for pick-pocketing, for example, you may recommend travellers use a money belt and book a hotel with a safe in the room to leave their valuables.
With transparency and automation, Perk makes this simple for managers and travellers alike.
Improve travel policy compliance with Perk
Perk makes travel arrangements easy. It enables travel managers to book, manage and provide support to travellers using a single platform.
Plus, with Perk, you can set up and roll out your travel policy, automating compliance to reduce shadow work. 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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