The very nature of traveling brings with it a variety of potential risks and dangers. Whether driving down the street for a carton of milk or flying across the ocean to a foreign country, it’s a gamble as to whether an accident will occur. While you can take all the proper precautions for a safe trip, some factors are out of your control. It is helpful to have a travel risk management plan in place to help mitigate the panic you or your employees may feel when an incident occurs.
What is Travel Risk Management?
By law, every company, business, and organization is required to adhere to a certain duty of care. That means that the employer must take reasonable measures and steps to ensure that employees associated with the company are protected from all types of harm – physical, mental, and psychological.
To comply with the duty of care, a company should put into place a Travel Risk Management plan. Travel Risk Management is an initiative-taking approach to keeping your employees safe and secure while traveling for work.
What does a Travel Risk Management plan include?
A comprehensive Travel Risk Management plan should address both how your company will respond to a travel crisis and how to prevent harmful situations from arising in the first place.
All travel comes with risks. However, the differences between domestic and international travel can be significant. First, determine where your employees will be traveling.
Potential travel risks range from mundane actions such as a lost passport or canceled flight to serious risks such as a road accident, natural disaster, or terrorism.
Consider your employees’ travel routines and what situations they are likely to encounter while traveling for work. It is vital to anticipate risks so that your Travel Risk Management plan can address them.
A good Travel Risk Management plan should include emergency response guidance, medical care plans, security contingencies, and information security precautions.
Another critical element to consider is employee route tracking. There are a wide variety of location tracking apps that allow you, as the employer, to keep track of your employees’ whereabouts remotely so that you can locate them in case of an emergency. If you choose to incorporate this element into your Travel Risk Management plan, be sure to communicate it is a built-in safety feature for the security of your employees.
How to implement a Travel Risk Management plan
The key to formulating and implementing a Travel Risk Management plan is communication. You want to craft your plan in a way that lets your employees know that their safety and well-being are your most important focus. Then, communicate that plan concisely so that employees can access all the information they need when traveling. This includes who to contact in the event of an emergency, with after-business hours contacts.
Remember that travel risks are unpredictable. This means they are changing all the time, trip-by-trip, requiring employers to reevaluate their plans constantly. It is also imperative to be aware of current events that could pose a risk, such as natural disasters, political and social situations, etc.
Reevaluation should include assessing what has worked in the past and making appropriate changes where necessary. The Travel Risk Management plan and policy document should be formally updated every time a change is implemented, complete with a revised version number for the document so all who read it will be clear as to what the latest guidelines and expectations are.
Thanks to CLC’s Traveler Support and hotel reservation mapping Traveler Tracker feature, companies across the country are enjoying peace of mind from knowing where employees are staying.
Partner with CLC Lodging to help streamline your business’s employee travel management and mitigate travel risks with a comprehensive Travel Risk Management plan.
