Building a Travel Risk Management Program

Traveler Safety and Duty of Care for Any Organization

Charles Brossman

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780128019382
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Building a Travel Risk Management Program: Traveler Safety and Duty of Care for Any Organization helps business and security professionals effectively manage traveler risk by showing them how to build a complete travel risk program. While global corporate travel risks are increasing exponentially, many security and business managers are not well-versed in the rapidly changing global landscape of travel risk, nor do they fully realize the multitude of risks their companies face if they don't comply with their legal obligations—"duty of care"—for protecting their employees from foreseeable harm, which can cost a company in the form of extensive fines, productivity loss, business interruptions, stock price loss, litigation, and even potential bankruptcy.

This book is the first to bridge the gap between the topics of travel management, security, and risk management. It serves as a reference point for working with other departments, including human resources and legal, paving the way for better internal cooperation for travel managers and security managers. In addition, it helps organizations craft a travel risk management program for their unique needs that incorporates the most important policies and procedures that help them comply with legal obligations.

• Illustrates common mistakes that can have a devastating impact across the entire enterprise with real-world examples and case studies
• Includes testimonies from corporate travel risk security experts on best practices for meeting the constantly changing duty of care standard
• Presents best practices for reducing the risk of exposure and liability
• Offers models for effectively promoting and advocating for travel risk management programs within the organization
• Compares laws like the UK"s "Corporate Manslaughter Act" (considered one of the world's most strict legislative standards) to similar laws around the world, showing how compliance requires constant supervision and process improvement

1

Planning for known and unknown risks

Abstract

This chapter covers standard definitions of duty of care, example case law where employer duty of care was applicable, a variety of sample risks and concerns that employers and travelers should be aware of, in context with a travel risk management program.

Keywords

duty of care; TRM; travel risk management; medical; biohazards; pandemics; air travel; dvt; ebola; h1n1; civil unrest; LGBT; women; female travelers; hate crimes; natural disasters; kidnap ransom; workers compensation; ashcloud; evacuations; open bookings

Prior to diving into the various aspects of building a travel risk management (TRM) program in the subsequent chapters, the purpose of this chapter will be to broaden your perception of why each and every company must address TRM at some level. The chapter begins with the corporate obligation of “duty of care” and what that means at a fundamental level, and then provides examples of different kinds of risks that companies should think about and implement plans to address. There are an infinite number of potential use cases for risk exposure to travelers, but these examples provide good food for thought, in particular to those companies whose knee-jerk reactions to creating a TRM program is typically comments about their not necessarily needing one because they don’t believe that they travel to high-risk destinations, which is a farce.

As you will learn throughout this text, risk exposure is not always directly related to the risk rating of a particular destination as provided by risk intelligence providers. It can also be about risks that are specific to a traveler, their behavior and any number of other factors, some of which may be foreseeable, and some not. This information is important, but in the absence of a moderate to high risk rating, there is still the potential for an individual or widespread crisis that can affect groups of people and even an entire company. Subsequent chapters will delve into greater detail on some more common risk factors, along with case studies and precedents.

Legal duty of care—definition¹

“Duty of care” stands for the principle that directors and officers of a corporation in making all decisions in their capacities as corporate fiduciaries, must act in the same manner as would a reasonably prudent person in their position.

Courts will generally adjudge lawsuits against director and officer actions to meet the duty of care, under the business judgment rule. The business judgment rule stands for the principle that courts will not second guess the business judgment of corporate managers and will find the duty of care has been met so long as the fiduciary executed a reasonably informed, good faith, rational judgment without the presence of a conflict of interest. The burden of proof lies with the plaintiff to prove that this standard has not been met. If the plaintiff meets the burden, the defendant fiduciary can still meet the duty of care by showing entire fairness, meaning that both a fair process was used to reach the decision and that the decision produced a substantively fair outcome for the corporation’s shareholders.

iJET International defines “Duty of Care” specific to TRM as follows:²

Duty of Care: This is the legal responsibility of an organization to do everything “reasonably practical” to protect the health and safety of employees. Though interpretation of this language will likely vary with the degree of risk, this obligation exposes an organization to liability if a traveler suffers harm. Some of the specific elements encompassed by Duty of Care include:

A safe working environment—this extends to hotels, airlines, rental cars, etc.

Providing information and instruction on potential hazards and supervision in safe work (in this case, travel)

Monitoring the health and safety of employees and keeping good records

Employment of qualified persons to provide health and safety advice

Monitoring conditions at any workplace (including remote locations) under the organization’s control and management

Relative to “Duty of Care” is the “Standard of Care” that companies are compared to in defending what is “reasonable best efforts” or “reasonably practical,” based upon what resources and programs are put into place by an organization’s peers to keep travelers safe.

Prior to 2001, business travelers thought nothing of being able to walk into an airport and meet their loved ones at their arrival gate. No security barriers, no cause for concern because air travel was something that at the time, our collective psyche felt generally safe, with the exception of a hijacking upon occasion. Fast forward to a post-9/11 world, and consider what the world’s airports look like now and how the processes surrounding airport security have changed the way that we travel, whether for business or pleasure.

Why would any of us believe that the need for added security, particularly around those traveling for business, begins and ends at the airport? For companies who have been paying attention since 9/11, the ones who, outside of the public eye, have had to deal with critical incidents that had the potential for loss of lives, corporate liability, and damage to their company’s reputation, having a structured TRM program not only reduced the potential for risk, but heightened the awareness of risk to their travelers. Their definition of “travelers” extended beyond employees (transient travelers to expatriates) to contractors, subcontractors, and dependents. Keeping travelers aware of imminent dangers takes effort and planning, and isn’t something that employers can any longer react to after the fact. In some countries, lack of planning or resources to support business travelers has the potential to be grounds for claims of negligence in a company’s duty of care responsibilities, and can lead to a criminal offense, such as with the United Kingdom’s (UK) Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007. What the “business judgment rule” in the above duty of care definition means in layman’s terms is that a company must be able to prove that it put forth reasonable best efforts to keep its travelers safe. How this applies in different circumstan...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Introduction
• About the Author
• 1. Planning for known and unknown risks
• 2. Assessing your current approach to travel risk management
• 3. Building a proactive travel risk management program
• 4. Travel risk policies, compliance, and supplier safety
• 5. Crisis response
• 6. Kidnap and ransom, extraction and evacuation
• 7. Hotel safety
• 8. Conferences, meetings, and incentive trips
• 9. Enterprise risk management and its relation to travel risk management
• 10. Travel management companies
• 11. Finding the money for travel risk management
• 12. TRM – setting new standards for what’s to come
• Index