The duty of caring for your employees

Despite growing global uncertainty—from terrorist attacks, natural disasters and world health issues—organizations show no signs of slowing down on their investment in business travel. Global business travel continues to rise and is expected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2020, according to the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). The workforce is also changing with the global landscape with more and more employees working remote. For these reasons, duty of care and travel risk management programs need to be at the forefront of your organization’s security conversations.

Do you know the risks your employees face?

Travel, by nature, is risky—and understanding what those risks are will help you start identifying what you need to fulfill duty of care obligations to employees.  

Risks for your travelers include:

• Standing out from the local population, making them a potential target
• Driving in unfamiliar locations and conditions
• Stress and fatigue from travel delays, and being away from home
• Does not speak the language of the country
• Unfamiliar with local health risks and medical facilities
• Unclear on how or who to alert in case of an emergency

Additionally, there are risks to employees that go beyond travel or catastrophic events, such as pedestrian and car accidents on commutes, and incidents on public transportation. And when you factor in a mobile workforce, creating a physically safe work environment becomes more challenging.

Take the travel risk quiz to see how well your organization is prepared.   

Do you know where your duty of care gaps are?

You might genuinely think you are fulfilling your duty of care obligations. Even if you have a good track record in providing safety and security measures, you most likely have gaps in providing the right level of duty of care to create a secure work environment for your local, remote and traveling employees in today’s global landscape.

Do you:

• Inform and educate your travelers on general and specific travel risks?
• Document when an employee has been advised on travel safety?
• Only focus on high-risk foreign travel, and not domestic travel or your mobile workforce?
• Include safety and security as a part of your travel procurement criteria?
• Have a fully mapped out travel risk management strategy and a dedicated crisis management team?
• Regularly test your crisis management plan?

Are you prepared for the new norm?

As organizations continue to grow and expand their operations, the risks will continue to grow. Business travel will continue to be core to conducting business and having a remote or mobile workforce has become the new norm. The landscape and workforce have changed, but the way organizations are managing their duty of care programs have not changed with it.

The demographic of your workforce has diversified with a blending of Millennials, Gen X-ers, Baby Boomers, and Gen Z soon trailing in behind. Millennials are digital natives and all employees expect consumer-like tech experiences in the workplace for travel, expense, communication and productivity purposes.

Employees are increasingly booking their own trips, choosing their own places to stay and making expense purchases right from their phone. While having mobile and flexible options for travelers and remote workers provides employees with the freedom and personalization they seek while on the go, plus the ability to reap personal rewards directly from suppliers, it raises new safety risks and concerns for organizations whose current strategies and solutions don’t capture employee spend where and when it’s happening. Technological innovation has provided employees with more control of their own travel while simultaneously creating challenges for managed travel programs.

Do you know where your employees are?

Are you able to track your employees’ location during a crisis event? If you don’t have your duty of care program integrated with your travel and expense programs, it can be difficult to locate and communicate to employees that may be in harm’s way. 

You need clear visibility into where your employees are initiating travel and expense spend, and location-based analytics to be able to fully fulfill your duty of care obligations in today’s landscape. Technology can help close the gaps in your travel risk management programs, help drive more compliance, and track and communicate to your travelers in case of an emergency.

For all the risks that travelers and employees face, technology can help organizations level up their duty of care program, close the gaps in travel risk management programs, and limit risks to your organization and employees… because disaster truly can strike anywhere and you need to be able to communicate with your employees, anywhere and anytime, when the unforeseen takes place.

Concur can help you be a hero

The new norm when it comes to the global landscape and workforce can feel overwhelming and alarming for organizations. Fortunately, there’s also a new way to manage and fulfill your duty of care obligations by enhancing the Concur solution you’ve already invested in to help you evaluate, mitigate and respond to safety and security risks.

No organization can protect its employees’ safety with full certainty, but with the right plan and technologies in place, you can greatly improve your ability to mitigate, locate and communicate with employees no matter where they are or what time of day.

With Concur as your risk management partner, you’ll gain detailed location visibility, actionable intelligence, proactive and round-the-clock monitoring, real-time data in one tool and connectivity at a moment’s notice. Learn more on how to expand your existing Concur solution to keep your people safe and connected, anytime and anywhere.