more likely to have experienced infectious disease incidents than very small (<100 employees) or large (>10,000 employees) firms. Employees of medium-sized companies are more vulnerable to the threat of infectious diseases than very small or very large companies. This is likely due to the fact that very small companies may not have employees in certain parts of the world, and large companies know better how to prevent and manage employee threats such as infectious diseases (see Figure 10).
3. Sector/Industry—The types of threats experienced by sectors are different based on the type of work the sector undertakes. For example, international NGOs and nonprofit organizations are significantly more likely to have experienced six threats: lawlessness, opportunistic crime, travel-related infections, rural isolation, remoteness of location, and a lack of legal and administrative compliance. This is because their work is often geared toward countries with a poor infrastructure and greater lawlessness, and they operate more locally with fewer resources. Conversely, NGOs and educational institutions are significantly more likely to deal with a coup d’état. And NGOs and government organizations are more likely to have encountered war, insurgency, political upheaval or civil unrest. These sectors are more likely to be in involved in countries with political instability and have less of an ability (or desire) to cease operations in spite of the risk. Finally, NGOs and the for-profit corporate sector are more likely to have addressed issues with organized crime and chronic disease8
.
The occurrence of 17 of the 37 threats showed significant differences by industry. NGOs are particularly vulnerable, as they are more likely to have experienced 14 threats to their employees during the past three years. The second most vulnerable industry is energy and natural resources. With the exception of the ash cloud and earthquakes—which employees were less likely to have experienced—the energy and natural resources industry had much greater exposure to 10 threats related to crime, illness and remoteness/isolation. Overall, the manufacturing and education industries were less likely to have experienced threats compared to other industries. NGOs and the energy and natural resources industry are the most vulnerable in terms of having experienced employee incidents related to crime, illness and remoteness/isolation. This is highly dependent on the locations in which they operate.
4. HQ region—North American headquartered companies are more likely to have experienced kidnapping and lawlessness. Asian headquartered companies are more likely to have dealt with pandemics and travel-related infections. Australian and North American headquartered companies are more likely to have experienced a hurricane, typhoon or tsunami. North American and European headquartered companies were more likely to have encountered eight different threats related to natural disaster, crime and travel-related threats. Finally, companies headquartered in North America, Europe and Australia are more likely to have dealt with illness and lack of access to Western- standard medical care.
22
The occurrence of threats to employees parallels the types of incidents that are linked to the experience and framework of the headquarter location. Companies headquartered where certain threats occur more frequently (such as pandemic and natural disasters), or where there is an exception to the rule of law, are more likely to have experienced incidents that relate to these threats.
Respondent Demographics
1. Respondent level—Overall, contributors or employees who contribute to the team are less aware than middle and senior management of any threats that have occurred to their employees during the past three years. Senior and middle management report more incidents that have happened to their employees than contributors. Management is likely to be more aware of specific employee incidents and may not, for reasons of privacy and organizational repercussions, release information related to employee incidents to the base of employee contributors.
2. Respondent function—Risk and security managers are the most likely to report that a threat has occurred to their employees in the past three years. Only when the threat relates to the health, safety or life of the employee, are respondents in the medical and QHS&E fields as likely as risk and security managers to report the threat. Another consistent finding is that general management and HR are always less likely to report a threat.
For threats related to political and natural disaster situations, and travel-related health threats, travel managers are more likely to report that their employees had been affected. When this is part of one’s job responsibility, these functional roles are usually involved in the resolution of the problem and those individuals are more likely to be aware of the incident occurring to one’s employees. Hence, risk and security managers report more incidents, since they are the first responders. Medical and QHS&E personnel are more likely to report medical incidents, and travel managers report more travel-related incidents.
A troubling trend is that general management and HR are less likely to report employee incidents that occur in their own companies. Several questions arise: Are they out of the loop? Is their role ill-defined in crisis management? Do they get the information to act upon in a timely manner? Is there a lack of coordination during a crisis? Are they less likely to consider Duty of Care as part of their job responsibility?
3. Respondent location—There are several significant differences when it comes to reporting the occurrence of 29 of the 37 threats by the location of the respondent. Yet, there are some definite patterns in which threats are more or less likely to affect their employees. Different regions of the world have different issues, primarily due to the location-specific environments. It may also be due to how the HQ's culture (values, norms and behaviors) in a geographic location and its respondents makes dealing with these occurrences either more or less challenging.
8
NGOs always demonstrate a greater difference between the observed and expected values in the chi-square than any other sector.
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