Six Major Findings and Analysis


While risk management ranks high on Duty of Care awareness in this survey, they rank much lower on ownership. Medical, occupational health and QHS&E respondents (who also had high Duty of Care awareness) do not even make the top five Duty of Care owner list. Similarly, senior management is not given a great Duty of Care ownership role, except for decision-making. Travel function plays a key role in Duty of Care coordination and travel risk management activities. There is wishful thinking that every function should have greater responsibility than they currently have, with the exception of senior management, who should only remain the major decision-maker.


If Duty of Care should be everyone’s responsibility, HR’s Duty of Care role is likely to become more prominent as a facilitator of the company-wide organizational development intervention.


Global Benchmarking Study, two fundamental questions were asked regarding Duty of Care activities:


1. What types of Duty of Care practices are companies currently undertaking?


2. How do global companies compare with other companies in regard to Duty of Care?


To answer these questions, the benchmarking team:


1. Looked at the Duty of Care activities that companies currently undertake, based on a checklist of 100 Duty of Care practices;


2. Reviewed the Duty of Care indicators, or a group of various practices that relate to the same dimension, and corresponded to each step of integrated Duty of Care risk management model; and


Figure 12 Duty of Care Ownership


10% 20% 30% 40% 50%


3. Developed an overall Duty of Care baseline and compared companies by industry, sector and geography, allowing for preliminary benchmark comparisons10


. Duty of Care Practices Is Should


10% 20% 30% 40% 50%


Is Should


10% 20% 30% 40% 50%


Is Should


4. Benchmarking of Duty of Care Practices, Indicators and Baseline


When implementing an integrated Duty of Care risk management strategy, an organization must coordinate various activities with a variety of functional roles to secure the health, safety, security and well-being of their globally mobile employees. Within this


Of the 100 identified Duty of Care practices, respondents were asked whether or not their company engaged in each of those practices (a “not sure” option was also included). The responses ranged from a low of 15% to a high of 92% for companies that indicated that they engage in a specific Duty of Care practice. The most common Duty of Care practice undertaken by companies is an assessment—namely knowing the countries where assignees and business travelers are sent to, and having reliable sources that provide travel risk advice. This is followed by providing employees with a 24-hour advice and assistance number to call and, in general, supporting a Duty of Care culture within their organization. Less common practices include conducting test trials to measure the time to locate employees in a specific country, ensuring that traveling employees are taking preventive medication and assessing whether the organization is meeting its Duty of Care obligations overall. In addition, organizations are least likely to get employees to sign forms acknowledging that they understand the travel risk involved or for authorizing access to the international assignee/traveling employee’s medical history (in a confidential database) so that they can be better assisted in case of a medical emergency. Companies also score low on having some vital Duty of Care policies (such as rest breaks and “I’m okay” policies) in their organization or the ability to locate employees when they are traveling. There is a wide disparity in terms of in how many of the 100 Duty of Care practices companies actually engage (see Figure 13). The most common Duty of Care practices relate to the first stages of the model, whereas less common practices are related to the last stage of the model in terms of control, analysis and policies.


10


See earlier descriptions of the model (Underlying Duty of Care Models) and baseline (Developing a Duty of Care Baseline), and the Duty of Care Checklist Development and Validation in Appendix 1.


27


HR


Security Travel


Risk management Senior management HR Security


Senior management Travel


Risk management HR Senior management Security Risk management Travel Operations Project management Occ. health and safety Legal Insurance Medical


Workers' compensation PR/commumication


Occ. health and safety Operations


Project management Insurance Medical Legal


Workers' compensation PR/commumication


Operations


Occ. health and safety Project management


Medical Insurance Legal


Workers' compensation PR/commumication


Duty of Care Decision-Making


Duty of Care Coordination


Primary Duty of Care Responsibility


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