Talk Talk has a dedicated briefing paper for managers. One risk it picks out is new staff, who “in particular, should be briefed on the hazards associated with travel to certain areas well in advance of any pro- posed journey”. And at Citrix, new staff receive training covering the company’s global travel and events policy. Risk mitigation is the responsibility of all departments, so input into policy should involve travel, head of operations, security, health and safety, HR and – to ensure it is fit for purpose – travellers, too. In addition, says Pereira: “With all our clients, we ask that the CEO signs it off.” The message also comes from the top at Citrix. “The travel team, the risk team, security and senior leadership all the way up to SVP [senior vice-president] level play a part in ongoing development of the risk policy,” says Robinson. “Updates occur on an ad hoc basis, with at least an annual review at some level.”
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Keeping up to date with events in destina- tions your travellers are visiting is essential and there is nothing to beat local knowl- edge. ISOS talks to local security providers, hotels and embassies. “They are a useful source of information because they will know the environment far better than we might, irrespective of how often we go to those countries,” says Willis. Head of account management at Diver-
sity Travel, Stephen Brook, says: “During the Nepal earthquake, we used the 52 local offices of one of our global clients to push information out on a daily basis. It was useful and effective.” There is a risk that locals become
inured to their environment, especially where changes build up gradually, which could result in a failure to put mitigation measures in place, so a combination of local knowledge and outside expertise is ideal. However, it is not just about the com-
pany’s duty-of-care towards the traveller – the traveller also has responsibilities. “[These] should include an ‘I’m okay’ policy, so that if there is a disaster or inci- dent, there is an obligation on the part of the employee to call HR or a central source and confirm that they are, indeed, okay,” states the Key Travel white paper. And employees need to be self-sufficient in the event of a deteriorating environment.
102 BBT MAY/JUNE 2016
Keeping up to date with events in destinations your travellers are visiting is essential
“Immediate action by the traveller will be a key determinant of the outcome of a situation, so making sure travellers are well prepared and know how to respond is a key part of the process,” say Tim Willis. Health checks – mental and physical, and before, during and after travel – are a thorny but crucial element of risk assess- ment. Sending people to remote areas on rotational work, when they are spending long periods away from friends and family, can take its toll mentally, but those who are routinely working in war zones and other high-risk areas may return suffer-
Risk top takeaways
— Define your appetite for risk and predicate your risk policy on that.
— Embed risk into your travel policy.
— Involve travel, head of operations, security, health and safety, HR and travellers in writing the policy.
— Identify areas of potential misunderstanding and clarify them.
— Communication is all – travellers must know that the policy exists and where it is.
— Preparation is essential, which takes the form of training and briefing – for travellers and managers.
— Use local contacts. — Cater for failure of mobile networks.
— Remember: risk management = reputation management.
ing from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – they and their managers should be apprised of how to recognise and deal with this. In the world of news gathering this
hazard goes with the territory and a culture of support throughout an organisation is crucial. Colin Pereira says there is still stigma attached to mental health issues. “Organisations that recognise it as a normal reaction to seeing traumatic things in the field will have a very robust mental health programme,” he says. However, travellers are not always forthcoming about their physical condi- tion. “We had someone who was physically ill and was hospitalised while travelling abroad for the company,” says Talk Talk’s director of property and facilities, Paul Owen. “It resulted in their having to be flown back. I then banned them from travel for six months, pending clearance from a consultant.” He highlights a less obvious spin on health risk: “I would be concerned about sending anyone to India who had a peanut allergy because everything there is cooked in nut oil, and that is not well signposted. We would have to make sure they were properly equipped to deal with it,” he says.
REPUTATIONAL RISK Taking a light touch approach to risk management is not an option: “Risk and reputation management are inextricably combined – it is part of the business continuity process,” says ISOS director Willis. To Diversity Travel’s humanitarian clients, “reputation is vital to the stability of the missions of their organisations” and “organisations that don’t take care of their people are quickly found out, so why would anyone outside view them favourably?” says Pereira. “In a world where everything plays out in the eye of the media, organisations need to respond effectively and humanely.” T’was ever thus. Consider this: back in the 1990s, academics Rory F Knight and Deborah J Pretty researched the share- holder value of some companies after a crisis. After about a year, the share price of those that had an effective crisis response was 7 per cent above where it had been before the crisis; the share price of those that had an ineffective response was 15 per cent below.
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