MENTAL HEALTH
Keep in mind What can travel managers be
expected to do to protect employee mental wellbeing?
BySALLY BROWN M 54 BBT May/June 2017
ODERN TRAVEL BUYERS ARE EXPECTED to treat employees as human beings, not simply commodities to be moved
from A to B. It can be a constant juggling act to balance traveller wellbeing with budget constraints when considering the timing and the class of flights booked, and allowing recovery time from jet lag. It’s not simply a case of ‘being nice’ – as well as corporate social responsibility, all UK companies have a duty-of-care, under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, and this applies to all employees, wherever they are in the world. This duty-of-care obligation is not restricted to one person or department, but is considered to be everyone’s respon- sibility – HR, security, risk management, occupational health & safety managers, senior management and the travel de- partment. And it includes a legal require- ment to ‘properly prepare’ employees for travel and support them during and after
business trips, a responsibility which will increasingly fall on travel managers. There has been a huge growth in
awareness of the potential impact on the physical health of frequent travellers, but according to Mary Ellen Gornick, senior vice-president at Workplace Options, the same cannot be said for mental wellbeing. “Emotional support is the missing link in mobility,” she says. A recent analysis of global EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) data by Workplace Options found cases of employee depression increased 58 per cent between 2012 and 2014, anxiety by 74 per cent, and stress by 28 per cent. The so-called ‘global epidemic of the 21st century’, stress cost the UK 11.7 million working days in 2015/16, and along with depression and anxiety, accounted for 37 per cent of all work related ill-health cases and 45 per cent of working days lost. Professor Ivan Robertson is emeritus
professor of work and organisational psychology at Manchester University, and founder director of business psychology consultancy Robertson Cooper. He says: “Frequent business travellers
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