Duty Of Care For Business Travel

Going away for business is a big part of any company and involves a lot of planning and commitment. You have to book everything from the hotel to how your employees will get around while they are away. However, the most important aspect of business travel is ensuring your employees are safe throughout the entire journey.

That’s where duty of care comes into play, and it is an employer’s responsibility to ensure it is handled before the employee starts travelling. But what does it involve, and how do you ensure your duty of care is up to scratch?

Find out everything you need in this duty of care guide. 

What is duty of care?

Duty of care is a legal concept that all employers need to be responsible for when looking after their employees, including business travel. It involves the duty of ensuring your employees are safe and comfortable at all times and that you have put precautions in place to prevent the possibility of them suffering harm.

The most common risks that need to be taken into account are:

• Health and safety
• Nutrition
• Workplace bullying
• Fire safety
• Emotional wellbeing
• Violence

Why is duty of care important in relation to business travel?

Duty of care needs to be taken into consideration any time your employees are working, whether inside the office or during business travel. No matter where your employee is in the world, they still need to be protected, and you must ensure they feel safe and comfortable at all times. 

There are many potential risks when an employee is travelling, and they should all be prepared for them. This could be anything from missing a flight which leads to unnecessary stress, or contracting an illness while they are abroad. 

Duty of care is important for business travel not only because it is illegal to not have precautions in place but because it comforts your employees and assists them if they ever need immediate help. 

Planning and prevention

The most important aspect of duty of care is putting an extensive plan in place to prevent the chance of anything dangerous happening to your employee. While you’re organising a trip, you will need to conduct a risk assessment before signing off on it. You then know what preventions are necessary to put in place before sending your employee off.

Once you know what potential risks there are for the trip, you will need to conduct relevant training and briefings, so your employees know what to do if there is an issue. For example, if they do happen to miss their flight, you’ll need to discuss the steps to take to ensure they get to their destination quickly and safely. 

Duty of care vs. travel risk management: The differences

When it comes to business travel, you may have heard of travel risk management as well as duty of care, but what are the differences between the two?

Duty of care is the legal requirement of planning business travel and putting precautions in place to ensure their safety the entire time. It involves a range of different strategies, from planning to implementation.

Travel risk management is one of the strategies that is a part of duty of care. It is a process that proves that your company is upholding its responsibility of duty of care. It involves travel risk assessments and managing the potential risks that come up in the results. 

How do you write a duty of care policy for travel?

There are four main sections you need to include in your duty of care policy when you send an employee on a business trip:

1. Assess the current travel programme

Look at past business trips that your employees have gone on and how they can be improved in the future. Talk to the employees that went away and ask for feedback about their experiences on dealing with high-risk situations. 

2. Establish a pre-travel process

Determine the most common things that have gone wrong on other trips, and conduct further research on the common risks in the area that you want your employee to go to. You can then amend the travel programme to fit in with these risks. 

Find a way to automate travel alerts into your employee’s travel itineraries, so they know if there are any new risk developments. You’ll also need to ensure that all employee contact and other relevant information has been updated. 

3. Plan for domestic and overseas risks

Domestic and overseas travel both come with different risks, so you will need to have different plans for each in your duty of care policy. For example, if your employee is only visiting the next town over for a day, they won’t need as many safety provisions in place compared to if they were to go to Japan for a week. 

4. Have backup plans

Not everything always goes to plan, so you’ll need to have both a plan B and C in your duty of care policy to ensure that your employee is safe, even when your main preventions have fallen through. This will need to be a part of the entire policy as well as the individual itineraries for specific trips. 

You will need to frequently update your backup plans to fit in with the current climate. Review them every quarter to ensure they will still work if something goes amiss on any business trip. Each plan should also contain information about where the nearest embassy is for foreign nationals. 

Some final tips

Duty of care can be a long process, but it is worth it when it ensures your employees will be safe during any business trip. Here are some extra tips to take into account when putting together your own duty of care policy:

• Talk to your employees about their past experiences and ask them what they think you can do to make their business trips more comfortable. 
• Use a trustworthy partner for booking your accommodation, such as Trusted Stays, so you know that your employees will be in safe hands.
• Consider specialist equipment for your employees, such as a money belt if they are visiting somewhere that is known for pick-pocketing.