With ever increasing pressure on reducing costs and watching the bottom line businesses are constantly looking at ways to reduce costs. Katharine Cleall of Travel Counsellors for Business explains why business travel shouldn’t be one of those costs.
“Recent events in the news in places like Las Vegas, France and London are highlighting now, more so than ever, why it’s important to keep track of your employees travelling on business and ensure they are safe at all times.”
“There is a duty of care to ensure all employees travelling on business are safe and this doesn’t just mean in the event of major emergencies, it could just be something as simple as becoming ill while travelling for work or losing their passport.”
Duty of care refers to both legal and moral obligations and isn’t just an issue facing organisations with high risk travel requirements such as security, shipping or energy. Duty of care affects every business.
Although tempting to find the cheapest option when booking business travel, it’s important to also consider the travellers safety and wellbeing, considering their welfare for example: Should your employee be driving miles to their hotel after a long-haul flight, or should a transfer be organised for them?
You have a duty to ensure adequate health, safety, security and legal protection for your travelling employees and by doing so you will not only help to keep them safe, but often this results in an increase in productivity from the employee.
After numerous case studies recently, there are many factors which should be considered when planning business travel. Here are just a few of our top tips.
- Develop and maintain systems to inform, protect and assist your business travellers
- Take a holistic approach and review not only the security of your employees but the health, safety and wellbeing aspects too
- Assess the need for providing training for staff travelling abroad
- Decide if external assistance is required to help manage and maintain an effective travel policy
- Provide workers with a 24-hour emergency contact line
- Carry out risk assessments on all travel locations and action appropriately
- Be aware and keep track of events. What is considered a safe/low risk location can deteriorate due to various factors
“As experts in travel and being backed by a global travel management team, Travel Counsellors for Business are ideally placed to support businesses in achieving their duty of care” said Katharine. “We pride ourselves on providing a service which ensures support before, during and after travel and at no extra cost to the business – in most cases actually saving money.”
For a free travel audit or to find out more about Travel Counsellors for Business call Katharine on 01202 802166.