You want to keep employees safe, which is why a business travel risk assessment is essential.
From severe weather events to viral outbreaks, a travel risk assessment takes all potential disruptors on board to keep travelling employees safe. This vital component of corporate travel management not only protects employee wellness, but ensures your organization fulfils its duty of care requirements.
In this guide, we’ll break down how to conduct a domestic or international travel risk assessment. Apart from writing your own company-wide policy, discover how to identify and mitigate risks using travel risk assessment software and other digital tools.
A risk assessment identifies potential issues, great and small, that a business traveler might face during work trips. These include health-related risks like food poisoning and disease outbreaks, schedule-disrupting travel delays and flight cancellations, and safety threats such as natural disasters, crime, and geopolitical uncertainty. Because travel risks are always changing, it’s important to conduct a fresh assessment for each journey, a process made more efficient with automated risk assessment software.
Potential threats are entered into a travel risk assessment form for analysis, awareness and mitigation strategies.
The purpose of a travel risk assessment is to create personalized policies and procedures to reduce the risk of harm and meet your duty of care obligations. Employees should be informed of any potential health and safety risks during upcoming plans to put defensive strategies into play.
Business travel risks fall into several categories, all of which should be considered in a comprehensive travel risk assessment form.
One of the most common risks to employee wellbeing is illness. While pandemics make the news, food poisoning, non-potable tap water and exposure to local viruses are more likely to derail travel plans. Medical emergencies should factor into any risk assessment for travelling abroad.
Business travelers may encounter a variety of severe weather events and natural disasters. Some come with no warning, like earthquakes, while others, like hurricanes, give time to prepare in the short-term forecast. To assess this risk, organizations should consider the destination and time of year when travel planning. For example, popular business travel destinations like Tokyo and Los Angeles are positioned in the Pacific region’s Ring of Fire. These sit on fault lines, making earthquakes a higher statistical probability.
When working outside of the protected office space, your employees become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Phishing, hacking, malware and social engineering are all common cyber security threats to business travelers. Criminals target employees at airports and hotels with scams designed to illegally access sensitive data.
It’s not just online crime that can compromise business traveler security. There’s also the risk of theft and petty crime at their destination. When assessing travel risk, be sure to look at local crime rates, particularly when choosing a suitable hotel. You can drastically reduce the risk of crime by using platforms like Booking.com for Business to choose accommodation in safe, low-crime neighborhoods.
In a volatile world, everything from political protests to terrorist attacks can impact your business travelers, putting them in potential danger. Travel managers should stay aware of geopolitical conflicts and incorporate news updates into a corporate risk assessment.
Growing anti-tourism protests in countries like Spain and Greece can also cause delays for business travelers, while a lack of cultural knowledge may cause offense and create a negative or even hostile reception from locals. Make sure employees are aware of corporate etiquette and local customs, dressing appropriately with modest coverage in sensitive locations like the Middle East.
A unique travel threat assessment isn’t necessary for every journey. If your employees are visiting colleagues in a nearby town, this most likely doesn’t require a full risk assessment.
However, corporate travel risk assessment is recommended for international destinations along with any unfamiliar regions or complex itineraries. Once you’ve created a basic travel risk assessment form, you can adjust the details to suit the particularities of each new destination. This might include factors such as local laws, crime rates, cyber security threats, and climate.
Duty of care for employees is a legal requirement in many countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, and others. This means that assessing travel risk isn’t just important for employer wellbeing; it’s also the law.
By performing a travel threat assessment, you can ensure that employees receive the location-specific training they need to remain safe at their destination. This, together with a well-written travel policy, gives details of who to contact if something happens. It makes risks more predictable, so you can protect your employees, as well as your business. Preparedness is the best defense.
A corporate travel risk assessment form breaks down all the potential risks a traveler might encounter during their work trip. These can be divided into two categories.
Of course, many of these factors are personal, relying on voluntary disclosure. Consider offering a pre-travel questionnaire for employees to fill out at their own discretion.
Each risk type can then be scored in order of likelihood to prioritize safety training and awareness. For example, while tornados are a potential risk in the south of England, they are far less likely than in the American Midwest.
Business travel risks are constantly evolving, making it difficult for travel managers to identify every potential threat. This is where corporate risk management software can help, organizing information in a clear, automated way. The best platforms offer benefits like the following:
Here are a few examples of risk assessment software solutions for business travel.
Specializing in medical and travel security, International SOS offers a variety of apps for businesses to improve risk assessment and mitigation. This includes an app with real-time travel alerts to keep your team updated on any emerging threats, along with online training modules before departure. Plus, International SOS is one of Booking.com for Business’s partners (for a full rundown of all of our partner integrations, check out our marketplace).
Crisis24 uses AI-powered threat detection technology to provide comprehensive real-time risk intelligence for business travelers. You can sign up to receive detailed assessments for over 200 countries and 400 cities worldwide, assessed in granular detail through multiple threat categories.
This global company specializes in corporate travel risk management, from assessment to recovery. Pre-travel advisories arm business travelers and managers with safety knowledge. Commercial offerings include tools like CAP Advantage, a travel risk intelligence platform that comes with a one-touch emergency assistance button.
Together with your company travel policy, a corporate travel risk assessment should include all the relevant details that employees need to travel safely for work. This starts by identifying potential risks, before outlining the level of risk and concrete steps to mitigate risk.
Start by listing all potential risks, both environmental and individual, that could impact the traveler on this specific journey. While it’s common to think about major disasters like terrorism and political unrest, it’s far more likely that your team members will encounter risks like petty theft and food poisoning.
For each destination, use risk assessment software or do your own research to answer questions including the following:
Individual risks should also be listed, including employee-provided details about health conditions, mobility issues, and allergies. Consider identity-related risks that could impact travelers. For example, in some countries, solo female corporate travelers could be at higher risk of theft and assault. Are same-sex relationships legal? Are there other cultural tensions to be aware of?
Once you’ve listed all risks, it’s time to use a risk assessment matrix to determine how severe each issue could be. Something like a military coup or high terrorism threat would fall into the severe category, while a risk of insect bites would be fairly low risk.
A primary goal of a corporate travel risk assessment is to empower business travelers. Practical, actionable strategies should accompany each risk so that employees know what to do and who to contact. Emergency contact details should also be listed in your company’s travel policy. Follow up with training sessions., where appropriate.
With the help of risk assessment software and templates, there’s no need for specific qualifications. Yet ongoing risk management training is always useful within an organization.
While risk assessment forms can follow any structure, here’s an example of the sections that should be included.
Business travel risk assessment example:
Destination: Denver, Colorado, USA
Hazard: Animal bite
Risk: Injury or allergic reaction
Likelihood: Low
Action:
Destination: Medellin, Colombia
Hazard: Weather conditions
Risk: Heat stroke
Likelihood: Medium
Action:
Destination: Paris, France
Hazard: Preexisting personal health condition
Risk: Falling ill while traveling
Likelihood: Medium
Action:
Regardless of specific threats, your organization can equip travelling employees for a safer experience using general safety tips.
While it’s impossible to eliminate all risks from business travel, performing a detailed risk assessment before each journey keeps threats under control.
With Booking.com for Business, you can retail full visibility over employee bookings. Not only can you compare business hotels carefully to choose accommodation in safer areas, but this travel management platform also comes with built-in travel locator tool Traxo so you can view movements in real-time, lending support at each step of the way.
When it comes to business travel, understanding duty of care is more important than ever. Read the e...
Top tips for how to ensure safety and security for business travel, how to prepare for travel, and a...
Travel risk management is an important element to keep in mind and learn to navigate.
