As an employer you have a duty of care to your employees if you send them abroad on business, and that counts for both their working hours and their off-duty hours.
For the most part, foreign trips take place without any problems, but what happens if or when things go wrong? The duty of care upon employers can be quite considerable and includes requirements to undertake risk assessments and hold relevant travel insurance. However, it might also be considered practical to insure that employees understand that they must take steps to avoid putting themselves in dangerous positions, and that they must maintain a certain standard of conduct while abroad on company business.
Employee itinerary monitoring is vital. You should take steps to know where they are, who they are with, and how they are traveling. You should conduct a thorough risk assessment for the visit, and also assess their fitness to travel before sending them away. Employee security also applies to employees who may not be traveling but are based abroad.
IMG GlobalSecur can help you on a number of fronts with employee itinerary monitoring. The key principles for protecting employees in high risk areas are preparation, recognizing the scale of the risk, and collecting a “personal risk profile” for each employee. You should also have up-to-date maps, plans, and if possible photographs, of work locations and accommodation. In addition, you can provide your employees with professional hostile environment awareness training from IMG GlobalSecur.
FoneTrac App for Better Travel Security
IMG GlobalSecur can also provide you with our FoneTrac travel safety app which enables employees traveling abroad to check in with their location as often as they wish on the IMG GlobalSecur mapping system. The locations are monitored at a command center and if any sort of situation should arise the international security app will alert the employee and also alert the corporate home base. FoneTrac also acts as a panic alert, so that if faced with a problem the employee can simply press a button. FoneTrac has a sophisticated back end that provides information and assistance from real people who have experience in the field and can also provide assistance on the ground in the case of a major incident.
IMG GlobalSecur can provide help anywhere in the world not only with employee itinerary tracking but for those employees who do not have an itinerary. Employee medical assistance is also available for both in-country help, and where necessary medical evacuation.
Travel security issues can arise at both an individual level, such as when an employee gets sick, and a national level when there is political unrest or natural disasters such as earthquakes, wildfires, or flooding. As an employer, you have to be prepared for any eventuality.