Duty of care and Travel Risk Management: Confusion of terms
Protecting the physical integrity of people around the world is and will always be a priority in the agendas of every business and company. There will always be different types of risk: social, political, epidemic, terrorism, etc.
Today, security companies are more aware that duty of care is an essential in the business traveler’s world. The problem is, many corporations and security companies are still confused between two concepts: travel risk management and duty of care. They are using these terms as if they were the same thing and clearly, they are not.
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Duty of care: in legal terms it’s the obligation that all individuals or organizations have to exercise a reasonable level of care when involved with others so not to cause any harm. In terms of corporate security, duty of care is the obligation all corporations have to take care or protect ALL of their employees and not only VIP’s when travelling for business.
So, following this concept, security companies MUST offer different protection options so that all business travelers have access are taken care of … there is more to it than an armored vehicle and a body guard!
Travel Risk Management: This is a strategic plan to provide protection (safety and security) for individuals. When a corporation hires a security services provider to deliver a protection or security service to an employee during business travel, it is fulfilling its duty of care obligations. The security company must elaborate a travel risk management plan to mitigate the risks associated to the trip. So, one helps the other deliver, this is why the two concepts get mixed up lately.
This term is defined as how security companies manage risks for travelers but it does not guarantee the elimination of risks Every city and every country has different types and levels of risks that not only include kidnapping, natural disasters or terrorism.
Anyway, it’s not yet clear what the legal obligation of companies is in relation with duty of care towards ALL employees … because it is a moral obligation but not always a legal one (this is determined by the local law of countries) and each company can decide on this aspect. Each company can have its own duty of care policy but each country manages its own legal obligation towards this issue.
So, the bottom line for corporations and security providers around the world is: you must have a clear duty of care policy and a risk management program to avoid legal issues and high cost litigation processes.
Duty of care is trending today and companies that have it as their priority are mentioned at the top. A duty of care policy must be enforced by a well-rehearsed travel risk management program to survive.