Risk Management: Getting Started

With incidents such as the recent attacks in Nice and similar disruptions in Brussels and Paris earlier, travel risk management and security are no longer topics companies afford to ignore any more. Implementing programs that allow companies to assist travelers during emergency situations are the need of the hour.

Therefore, in this article, our UNIGLOBE experts guide you on the steps to take that will enable you to begin developing a risk management or duty of care program for your employees.

Step 1: Risk Assessment

Basis the nature of your company’s business travel needs, identify weaknesses that may pose a risk to your company’s travelling employees. The assessment will help you determine the real liabilities and the requisite next steps. This in turn shall help you establish a plan that includes a communication protocol for emergencies.

Step 2: Plan Ahead

Traveler safety begins long before an employee leaves on a trip with "pre-deployment preparation”. The riskier the destination, the more pre-trip approvals and protocols with which travelers need to comply. This includes employee education on the risks they may encounter specific to a destination. "While you cannot eliminate risk completely, the idea is to minimize any risk that's associated with an incident by educating our travelers," says a UNIGLOBE expert.

Step 3: Stay on Their Trail

Travelers' whereabouts is the foundation of a risk management program, and it is essential to capture as much of this data as possible. There is a need to monitor potentially threatening events worldwide and call up reports noting which travelers may be affected when an event happens.

While interest and adoption for risk management programs is rising, there is a higher need for deployment for such programs. In case your company doesn’t have such a program in place, it is time to call our UNIGLOBE experts who will guide you on the basics to get started.