8/22/07 6:45 AM

Business Travelers Doubt Employers’ Ability To Offer Aid in Emergency

By Kathy Gurchiek

Many businesspeople regularly travel to dangerous places, but most don’t think their organization would be able to help them in the event of an emergency. Yet many workers don’t take precautions before journeying to dangerous locales.

Those are among the findings of a survey conducted May and June 2007 with 1,040 business travelers—539 from the United States and 501 from the United Kingdom.

”For many employees, the nature of their jobs requires that they travel to high-risk destinations,” said Hannah Kitt, director of travel security services at Control Risks, an international risk consultancy that commissioned the survey.

Twenty-four percent of U.S. business travelers and 26 percent of British business travelers who responded say they are sent to riskier places, or the countries they travel to have become riskier, since Sept. 11, 2001.

“If companies do not have a proper travel security program in place to support travelers, this is a clear breach of duty of care,” Kitt said in a press release.

Among key findings:

• 59 percent of business travelers have little confidence their organization would be able to help them in the event of an emergency.

• 54 percent of U.S. business travelers don’t carry a specific contact number in case of emergency abroad; that rises to 69 percent for travelers from small firms.

• 72 percent of British business travelers don’t carry a specific contact number in case of emergency abroad; that number rises to 83 percent for travelers from small firms.

• 22 percent of U.S. business travelers and 40 percent of British business travelers would not know who to alert at their organization in the event of an emergency abroad.

• 12 percent of U.S. business travelers and 38 percent of British business travelers do not research the political or social climate of the country to which they are traveling.

• 56 percent of business travelers have no support systems at home.

Eighty-six percent of business travelers also think their employer has a legal obligation to support them while abroad, Control Risks found.

“Increasingly, companies from all sectors face a potential legal responsibility to demonstrate duty of care toward employees,” Kitt said.

Forty percent of British business travelers and 35 percent of U.S. business travelers think they are more likely than other travelers to be targeted by extremists or terrorists, the survey found.

More U.S. firms (54 percent) than U.K. firms (39 percent) have a travel security policy. However, more than one-third of U.S. business travelers and slightly more than half of their British counterparts lack confidence that their organizations would be able to give reliable advice in the event of an emergency while abroad, the survey found.

“Despite a perception by travelers that the world is becoming more dangerous, some companies have not attempted to redress the balance by putting a credible support structure in place,” Kitt said.

That was the case for an employee at an engineering company, who was jailed during a trip to Central Asia two weeks after he started his new job, according to Control Risks.

Two days into his trip with a dedicated driver, the man asked the driver to stop so he could buy a bottle of water from a roadside shop. The man returned to find the vehicle gone, along with his mobile phone, laptop, passport and other documentation.

The shopkeeper drove the man to the nearest police post, situated on the border, to report the incident. However, the man was arrested when he could not produce documentation.

His employer had not given him an emergency number to call or a briefing on the country. It was several days before his employer realized the employee was missing, and no one had the employee’s contact information or travel itinerary. The problem eventually was resolved through the embassy.

The experience was a nightmare for the employee, who received compensation but is considering filing a suit against the employer. An HR manager lost her job over the incident, and other employees refused to travel to that country until travel security measures were in place, according to Control Risks.

Creating and maintaining a robust travel security program will ensure the safety of employees and help avoid repercussions to an organization’s reputation, Kitt noted, as well as costly legal ramifications, if something goes wrong.

Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor for HR News. She can be reached at kgurchiek@shrm.org.

For the latest HR-related business and government news, go daily to www.shrm.org/hrnews.

Related Articles:

DHS Targets International Business Travelers for Scrutiny, SHRM Online Global HR Focus Area, December 2006

Terror Scare Doesn’t Keep Business Travelers Grounded, HR News, Aug. 29, 2006