Travel Risk Management Low-Tech Basics
- Designate someone
to lead risk management and appoint a team. Include departments like finance
and HR.
- Take a travel risk
assessment, such as the free one provided online by the Global Business Travel
Association, to learn about vulnerabilities and recommendations.
- Create a plan,
which includes a communication protocol for emergencies, such as checking in
through email, text or a phone call when unexpected events happen. The plan
also can include a checklist of what to do before, during and after an event
occurs
- Rehearse the plan
with travelers.
- Ensure travelers
book trips through designated booking tools or have them send booking details
to the travel management company to help keep track of them through itinerary
data.
- Before they travel,
educate employees on the risks of their destinations.
Following the
Paris terrorist attacks last November, the number of small and midsize
enterprises asking BCD Travel about duty of care and risk management offerings
spiked 50 percent, said senior vice president and BCD Travel Affiliates head
Kathy Bedell.
Business Travel News' 2016 Small & Midsize
Enterprises survey revealed that 40 percent of SME travel managers had risk
management programs at the end of 2015. Not too far behind, though, 30 percent
have no plans to implement such a program.
Considering 6,000 travel disruptions occurred in 2015, according
to travel risk management and security firm iJet, why aren't more companies
implementing programs that will allow them to assist travelers during emergency
situations?
Cost is one likely factor. A basic duty-of-care program from
a third party that provides travel managers with travel alerts would cost about
$10,000 a year, Bedell estimated. Most companies say it's worth it to keep
travelers safe, but SMEs might find it difficult to budget the amount.
There's also a difference between a duty-of-care program and
an emergency-assistance service. While emergency assistance may make some
travel managers feel prepared, traveler-tracking capability doesn't come along with
it. "During Paris and the explosions in Brussels, [companies] found that
they couldn't account for their people. ... They found that they actually
needed a program," said International SOS regional security manager for
the Americas Matt Bradley.
So what can SMEs do to track and protect travelers?
Have a plan and follow the mantra, "Prepare, monitor
and respond," said iJet vice president of global operations for travel
risk management George Taylor. "Bigger companies may have more money, but
throwing money at the problem isn't always the solution. If you don't have a
plan, policy or methodology around action ... all that technology is a bunch of
noise. It's like having the news and a television show on: You're getting a lot
of information, but what are you going to do with it?"
Stay in Touch
Travel data experts like to throw around the phrase, "You
don't know what you don't know." To find out, companies can take an
assessment like the Global Business Travel Association's, which identifies
weaknesses and improves existing risk management plans or helps develop them.
"It determines where the real liabilities are and what the next steps
should be," said Bedell, who was part of the committee that worked on the
module.
Duty of Care Isn't Just for Crossborder Travel
Shelby LeMaire,
corporate travel manager for iRobot Corp.—which has primary offices in the
United States, Asia and Europe, plus satellite offices throughout the world—is
redefining which travelers its risk management program is meant to protect.
The program it
implemented four years ago has focused on the 300 employees who travel
internationally. "The industry has always focused on international travel,
as in the past that was the greater risk," LeMaire said. Now, though,
iRobot's concept of duty of care is evolving to include domestic travelers. "Because
we still need to fulfill a duty of requirement to our travelers traveling
domestically, we are putting protocols in place this year to help protect and
mitigate travel risk regardless of where the employee is traveling, whether
homeland, domestic U.S., inter-Asia or inter-Europe."
LeMaire is in a good
spot to broaden her risk management program, considering the company's 97
percent booking compliance provides solid information on where employees are
traveling.
Among the most common SME vulnerabilities, she said, are not
consolidating with one travel management company and not managing all of the
company's travel. Either makes it more difficult to track employees.
Next, designate a person to own the risk management
initiative and develop a team, Taylor suggested. This person and team will
implement and update the program and serve as the contact people, as well as
sell the initiative to C-level management and to employees. Bedell encourages
companies to recruit representatives from finance and human resources, as well
as a security department if one exists. Companies also should reach out to
their travel management companies, as TMCs have resources, contacts, information
and suggestions they can share, Bedell added.
Establish a plan that includes a communication protocol for
emergencies. This can be as basic as having the travel manager reach out to
potentially affected travelers or having travelers call, text or email to
check-in when things go wrong or at designated times from high-risk locations,
Taylor suggested. More sophisticated options include mobile apps with one-touch
check-ins or panic buttons. The point is to communicate and account for
travelers and help those in need as quickly as possible.
Part of the plan can include monitoring specific areas and
sending threat levels to travelers. "It doesn't cost much to do that,"
Taylor said. "These are fairly simple, low-tech things they can do."
Plan Ahead
For iRobot Corp., traveler safety begins long before an
employee leaves on a trip with "pre-deployment preparation,"
according to corporate travel manager Shelby LeMaire. 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. "You're not going to eliminate risk
completely, but the goal is to minimize any risk that's associated with an
incident by educating our travelers," LeMaire said.
She also developed a response plan for specific, potential
incidents. "We put a lot of thought into what we need to do as a company
so we can react more efficiently and go through mock trials, as well,"
LeMaire said.
Stay on Their Trail
A BTN Monitor survey that included 130 corporate SME travel
buyers conducted in January showed that 55 percent use TMC itinerary data to
track travelers. However, this method relies on employees to book travel
through designated booking channels or forward information for travel booked
outside those channels, including last-minute changes.
Regardless of size, companies struggle to capture this data.
Still, travelers' whereabouts is the foundation of a risk management program,
and SMEs need to capture as much of this data as possible.
TMCs also can help companies monitor potentially threatening
events worldwide and call up reports noting which travelers may be affected
when an event happens. Corporations could track events on their own by visiting
a slew of government and news sites, but that is time consuming. As a low-cost,
time-saving solution, Taylor suggested a 24/7 hotline through a travel risk
management firm.
BTN's January poll also found that 30 percent of SME
travel buyers use credit card data to track travelers. Not all SMEs issue
corporate cards, but for those that have access, card swipes can help identify
a traveler's last known location.
GPS, meanwhile, offers near-real-time tracking.
Interest and adoption has grown 10 percent over the past two years, according
to iJet. BTN found that 11 percent of SME travel buyers use GPS tracking
tools and an additional 15 percent are considering it for at least a limited deployment
for high-risk markets or for certain types of travelers. GPS tracking, however,
relies on employees to keep a tracking app on at all times. On a philosophical
level, this fact may push privacy boundaries. On a practical level, constantly
pulling in GPS signals will devour battery life. This means a back-up data
source like TMC itinerary data is still important.
Is Duty of Care Overrated?
Dan Ruch has a
problem with the concept of duty of care. "Frankly, duty of care is a
perceived issue but not a real issue," the CEO of gamification travel
management startup Rocketrip said. "Travel managers believe that duty of
care is a more important part of their role than it actually is."
While he believes duty of care is increasingly relevant and an important topic considering recent events, Ruch said the concept
has been used as a "largely overhyped sales tactic" to keep "the
old guard of incumbents relevant." By incumbents, he meant travel management
companies and suppliers who fear Airbnb, Rocketrip and new booking channels
like Concur's TripLink. Hiding behind the duty-of-care premise to avoid such
suppliers has delayed innovation in the industry and forced travelers to use "subpar"
booking channels, he said.
Rocketrip helps
corporations incentivize their travelers to spend less, which can mean
travelers stay in hotels outside the travel program or even at a friend's
house, theoretically making travelers harder to track than those who stay with
preferred suppliers. But the company's smaller clients have "a more
flexible approach" to employee tracking, Ruch said, and as long as an
employee sends his or her travel information to Rocketrip, the company can send
those trip details to a travel risk management firm. "That's sufficient
and they don't need to be proactively alerted by a duty-of-care provider,"
he explained. "For them, it's more about having the information of where
employees are so if [there is] an [adverse] event, the companies have the
information to deal with it."
Ruch also said
companies should trust their employees to get themselves out of sticky
situations by calling the supplier or TMC to rebook. "We're assuming our
travelers don't have brains," he said. "Our travelers are very
sophisticated, thoughtful individuals, and they can operate just fine on their
own. They do it all the time in their personal lives, so why are we assuming
that when they're traveling for work, they don't know how to travel on their
own?"