5 Travel Risks Employers Should be Aware of

Are you concerned about the safety of your transient employees who may be regularly on the road (or in the air) conducting their duties? It may be a good idea to ensure travelling employees complete a Travel Risk Assessment?

It is always good practice to be aware of the possible travel risks your employees may face – so you can take a proactive approach to minimise these.

Here are five of the most common travel risks:

FATIGUE
Statistics show that 20 percent of fatal road accidents occur due to fatigue, rising to 30 percent in rural areas. This could be down to the longer, monotonous routes undertaken in rural areas that decrease alertness, but is most likely due to the worker being genuinely fatigued due to long shift hours. It’s critical for organisations to manage the fatigue level of anyone driving regularly, by placing policies around the number of hours worked that can impact safety on the roads. And ensure that workers declare the number of consecutive shifts they have undertaken before getting behind the wheel.

TRAVELLING SOLO
Do you have employees travelling alone to, or through, remote areas? If so, how are you managing their health & safety and ensuring they reach their destinations smoothly? It is critical to have protocols in place for employee monitoring and how to respond, in the event of an incident. Typically – a road accident in a rural area can be more dangerous since, medical assistance takes a little longer to arrive, but the accident may also go unreported for some time if not witnessed.

DESTINATION RISKS
The destination of an employee’s work will impact a lot on the potential risks they may be exposed to. It’s important to provide a ‘duty of care’ to your workers, contractors and volunteers by assessing the environment they are heading into and providing advice and support in each instance. Will they be driving to local communities or homes that have potential hostile or ‘at risk’ environments? Will they be travelling internationally to a place with different customs and cultures? Or will they be visiting a location that has potential health issues? By equipping your workers with the knowledge in advance – and providing Journey Management services to ensure they reach, and depart, their destinations safely – you can hugely minimise any risks that could cause harm to your team.

UNPLANNED CRISES
What happens if you have workers en route to an area – locally or internationally – that has just erupted in violence, is experiencing geopolitical instability, a protest outbreak, or perhaps a natural disaster or medical emergency has just occurred? Any travel risk assessment should take into consideration what policies and tools are in place to support those employees that may find themselves in this ‘worst case scenario’.

CRIME STATS
For workers travelling out into the community or to an overseas destination, it is important to review if any criminal activity is present in the location they are going to. Every employee deserves to travel without fear of consequence, so due diligence on the destination is a critical component in your duty of care as an employer. Provide employees with a transparent overview of risks and how these can be managed and avoided, whether this is pickpocketing and theft, or extortion and kidnapping. Review what your policies are – to keep tabs on your travelling workers and ensure their safety is always paramount.

Take a look at how you can monitor your mobile workforce whilst aiding operational productivity with the Locate Global incident management and workplace safety platform. Organisations across the globe trust this technology and incident management solutions to keep their people, and their operations, safe.

Visit www.locate.global.