GUEST BLOG: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: THREE WAYS TO SUPPORT EMPLOYEES IN DISTANT DESTINATIONS

Corporate travel assignments in emerging and remote destinations can see employees facing a risky cocktail of sub-standard medical care, inadequate infrastructure and unpredictable health and security threats.

Yet, these employees expect their employers to protect them, regardless of where they are in the world.

We’ve put together three ways to do just that:

Be proactive, not reactive

Disease could be rampant, political instability brewing, or hospitals hard to access.  Cultural differences could even cause serious offence.

Employees who know the risks of a remote assignment overseas, and how to mitigate them, are less likely to get into difficulty - and more likely to feel reassured. In turn, employers will be closer to meeting their duty of care obligations.

In practice, this can mean (among other things) carrying out pre-travel medical and security risk assessments, preparing for all eventualities, and educating staff about everything from local medical care, to evacuation procedures, terrorism and incident avoidance.

It can also mean predicting and mitigating real-time threats to employees’ health and safety, once they are abroad; for example, the risk of illness to family members, adverse weather, or even a political coup.

Trust in technology

Mobile devices are multiplying faster than we are. But they are also playing an important part in preparing, informing and protecting employees working in remote areas abroad.

A mobile app can give users access to a complete online travel risk management programme, worldwide. And this can incorporate real-time medical and security intelligence and alerts, risk mitigation and integrated global assistance; all available at the swipe of a screen and tailored to destinations and needs.

By providing location-based monitoring, check-in and tracking tools, mobile technology can also give employers a birds’ eye view of their global staff and assets in relation to real-time threats; enabling them to locate and assist those in remote areas quickly, if emergency strikes. 

This sort of hand-held risk management provision can reduce the frequency and severity of emergencies overseas.

Forget fragmented assistance

A medical emergency abroad can quickly spiral out of control if the right advice is delayed, or the wrong decisions made. And no more so than in a remote or emerging destination, where low-grade medical provision can soon turn an accident or illness into an emergency.

The “golden hour” after an incident can be crucial. Leave it any longer to help an employee in difficulty and it may be too late. But, what if real-time security threats need to be gauged before an ambulance sets off? If secure transport and armed escorts are the only way to get a patient to hospital?  Or if a natural disaster has made the route to a medical facility dangerous?

In these cases, a fragmented medical and security assistance supply chain and lack of incident planning could delay responses. And, it’s not just employees who suffer. Employers could find themselves providing inefficient and complex emergency responses that are unnecessarily costly.

Some health and security risks in remote and emerging destinations

·      Road traffic accidents

·      Limited or inferior medical care

·      Mosquito-borne diseases

·      Unsafe tap water

·      Heat-related illnesses

·      Counterfeit medicines

·      Rabid dogs

·      Muggings and pickpocketing

·      Car-jacking

·      Passport theft

·      Political instability

·      Credit card cloning

·      Break-ins

This post was written by Chris Knight, head of corporate assistance services at CEGA, a Charles Taylor Company and provider of global assistance, travel risk and claims management services.

CEGA and Solace Global Risk are exhibiting their one-source medical and security assistance service Intrinsic Assistance at the Business Travel Show on February 20^th and 21^st 2019, Stand B340.  Travel bookers, buyers and managers can register for a free pass here: https://www.businesstravelshow.com/register

www.cegagroup.com       www.solaceglobal.com

GUEST BLOG: Traditional travel risk management doesn’t cut it for corporate travellers

Corporate travel has never been so diverse, travel risks so unpredictable, nor duty of care demands so onerous. Even traditionally safe destinations can’t be considered hazard-free. And in this sort of climate, blanket travel risk management just doesn’t cut it.

Business travellers need to know what they're up against
What if political instability is brewing? Anti-immigrant violence is rife?  Disease is rampant? Or cultural differences are likely to cause offence?

Employers want to know exactly what sort of risks their travelling employees may be exposed to before they send them overseas - even if they’re travelling to countries that aren't normally considered dangerous. And they won’t fulfil their duty of care obligations if they don’t identify and mitigate these risks.

They want to know about everything from where (and how good) local hospitals are -  to how evacuations will get off the ground if there’s a civil war. They want onsite medical and security risk assessments. And they want their employees to be trained to deal with, and even avoid, emergencies - with minimum disruption to their busy schedules. They also need to know if employees or their families have existing medical conditions that may need attention abroad.

Above all, employers want to protect their critical assets - their people.

Employers want to know where their people are
What if there’s been a terrorist attack in a European capital and employees can’t be traced in its aftermath? When the Paris atrocities struck, many employers struggled to find staff who were in the area, to confirm they were safe - or to find out if they were injured and needed help. Some didn't even know which country their people were in.

Mobile personnel tracking could have put an end to their uncertainty. It could have identified employees’ locations in relation to attacks, sent out alerts to defer or change journeys until risks were reduced, and issued warnings about real-time changes to both health and security threats.

They want to know how quickly they can get help in an emergency
How would an employee get medical care if local hospitals had been hit hard by a natural disaster, terrorist attack or epidemic and were turning away patients? What if roads were blocked by forest fires or anti-government protesters? Or if security escorts were needed to get an individual to a doctor?

Businesses don't just need to plan in advance for employees' potential hospital admissions, doctors' appointments or evacuations, they also need to be ready for more extreme emergencies, when local resources may not be available or extra support may be needed.

And they want travel risk management to cover every eventualityThere’s more demand than ever for flexible travel risk management solutions that encompass everything from pre-travel training and in-situ awareness, to mobile technology that helps prepare, inform and locate travellers. But there's little appetite for separate medical and security risk management and assistance products.  Businesses don’t want to battle the complexities of multiple suppliers – they want everything in the same place.

Emergencies overseas can’t always be prevented. But putting medical and security assistance hand-in-hand with travel risk management can give employers the control they need to minimise the dangers. 

This post was written by Chris Knight, head of corporate services at global assistance providers CEGA.

CEGA and security experts Solace Global are exhibiting their one-source medical and security assistance service, INtrinsic, at the Business Travel Show, stand B254. Register for your free ticket now at http://bit.ly/2qYu9GF.