Duty of care: "this is not an exercise".

It's what business travellers dread. The unforeseen event, the grain of sand that jams the mechanism of a business trip. But it's also the travel manager's worst enemyThis is not only out of simple empathy for a colleague in difficulty, but also and above all because employers are criminally liable for employees who travel on their behalf. As is often the case, the concept of "duty of careor "duty to protect. But mobility and safety don't always go hand in hand.

From the simple 'tile' to the real 'cata', it would be as tedious as it would be anxiety-provoking to draw up an exhaustive list of potential problems. All the more so as the notion of danger is, in the final analysis, a fairly straightforward one. subjective : "For some travellers, a delicate situation is an attack. For others, having to queue at a counter for an hour because a flight has been cancelled is a crisis situation.says Cédric Lefort, Senior Director Solutions Consulting at BCD Travel. Because it's not just frequent travellers. There are also others for whom everything is new, and therefore a source of stress."

The experience of the traveller, the culture of the country and the company, and media exposure all play a part in the perception of risk. Some of the testimonies are particularly interesting, like that of a French boss who, on a business trip to the Lebanondut provide plenty of reassurance or the security specialist who, when questioned by his American client about the risks of a shoot-out in Paris, gave a speech that was both diplomatic and statistical: "... I don't want to have to travel to France.No destination is immune, but mass shootings are still more common in the United States than in the heart of the French capital..."

Are travellers becoming paranoid? Are business trips more dangerous today than they were a few years ago? A huge question... Unfortunately, business opportunities don't only flourish in havens of peace, far from it: "more and more companies are moving to countries with medium to extreme risks"says Charline GelinThe head of security at International SOS, who points to an increase of 70 % in travel. in extreme risk countries in 2017. What's more, a binary interpretation grid, which would summarily distinguish between safe and dangerous destinations, no longer works. Has it ever worked at all? "In the past, certain countries were identified as 'at risk'. Now, danger can be just around the corner in Paris or Brussels. You don't have to go very far"says Cédric Lefort of BCD Travel.

Armoured cars and curfew

According to a study published on the occasion of the Business Travel Summit Amsterdam, Europe today appears to be a high-risk area for 30 % of travel managers, with the Middle East and North Africa remaining the most anxiety-provoking region for travel managers (61 %), ahead of West Africa (43 %) and Central Africa (34 %). "The terrorist risk is increasingly widespreadsays a French expatriate who has been working in West Africa for many years. In north-east Nigeria, for example, we travel in armoured cars. There's a curfew, we're banned from markets and mosques...". Some might say that business travel should be limited or stopped altogether. Guillaume Colthen CEO of American Express GBT, dismissed the idea: "The fundamental question is not 'should we continue to travel', but rather 'how can we travel efficiently under optimum safety conditions? "

There you go THE question of the momentIt's the one that is attracting the attention of the entire business travel industry. For some months, even years now, the concept of 'duty of care' has been everywhere. There's not a trade show that hasn't devoted at least one conference to it, and not a week goes by without a study attempting to measure its ins and outs. Last March, the GBTA devoted the first episode of its podcast series "The Business of Travel" to the subject, and theAFTM (Association française des travel managers) has made this the subject of its latest white paper, "Prévention des risques en déplacement professionnel".

So the idea made its way into the company. For the past three years, safety has even been cited as one of the company's top priorities. first criterion defining a travel policy according to the EVP barometer published by American Express GBT. Charline Gelin, from International SOS, agrees: "All companies are aware of their duty to protect their employees abroad. But there is still another step to be taken: travellers should not only be looked after when they are in countries considered risky. A health or safety problem can occur anywhere".

Not all companies are in the same boat. Visit CDSE Barometer 2018published last February by the Club des Directeurs de Sécurité des Entreprises, warns: "There is still a gap between a high level of risk perception and the implementation of safety/security procedures. For example, almost half of all managers are unaware of their legal responsibilities when their employees travel abroad.". Laurent Bouly, until recently Marketing Director of Anticip, a security and defence services company, believes that ".half of SMEs are aware of their risk management obligations. So there is still many companies to "evangelise. I was recently talking to the head of a company who told me he had employees all over Africa, but was unable to say exactly where they were based. If there were a crisis, this company would be completely blind and deaf.".

Evangelising the duty of care

It is therefore easy to understand the lack of confidence highlighted by Concur in a study with an evocative title: "French employees doubt their company's ability to help them in an emergency". The survey report states that "in France that employees are the least confident in their company's ability to come to their aid in the event of danger. There are only 48 % consider that their employer could come to their aid if they found themselves in a risky situation. This is low compared to South Africa and the UK, where 66 % and 63 % respectively are confident.". This lack of confidence is justified if we consider that 28.5 % of travellers who have been confronted with a risky situation declare that they were not contacted at all by their company during these episodes...

Often unable to manage this on their own, companies turn to external partners. The use of a specialist service provider is becoming increasingly common, especially as these players are now developing offers targeting SMES. "More and more customers have signed contracts with specialist service providers such as International SOS, iJet or EuropAssistance, whereas in the past this was not a matter of course."says Cédric Lefort of BCD Travel. Business travel agencies, for their part, have also stepped up their marketing efforts. their security solutions in recent months. They have done so both from a technological perspective - by integrating alert and communication functionalities into their mobile applications - and through an approach based on advice to support their customers in implementing a risk management policy, or "risk mitigation".travel risk management".

The duty of care should not be understood as a simple technological obligation, nor should we forget the operational component.

According to Laurent Bouly at Anticip, this competition is nothing to worry about for the historic specialists: "In the event of a crisis, a TMC will be able to aggregate booking data to tell its customer that fifteen employees are at risk in a particular destination. But the agency can't go looking for them. It is all the difference with a security player which will provide an end-to-end solution, integrating prevention, knowledge of the terrain, a technological brick for location, but also crisis management and, in some cases, evacuation. The duty of care should not be understood as a simple technological obligation, nor should we forget the operational component.". At the request of their respective customers, agencies and security providers work together in the interests of both travellers and their companies.

Time and resources

This doesn't mean that the company doesn't have to do a great deal of work in-house, quite the contrary. First and foremost, someone needs to be appointed to be responsible for this "duty of care" issue. But the company's human resources are not elastic, as Erin Wilk confirms. Interviewed for a GBTA podcast, Facebook's global head of security and travel safety said: "This role often falls on the shoulders of someone who already has a full-time job, usually the travel manager. It's a role that deserves dedicated resources to be carried out properly"she stresses. However, we need to someone to "embody risk management, and coordinate the various players involved. "A safe journey means shared responsibilityshe adds. This involves the traveller, the TMC, human resources, the legal department, the insurance company, etc. It's a question of coordinating all these players and educating them by defining the slice of the cake allocated to each."

The safety manager's role is made all the more complex by the fact that it is often met with reluctance from within the company, with the image of someone who gets in the way...".The field of security is often seen as an obstacle to business, when it should be seen as a facilitator. Business travel can be both safe and productive. But this is only the case when the security department understands the business and the business understands the aspects linked to security and risk management." says Erin Wilk from Facebook.

Once appointed, the safety manager must put in place a risk management policy that guarantees the fundamentals of the duty of caresummarised by Laurent Bouly, of Anticip: "This covers three imperatives: risk prevention, information and training, and the implementation of appropriate organisation and resources. All subject to an obligation to achieve results."Three imperatives, then, but with particularly wide-ranging ramifications, from insurance contracts to the choice of airlines and hotels, from country risk assessment to what to do in the event of a crisis...

It would be imprudent to claim to be exhaustive in just a few lines, as the latest white paper published by the AFTM alone devotes around a hundred pages to the subject. To summarise, it is a question of define rules upstreamIt is also important to ensure, through effective communication, that everyone involved is aware of this framework.

Uber and Airbnb

The evolution of supply and behaviour in the world of travel does not make the company's task any easier. At any moment, travellers can pull out their smartphone to book a flat on Airbnb or a race via UberThe travel policy has not really ruled on these issues. new suppliers. The AFTM white paper stresses in this respect that ".In the minds of travellers, the services offered by the collaborative economy have largely left the private sphere to disrupt the business travel sector. We use the word "disrupt" because their penetration rate and the possibilities of access to these offers are very unequal depending on the service and the company: left to the initiative and choice of the employee in some cases, totally banned or clearly regulated in others."

By entering the business market, these suppliers have become aware of the fears that travel managers have. "We have been approached by various players in the collaborative economy, in particular Airbnb and Uber, to integrate their data into our traveller location tool.says Charline Gelin of International SOS. It is nevertheless necessary clarify things depending on the country: in Turkey or Morocco, for example, the Uber application exists, but it is not recommended."At Anticip, Laurent Bouly confirms: "These players are working hard, and we too have a role to play in providing them with information on risks by country, by city, and even by hotel."

The other problem, of course, is the bleisureextending a business trip over a weekend. Managers do not yet have a clear idea of who is responsible for what.Our customers systematically ask us about the question of bleisure"says Charline Gelin of International SOS. For specialists in the field, the legal framework leaves no room for doubt: "It's still relatively unknown, but things are clear and have been confirmed by recent case law: business travellers are the responsibility of their employer, even if they go trekking or celebrate a contract in a nightclub with a client."says Laurent Bouly of Anticip.

If the company chooses to authorise bleisure, time limits must be set, it must be determined when the traveller is taken in charge by the company, and it must be ensured that the traveller has signed the papers guaranteeing that he or she is insured and assisted in the event of a problem.

What remains to be done is to formalise the framework surrounding bleisure, as confirmed by Cédric Lefort, of BCD Travel.it is up to the company to define with its employees the rules for working during a trip and the time slots for pick-up."The same is true of International SOS: "Whatever the company's position on this subject, it must be written down in black and white. If the company chooses to authorise bleisure, time limits must be set, it must be determined when the traveller is taken in charge by the company, and it must be ensured that the traveller has signed the papers guaranteeing that he or she is insured and assisted in the event of a problem."explains Charline Gelin. For her, the duty of care issue has another advantage: it clarifies the contours of the travel policy and encourages its application.