Whether your organisation has travellers braving the busy streets of New York City on a 24-hour whirlwind business trip or scouring Myanmar's Irrawaddy River for potential manufacturing sites, a probable mainstay of your travellers' existence is a communication device, typically a mobile phone.
Communication and phones are an integral part of everyday life and, arguably, even more important for business travellers.
It's imperative to establish crisis communication into a risk programme based on how travellers will have access to their mobile phones.
I have considered the potential circumstances in this article, alongside a case study around the Nepal earthquake.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst
Contemplate risks in the destinations your travellers visit and what impact those risks may have on communication. While organisational risk appetite will dictate concerns, I feel it is irresponsible to not plan for the worst case scenario.
There are locations where cellular services are limited due to poor infrastructure or the geographic environment, including factors such as the temperature and humidity. A high volume of calls or messages can also impact services. Consider which devices your travellers are using — there is more on this to follow.
When creating a risk communication plan, teams must consider foreseeable and unforeseeable risks their travellers may face.
Foreseeable risks
Teams could spend time investigating, let's say, the ability and desire of a military junta to shut down cellular towers during anti-government protests. To get a good operational picture the team would have to establish the likelihood of protests, the probability of their size, their impact, the ability for a government response to quell the protests and whether or not that response would be peaceful or violent.
The same process can be used to contemplate how communication would be affected by terrorist attacks. I have included terrorist attacks in this section as there are regions in which business is conducted that have a high terrorist attack probability. Attacks can be anticipated based on historical data and analytical methodologies.
Unforeseeable risks
Damage created by earthquakes, tsunamis and other unforeseeable events have a high probability of affecting cellular towers, especially in less developed countries. Even if cellular towers were not destroyed, the potential for high call volumes to diminish services can significantly impact communication unless properly prepared.
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Nepal was devastated by an earthquake in April 2015. Planning crisis communication ensures employees know what to do. ©Simon Watkinson/iStockDevelop a communication plan
Risk managers must understand that successful risk-managed travel and incident management relies on effective communication and plans must be made prior to traveller deployment. At a minimum, consider the 'who', the 'when' and the 'how'.
Points of contact
Risk management teams must discuss who the primary points of contact will be so that there is no confusion on what number(s) to dial when a traveller or a travel risk management entity wants to collect or disseminate pertinent information. Consider that travellers will be calling from different time zones. For instance, risk manager 'A' located in Chicago may take all calls between 0600 — 2300 CST, while risk manager 'B' located in the UK may take all calls between 2301 — 0559 CST. Other considerations must be given to secondary points of contact that will be responsible for communicating with other internal stakeholders and, potentially, media.
Check-in schedule
It is beneficial to be able to monitor employees' travels when they are sent to high and severe risk destinations. A simple option is to conduct check-ins where the traveller should phone or email to provide a status update at a pre-determined time. An escalation procedure must also be put in place just in case the traveller does not check-in at the designated time — some companies escalate on a 15-minute basis whereas other do so tri-hourly. An impromptu check-in schedule can be initiated, of course, should a crisis situation occur.
Device options
Risk management teams need to understand whether travellers have company-issued or personal mobile phones. They also need to determine whether these can either hold international call plans or if the traveller will need a local SIM card. Other options are assessing whether travellers should purchase local mobile phones once in-country or whether they require satellite phones. The latter use orbiting satellites so users have almost unlimited use even in the most remote locations or can still use phones if a government shuts down cellular services.
Streamline communications
Incidents can be separated into two general categories: high frequency/low impact and low frequency/high impact. Lost passports and minor medical incidents fit into the former while large-scale terrorist attacks (eg 9/11) and natural disasters (eg Nepal earthquake) fit into the latter. Streamlining of communications must be engrained in the culture of an organisation. Trying to figure out how best to achieve effective communication on the fly, during an incident, is not best practice and can create chaos.
Many in-house risk management teams do not have the capabilities, or desire, to handle complex crisis calls from deployed travellers, especially on a 24/7 basis. This means many use an outsourced risk management firm, which can enhance communication plans in the following ways.
- Provision of a single phone number to be utilised for all calls from travellers
- Ability to triage phone calls to the relevant contact, based on insurance policies and provisions made by the client and travel risk manager
- Act as a centralised communication hub for the multiple calls and emails. Travel risk management entities can filter and pass on the important updates so that further internal and external communications are concise and functional.
Organisations without travel risk management entities can also streamline communications. A single contact number is key, so you may have to implement a dedicated 'duty' cell phone and place individuals on a rotating coverage schedule.
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Travellers can lose signal quickly in an emergency situation. ©alxpin/iStock
Carefully select the staff that will man the duty phone. Employees with the responsibility to field calls with incidents potentially ranging from 'I twisted my knee' to 'I am being shot at and my hotel just blew up' need to be trained in incident management. They need to operate in a calm manner and cannot panic as they need to comfort travellers. If travellers do not feel calmed they could decide to call somebody else or not follow pre-established procedures, which could not only cloud communications but could put lives at risk.
Nepal earthquake: effective communication in a crisis
At 11:56am on 25 April 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated Nepal. More than 8,700 individuals were killed. The exact number of those injured is unknown but those that needed assistance were estimated at 2.8 million people. The initial devastation was quickly exacerbated by aftershocks, landslides and generally poor weather.
Roadway infrastructure had been destroyed in many regions of Nepal, making overland travel more difficult than before the earthquake. Many travellers were stranded and had no access to transport to evacuate them out of the crisis area. The Nepalese government commandeered all air assets for relief aid at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu for days before commercial flights recommenced.
Case study: international organisation using a travel risk management entity
Unfortunately this case study does not begin on the right note. Two business travellers had been deployed to Nepal and did not acquire an international phone plan, purchase a local mobile phone or include a satellite phone in their communication repertoire.
The travellers did know, however, to borrow a local's phone and dial a unique phone number given to them by their risk management team. This allowed the travellers to relate that they were uninjured and safe but in need of an immediate evacuation. First-line support was provided to the travellers to ensure they were in a safe location while the coordination of a further response was initiated.
Over the course of the following five days, 360-degree communication was established with the client, travellers, medical assistance provider and an in-country security team. More than 50 emails and/or phone calls were exchanged to ensure updated information was disseminated to all pertinent parties. The travellers were frequently apprised of all actions being taken to secure a successful repatriation. Once the channels of communication had been established, the third party providers were able to procure:
- Shelter in a collective rally point for enhanced accountability
- A three-day food and water resupply
- Relocation to a safe house that provided increased security and additional rations
- Ground transportation to the airport (with an attached security team)
- Repatriation flight back to the travellers' country of origin
Outcome
The travellers were repatriated from Nepal back to their country of origin. While many travellers in Nepal were stranded and had to fend for themselves with limited communication abilities and surrounded by chaos, the aforementioned travellers received food and water, shelter and a flight home. None of this would have been possible without the establishment of effective communication.