If one thought came out loud and clear from a duty of care session at the ACTE/CAPA summit it was that travel managers should NOT own the responsibility for employee safety.
Nelleke ten Have, travel buyer at manufacturing firm AkzoNobel strongly urged travel managers to address who owns employee safety within their companies and for all department stakeholders to know their responsibilities.
"As the travel team we'll help but don't take ownership otherwise you also take the blame. Address ownership with experts like TMCs and the medical team too and have a process in place that puts the right action through the right channel," she advised.
Ten Have was speaking from experience having previously had to shift traveller perception. When travel alerts started to show on AkzoNobel's online portal its travellers started to pay attention to risk and turned to ten Have and her team.
Now a diagram is on the portal showing the responsibility across the business including the role of management, security, HR, insurance and financial. Ian Nunn discussed the importance of stakeholders in his lessons from the Nepal earthquake.
Other travel buyers at the session agreed that travel is part of the response group but security teams and ultimately the management board handle liability. Imad Mouline, CTO at Everbridge believes the responsibility falls under security and HR but crisis plans need to recognise when a call should be made to management.
He says internal bureaucracy is one of the biggest challenges for risk planning but sometimes the "cover up can be worse than the crime".