Travelling abroad always comes with some level of risk, but that risk can be managed by companies or organisations sending people abroad, as well as individuals. The truth of the matter is that everyone is responsible for managing risk and safety when abroad, but they often need to know how. Travel risk management can be optimised by working with a travel safety training organisation who can help you develop a travel safety management plan. This will inform the way you approach travel and make sure that your organisation is well equipped to travel as safely as possible.
If you have employees who regularly travel abroad, or even if you’re just travelling on a lone business trip, it’s essential that you manage your risk professionally and sensible. This will help to ensure positive outcomes and will be able to travel in a better frame of mind too, knowing that you have the knowledge and the information required to keep yourself safe.
Travel safety management requires two main processes to take place:
- Creation of a travel risk assessment. This will involve the identification of travel risks, and it will be specific to your business. These risks will be scored so that you know which are more prevalent and which pose the biggest threat. Once you have your risk assessment, you’re ready to work towards making sure you have ways of controlling them.
- Creation of a travel safety management plan. This will take into account all of the potential risks identified in the risk assessment, so that they can be addressed in the management plan. This is what should be included in your plan:
- Writing a travel safety policy statement
- Reviewing current policies and procedures, and evaluating any documentation relating to them
Once you’ve completed this procedure once, it can be refined to make it easier to do this again in future. A travel training, planning and safety company will help you to do this, making sure the procedure is clear and covers everything required, as well as making it easy to replicate for future business travel. This is beneficial for all types of travel within a business, both to low risk destinations and high risk ones, such as warzones and areas of conflict.
Managing risk when abroad is something that should become natural to any company conducting business travel for any reason. As well as having the right policies and procedures, it’s also important that these are used correctly and will have a tangible impact on the way in which people travel. People who are travelling abroad for business need to feel they have the correct tools and knowledge behind them to keep themselves safe, so a basic travel safety management course can also be beneficial for them. Good travel safety needs to be something that is prioritised from the top down, so that everyone is well equipped to look after their own personal safety while travelling. The travel risk management plans, procedures and documentation are there to make travel safety is a core consideration and is something that everyone is aware of.