08/09/2026
Your employee leaves the office. Your duty of care does not.
For many organisations, that is where the confusion starts.
Once a traveller is on the move, your responsibility shifts from office-based policy to real-world exposure. Airports, hotels, ground transport, local unrest, communications gaps, and emergency response all sit inside the same risk picture.
Too often, duty of care is treated like an insurance policy or an evacuation plan. It is both of those things, but it is also much more.
A proper travel security strategy asks hard questions before departure:
- Do you know where your people are going?
- Have they been briefed on the risks they may face?
- Is there a clear process if the situation deteriorates?
- Are transport, accommodation, and communications already covered?
The organisations that get this right do not wait for a crisis to define the plan.
They build the plan first.
They think through the full journey, from pre-travel assessment to in-country support to crisis response. They also recognise that risk is not uniform. A lone traveller, a female employee, LGBTQ+ personnel, or someone working remotely may need different safeguards.
That matters because crises rarely announce themselves in advance. The Arab Spring proved how quickly a regional event can become a corporate security problem.
In that kind of environment, reaction is too late.
Preparedness is what protects people, reputation, and business continuity.
If your duty of care only exists on paper, it is incomplete.
