Brought to you by
SAP

SAP® Concur® is the world’s leading brand for travel, expense and invoice management solutions.

Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

41 per cent of business travellers left to fend for themselves during a major event

24th Nov 2017
Brought to you by
SAP

SAP® Concur® is the world’s leading brand for travel, expense and invoice management solutions.

Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Research from Concur shows that despite high levels of awareness, UK companies failing to abide by their duty of care obligations.

Concur has released the results from its duty of care survey, which looked at 1,050 full and part-time employees across the UK in regards to their businesses duty of care plans and attitudes. Although firms are legally obliged to look after travellers, the research uncovered that 41% of travellers that have been near a major event while travelling for business weren’t contacted by their company. Additionally, 37% of those who were contacted rated the contact received as unnecessary or only mildly helpful.  

Only 42% of respondents were confident their companies would be able to assist them in any situation but 95% of those who had been near to a major event would want their company to have an alert system in place that would send their location to their company in case of emergency.

Chris Baker, MD of UK Enterprise, Concur stated: “It’s unfortunate but major events, from environmental through to acts of terrorism, have become a fact of life for all travellers. If you’re travelling for business though, your company has a legal responsibility to provide suitable care.”

“UK organisations are not taking this seriously and are skirting on the edge of the law. Even where companies do have the right processes in place, employees are still nervous about the assistance they receive. Data, insights and due process are clearly lacking.”

According to the results of the survey, this disparity between the level of support required and received by employees may be due to a lack of communication. While 78% of employees know that this support exists only 36% know who they would need to contact in an emergency.

However, some organisations seem to be improving their policies. 27 per cent of respondents noted that recent incidents had driven a change in policy, for instance with restrictions on business trips to certain areas or investment into risk management solutions.

“It’s good to see companies reacting to the changing environment we find ourselves in, but the numbers show why we must continue developing the technology that gives businesses the awareness and infrastructure they need,” said Baker. “Companies need technology that allows them to accurately locate and contact their employees in the case of an emergency. Of course, technology is simply one side of the coin; it’s clear that awareness and understanding of duty of care needs to be improved for both companies and the travellers themselves to provide a true environment of care.”

Tags: