with managing director of Amadeus IT Pacific, Tony Carter
IN RECENT years there have been significant changes to Duty of Care legislation in some Australian states and in New Zealand. These changes have seen the definition of ‘workplace’ now encompassing anywhere employees are carrying out their work duties, therefore extending corporate Duty of Care obligations to those employees travelling for work.
The legislative changes present major challenges for TMC’s and corporations, particularly as to how to address the risk management and travel safety of their travellers. In light of the increased liability of employers, businesses need to demonstrate that they’re looking after the wellbeing of their travelling employees to meet the Duty of Care obligations.
There are many new travel challenges arising from devastating natural and man-made crises, recently even in destinations previously considered low risk. Corporations should have effective measures in place that can be quickly implemented to ensure the health, safety and security of the traveller.
With the growing trend towards ‘bleisure’ travel and new sharing economy travel options there are more temptations to book out-ofpolicy options than ever before. Leakage from corporate policy are common and risk associated with business travel increases. Some of the ways to mitigate the impact include:
• Enforcing corporate travel policy to travellers.
• Educating the employees to understand their own responsibly and benefits in adhering to policy.
• Driving the adoption of any self-booking tool to minimise leakage, bringing efficiencies and ensuring better visibility over traveller movements.
CREATING THE FOUNDATION OF A STRONG TRAVEL POLICY
To help prepare for the unexpected corporations should establish a strong travel policy. Key considerations can include:
• Use of vendors that have been selected on specific criteria such as reputation and location.
• Analysing the risk in the travel destinations to help to determine the best Duty of Care solution.
• Educating travellers on selected vendors, policy, procedure and measures that are in place to track travellers and communicate in the case of an emergency.
HOW AMADEUS CAN HELP?
Technology has a crucial role to play in helping to meet today’s Duty of Care obligations. The best practice Duty of Care solutions enable you to locate, communicate with, and assist travelling employees. Features such as interactive mapping and GPS locators will assist to identify at-risk travellers, locate them and allow twoway communication via a smartphone app, email or SMS. The best solutions also bring in ‘offline’ booking information, so it is accounted for at the itinerary. Amadeus has a range of solutions to suit different business types and sizes that can assist companies meet their Duty of Care requirements, simply and effectively.
• Amadeus Mobile Messenger is a complete Duty of Care solution, enabling you to locate, communicate with, and assist travellers 24/7.
• Amadeus Oneclick enables you to keep track of your travellers arrangements, proactively notify them of any travel alerts or disruptions, as well as communicate via SMS or email.
• Amadeus Travel Alerts Notifier is a simple tool that effectively keeps your travellers up-to-date on flight changes and status updates.
If you would like to know more about how to make Duty of Care simpler and more effective for your corporate customers please download our discussion paper from www.amadeus.com or speak to your Amadeus Account Manager.
