By Christine Connolley, Senior Program Manager, Global Crisis Management
I recently came across an insightful article on PRNEWS about running crisis drills. The article emphasized to PR professionals the importance of running real-time simulations of actual crisis scenarios, bring all potential stakeholders together to put their role into practice and understand how they contribute to the larger response. The article started me thinking about how the same principles apply to travel risk management and duty of care. If you’re curious about the article, you can find it here.
For travel risk management and risk professionals, ensuring the safety and well-being of employees during every stage of travel is paramount. Tabletop exercises play a vital role in crisis preparedness, giving organizations the opportunity to simulate real-world scenarios, evaluate their response, and refine their plans in a controlled environment.
Here are some important elements to consider when running a tabletop exercise for duty of care:
1. Do you have the right personnel in place?
Tabletop exercises establish who is responsible for what during a crisis. Many organizations assume their travel, security, HR, and risk teams are aligned—but when put to the test, miscommunication, conflicting expectations, and ambiguous lines of authority often emerge. These exercises ensure all stakeholders understand their roles, decision-making hierarchy, and escalation procedures before a true emergency unfolds. Make sure you involve the right stakeholders in the exercise. Include all departments with touchpoints to your travel risk program – operational and supportive. The group can be different among organizations, but generally should involve stakeholders from travel, security, and human resources. It may also include your risk department, communications, business continuity, insurance, procurement, finance, or even executive management.
2. Can your third-party providers deliver what they say?
Many organizations rely on third-party assistance providers (i.e., security, medical evacuation, kidnap and ransom support, insurance, etc.) to support employees in a crisis. A tabletop exercise in coordination with the supplier is the perfect way to test their support. Your organization has a controlled environment to monitor response times, verify service level agreements, and confirm they have the resources to provide the support your organization depends on. Are they truly 24/7? How quickly do they deploy? Do they have access to the right local resources? Simulating a crisis scenario allows you to uncover potential gaps before they become critical lapses in a real-world response.
3. Can you locate your employees?
Would your organization be able to confirm within minutes of a crisis where your employees are and if they are affected? Would your tracking system provide consolidated real-time visibility, or would you be scrambling to verify an employee’s location? Many organizations depend on travel booking data to track employees, but if there’s no process to capture bookings made outside approved channels, those travelers may be unaccounted for in a crisis. A tabletop exercise can help organizations test their real-time tracking capabilities—whether through approved booking tools, duty-of-care platforms, or third-party assistance providers—and identify any gaps that could affect response efforts.
4. Can you reach your employees?
A tabletop exercise can help organizations evaluate whether they have accurate and accessible emergency contact information for every employee—and whether their notification process is effective in a crisis. Does the organization regularly audit and update emergency contacts to prevent delays or confusion? Are there clear protocols for quickly notifying next of kin in the event of a serious incident? A crisis exercise can reveal gaps in data management, identify breakdowns in communication, and ensure the organization is prepared to support employees and their families when it matters most.
Building a comprehensive risk management program
Testing your incident management process is so important that it’s included as a key component of Advito’s Traveler Security Program Assessment (TSPA). But the TSPA goes far beyond that, Advito’s Travel Risk Management consultants work with your organization’s key stakeholders to provide a personalized, comprehensivereview of the organization’s travel risk management program, assessing it across eleven key areas to identify both strengths and areas of opportunity to ensure your organization’s travel risk program aligns with ISO 31030 and industry standards.
The TSPA results provide a strong foundation for a resilient and forward-thinking travel risk management program. With annual tabletop exercises layered in, your program becomes dynamic, one that matures year over year, and provides a higher level of preparedness and confidence in managing travel-related risks. Conducting tabletop exercises is not just a best practice for PR professionals; it’s a critical component of travel risk management. By regularly conducting these drills, organizations can ensure they are prepared to protect their employees and respond effectively to any crisis that may arise.
Take action now
Ensure your organization is prepared for any crisis. Ask us how a Travel Security Program Assessment can help test your duty of care protocols and safeguard your employees. Contact our travel risk management team at BCD Travel for expert guidance and support.
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