Implementing an end-to-end duty of care policy and reining in "cowboy" travelers to abide by it can be difficult for a corporation. However, with the help of third-party security providers and senior management assistance in altering travel policy and issuing mandates, accomplishing this task became a reality for two travel managers speaking here at last week's National Business Travel Association convention.
Initializing a thorough duty of care policy begins with realizing the need for one, which for global engineering and construction company Kellogg Brown and Root happened on 9/11, when it was unable to ascertain whether there were any KBR employees on either of the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City.
"I got a visit from my supervisor and he wanted to know if we had people in those planes, and it wasn't until 6:00 p.m. that we knew that we didn't have any travelers, but that was only in our U.S. offices," said John Clifton, global travel manager for KBR. "We had no visibility into our travel agency; we had no visibility into any of our travel agencies outside of the U.S. It was a very powerful experience, and it definitely pointed out from a duty of care perspective that we need to know where our travelers are all the time."
The "wake-up call," Clifton said "forced [KBR] into a situation where we had to" begin developing a global duty of care policy. For the past two years, KBR has partnered with third-party security provider International SOS, and has mandated that trips be booked through the preferred travel management companies and that international trips to "high risk" areas like Iraq, Iran, Yemen and others be pre-approved before the booking. Additionally, travelers are not to book airlines that achieved a high-risk security warning from Aviation Safety Inspectors, a third party that determines which airlines are unsafe.
"We instituted a process in the last two years whereby we use a third party to help us assess what airlines are safe and what airlines are unsafe. This is a very difficult process to go through, it is not an exact science, it is very subjective," admitted Clifton. "We have to depend on other sources as well, because the safety of our travelers is very important."
Fellow panelist Gwen Hurst, travel manager for the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, introduced mandates requiring the company's 5,000 travelers use only airlines that can be booked via global distribution system through contracted travel management companies.
As such, both companies are able to attain useful data to locate travelers during a time of crisis. Although KBR uses 10 to 12 TMCs worldwide to help manage 20,000 travelers, the TMCs are required to use up-to-date technology in order to provide KBR with daily data reports on the names and locations of its travelers, which in turn are delivered to KBR's security teams.
"We get 16 data feeds from different travel agencies around the world, some of these travel agencies aren't quite as technologically advanced as some other travel agencies and the completeness of [the data] is a real challenge, so you have to work closely with the travel agent," said Clifton. "On any given day, KBR has thousands of people traveling around the world. We feel pretty confident that we know where most of our travelers are in the world."
Additionally, in designated high-risk areas KBR's security within the country will locate its travelers and ensure they are transported safely to their final destinations.
"Countries like that, you don't just arrive at the airport and call a taxi; you have to have a form of transportation in place," noted Clifton. "This is very important, because these are known areas where the security and safety is not what it should be. By way of an approval process, we are able to make sure that our security force is there."
Still, both Clifton and Hurst find it difficult to push travelers to book hotel reservations through the GDSs and to ascertain their modes of ground transportation.
"A lot of our lodging arrangements are made outside of the GDS and outside the travel agency through our local offices," explained Clifton. "It's a real challenge for us to know necessarily where they are staying all the time or how they are transporting locally on the ground."
Getting Duty Of Care Off The Ground
Hurst and Clifton associated much of their success to senior leadership buy-in. Travelers were more willing to follow the policies and mandates if senior-level employees set the example (and in cases where they didn't, senior leadership, too, were reprimanded). The travel managers collaborated with their own human resources and legal teams to ensure senior leadership became aware of the legal ramifications associated with not having a duty of care policy, which could lead to damaging lawsuits.
"You have to get your leadership involved. [KBR's leadership is] very much engaged in the development of policy and procedures that support what we are trying to accomplish," said Clifton. "Have chain links--the higher up they are in the organization the more that will help you. Getting new processes and procedures pushed through can meet with some resistance. It helps to have executive leadership who understand and appreciate the challenges and will back you."
KBR limited the number of executives who can fly on one aircraft together. If the number of bookings per flight reach the limit or go over capacity, the TMCs notify the travel department and Clifton and his team step in to reinforce the policy.
Ensuring that travelers are aware of the new policies and procedures can always be a tough feat, Clifton and Hurst agreed. Both have implemented a company intranet in which travelers are notified of unrest and other events that may impact their trip. As "things change within the hour, it's a real challenge to make sure that our travelers have the most up-to-date information as they are traveling around the world," Clifton attested.
"Your travelers need to know where they can go and have that information," he continued. "KBR's intranet portal provides a lot of information. In our case, we have these countries that require pre-approval; we have these countries listed that are currently at war. We as travel professionals are generally expected to take the lead."
The major difficulty is overcoming "data saturation" that many travelers experience, according to Clifton. "I get more emails than I can read ... it's a real challenge to sift through all the data to really separate the wheat from the chaff. With KBR especially, we are constantly bombarded with information. Our travelers have the same issue."
'Cowboy' Travelers
Within these corporations, some employee's travel is paid for by others and they take vacation days while on these trips as well. During these circumstances, Hurst and Clifton said it is especially difficult to communicate to travelers that they are still obligated to abide by their company's duty of care policy.
"You have to work with the project managers to go through our security people and our agency," said Clifton. For vacation, "we try to make people understand that even though this is your time off--it is your money--we are still responsible for you and making sure that you get back home to your loved ones safely."
"I keep telling them, 'You don't have to accept everything you are invited to,' but they want to," said Hurst. "I hear a lot of the whole 'Big brother is tracking us.' When you work with that mindset, it's a real challenge because it's not about spying on you or knowing everything you are doing. Knowing where your travelers are is critical to be able to respond."
Clifton said: "Some of them are cowboys; some of them have this sense that 'Oh no, nothing is going to happen to me,' and these are the people that you have to work with."
For those travelers who continue to overstep, Hurst said UT has "denied travel to that destination and won't fund it." Also, UT "asks them to sign a release so that [they] don't take any liability for it because it's outside of policy."