How can organizations educate their employees traveling to high risk areas?
Educating employees on high risk areas must start with setting expectations. We have a responsibility to provide the employee with as much information about the destination as possible, and then ensure that new/current information gets to the employee as quickly as possible. There is also a need to ensure that the employee maintains a level of situational awareness appropriate to the location and the issues which cause it to be high risks, whether that’s environmental factors, political factors or economic. Many companies subscribe to reports from security monitoring services, but not enough of them make those subscriptions (and the accompanying information) available to their employees outside the security organization. That’s a failure that’s easily addressed. What’s the best way to get HR involved in due diligence for foreign M&A work?
This is an issue which I usually see arise in organizations that still have an HR 1.0 human resources function. Senior leadership sees HR, in those instances, as transaction-focused because that’s all they see. Your first task is to increase the visibility of what HR does that contributes to value. Are you measuring activities of HR, or the results of HR? Once senior leaders see how HR contributes results, and can help lead change, then the involvement in due diligence will naturally follow. It may also be helpful to put together some examples of areas in a solid due diligence which requires an appraisal from HR professionals.
What are the essential steps to implementing an effective travel risk management plan to keep employees safe when they travel across borders?
Today’s global organizations have a large number of employees working as international assignees, expatriates and business travelers. Of course as the amount of travel across borders increases, so does the risk facing those individuals and their organizations. In 2011, International SOS commissioned Lisbeth
Claus, Ph.D, SPHR, GPHR, of Willamette University to conduct a benchmarking study to identify the essential steps organizations should take to develop an effective travel risk management plan. Through a monthly webinar series, industry experts and practitioners will take a deeper look at these essential steps, utilizing Dr. Claus’ 8-Step Duty of Care model, each 60-minute webinar will explore an