There has always been an element of risk involved when travelling for business; think terrorism, natural disasters, crime and more. But the impact of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have brought risk management into even sharper focus for HR professionals. As a result, there has never been a better time to review and rethink travel risk policies, ensuring they are robust and allow employees to travel with confidence.

Finally introduced in September 2021 after three years in the making, a new global benchmark for managing business travel risk is now available to help organisations do exactly that; and make decisions to support their employees within a framework of good practice guidance developed by a community of experts.

ISO 31030 includes – but is far from limited to – best practice for managing Covid-related risk and traveller duty of care, which is particularly relevant as corporate travel continues to reopen across the word.

It also covers travel disciplines including pre-trip authorisations, planning, policy, traveller assessment, transportation, destination, accommodation and more and is written so that it can be applied to a wide variety of organisations and their travel and traveller needs.

The standard aims to help HR , travel and procurement professionals to establish best practice for improving duty of care and was described by one Business Travel Show Europe speaker as ‘a boon to travel professionals, giving them a chance to assess their own programmes at their own pace against industry standards.’

It is an even greater resource for HR professionals who are new to the travel industry and who may not have a network of peers built up, and it is also an excellent opportunity for more seasoned HR directors to review and refresh for mature travel risk management programmes.

Currently only a working guide for organisations, it will certainly become the go to and accepted benchmark and there could easily be a time when meeting ISO 31030 criteria also becomes a legal requirement, which is why it’s so important for organisations to a) be aware of it, and b) start implementing changes to meet the standards within it.

Yet, worryingly, data poll* revealed that fewer than half of those responsible for business travellers across Europe had heard of ISO 31030 and only 16 per cent have been updating their travel policies to meet these standards.

Given that we’re only two years in, it’s impressive that the 2020s are already proving to be the decade of risk management with Covid-19 cementing risk mitigation as the number one priority for travel managers, so time – as they say – really is of the essence for HR professionals to swot up on this new standard and start making changes that will keep their travellers safe.

* From a recent Business Travel Show Europe