You are abroad, minding your own business in your hotel room, when you suddenly hear shouting. A large crowd has gathered outside and rioting breaks out. You try to call someone to see if they know what’s going on but the telephone network appears to be down. What should you do? Should you try to leave your hotel and get to the airport? What is the best way to contact home and who can you go to for advice?
Turning up the heat
In the last few weeks, two popular business and tourist destinations both became volatile almost overnight. Europeans were left stranded in Tunisia and Egypt, not being able to withdraw money from the cash machines, not being able to walk down streets because of violent gangs, finding it very difficult to hire a car, discovering that airports had closed and not even being able to get hold of enough food. They didn’t know if the tap water was contaminated and how long the bottled water supply was going to last. Meanwhile, in Moscow a suicide bomber killed 42 innocent people bringing the airport to a standstill.
The world has changed so much in the last decade. Travel is generally easier, communication is faster, cheaper and more reliable and our quality of life has gone on improving, however, the world has experienced a huge shift in its security. Terrorism, conflict and war is no longer something which only happens abroad, it has become part of our lives. Whether it is bomb threats, street gang violence or cyber warfare, we continually buy products to protect our physical self as well as our online identity.
The Corporate Manslaughter Act
Since 6th April 2008, when the Corporate Manslaughter Act came into force, UK employers have more responsibility to their employees in terms of health and safety, travel, and overall welfare whenever they are representing their company and wherever they are in the world.
As HSE (the Health and Safety Executive) point out, “Juries will be required to consider breaches of health and safety legislation in determining liability of companies and other corporate bodies for corporate manslaughter/homicide. Juries may also consider whether a company or organisation has taken account of any appropriate health and safety guidance and the extent to which the evidence shows that there were attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices within the organisation that were likely to have encouraged any such serious management failure or have produced tolerance of it.”[1]
So what does this mean? Directors can’t just send an employee overseas and tell them, “Just get on with it”! The Ministry of Justice has made it clear that the Act sets out a new offence for convicting an organisation where a gross failure in the way activities were either managed or organised resulted in a person’s injury or death. The court can also impose an order requiring the organisation to publicise that it has been convicted of the offence, giving the details, the amount of any fine imposed and the terms of any remedial order made.
What should employers do?
To be found guilty of a gross breach, the organisation’s conduct must have fallen far below what could have been reasonably expected. This is an opportunity for employers to think again about how risks are managed – at home and abroad. Both the employer and the employee have a role and responsibilities concerning safety. Consider the following:
- Employees should be given simple procedures to follow from the moment planning a trip starts right through to whenever they return home. They then have a duty to follow those procedures to ensure that contingency plans work in times of crisis.
- If an investigation commences following an incident the employer will be asked:
- Did they provide the correct advice?
- Can the organisation prove that they were not grossly negligent?
- Was the employee negligent?
- Did the employee follow the corporate procedures and advice?
Investigators can be extremely thorough when searching for evidence that will shed light on such questions.
In large organisations there is sometimes the belief that no one person can really be blamed for events or accidents that lead to an employee being injured or killed. However, the new Act has been phrased in such a way that the head of HR in a large company may be just as culpable as the owner of a small private company – both can be sent to prison and/or fined. Arguing that you didn’t realise that an employee’s welfare was your responsibility, failing to regularly evaluate the advice that employees receive or just trusting to luck are no longer options.
There is a greater onus on organisations than ever before to be more proactive in engaging with technology. Today, there is no excuse. Many resources are now available which provide easy to manage systems designed to look after the welfare of employees. Information about countries is now far more accurate and available. The internet can also be used to support tracking device software, download apps as well as other systems to monitor employee travel and it can also play a key role in managing a crisis.
Any employer or employee who wants to check whether they are meeting the necessary requirements laid out by the Act should contact the HSE at www.hse.gov.uk/contact - there is also a free information line on 0845 345 0055. Their general advice for employers is to identify any obvious hazards, examine who may be at risk and why, then evaluate those risks and decide on the most effective precautions. They should then record their findings and act on them – reviewing their assessment and updating it whenever necessary.
When sending employees abroad, an organisation should also be able to demonstrate that it has followed all official guidelines, provided by the Foreign Office for example[2], and has fulfilled its obligation to help employee research and plan their trip in advance of their departure – ensuring they understand the threats posed by any potential dangers and have, if necessary, been equipped and trained to deal with them.
What employees can do
If the political situation suddenly deteriorates, many people will be clogging up the normal channels like the embassies, airports, roads, cash machines and food outlets.
These are the key points that employees should consider.
- Research the country you are visiting or working in before you leave, be aware of local customs and any specific dangers.
- Before you travel to a remote or more hostile region, consider taking a sat phone and spare cash. Always make sure you have a map and know the infrastructure of the region’s transport network and get a visa in advance for neighbouring countries, just in case.
- If a crisis happens, the simplest plans tend to work best. Keep a low profile, relocate to a safer area (away from crowds) while acquiring as much cash, food and water as you think you’ll need for the next week or two.
- If you can, arrange your own transport with plenty of spare fuel.
- Send a message home with a brief itinerary and your contact details.
[1] www.hse.gov.uk/corpmanslaughter/
[2] The guidelines on Egypt can be found here