In response to the ongoing Coronavirus outbreak, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has issued guidance on some key actions that organisations can take to manage traveller health, safety and wellbeing. Here are the main points:

Ensure you have proportionate and robust policies, procedures and controls in place. Communicate them to all relevant parts of your organisation, providing information, instruction and training as appropriate.

Consider whether travel is absolutely necessary – can you achieve the same result with video conferencing and spare the organisation and traveller the risk, time, cost and environmental impact?

If travel is deemed necessary then you need to effectively but proportionately manage the risk, with controls identified and implemented that reflect the nature and severity of the risk. Such controls should be identified through a travel risk assessment, incorporating not only the travel, accommodation and work itself but also the traveller’s physical and mental capabilities. The travellers themselves should be involved in this process.

You will always need to know where your workers are and where they are going. Some travel management systems provide tracking and alert functions, and there are also products utilising GPS in either discrete equipment or smartphone apps that can provide live location tracking.

Should your travellers become involved in an incident or emergency situation, you need to have a means by which to provide support for them. Considering issues such as number of travellers, international time differences and weekend travel it is potentially cost and resource-effective to implement a travel assistance scheme such as those provided by business insurers or commercial organisations such as International SOS, with whom IOSH collaborated on research and guidance on Managing the safety, health and security of mobile workers (2016).

You should also provide relevant information, instruction and training to travellers, the nature and extent of which should be identified during the risk assessment process.

Finally, don’t forget your travellers’ wellbeing. Frequent international travel has been shown to have negative effects on both physical and mental health, with situations such as a disease outbreak providing further sources of concern.

This article in full is available at www.iosh.com/more/news-listing/coronavirus-seven-ways-to-protect-travelling-employees/