Duty of Care
Your Most Important Duty Is Duty of Care: How to Protect Your People Wherever They Work
Overview
Ensuring the safety and well-being of employees presents numerous challenges for organizations, such as limited visibility into travel plans and the pervasive impact of misinformation. Leadership must take a proactive and comprehensive approach to address these issues, focusing on mental health in the workplace, employee travel safety, remote work safety, and travel risk management. By prioritizing duty of care for employees, organizations can create a safer and more supportive work environment.
Today’s Risk Management Landscape
When 65% of business leaders perceive more risk in today’s environment and 75% say employees’ expectations about duty of care are higher than ever before, it reinforces why ensuring duty of care for employees remains a top concern for organizations.
The SAP Concur 7th Annual Global Business Travel Survey found that CFOs and business travelers agree:
- 53% of CFOs think travel managers should do more to support traveler safety
- Only 38% of travelers feel their travel manager is doing enough to ensure their well-being.
- Nearly all (92%) travelers are willing to decline a business trip for reasons like safety, social or environmental concerns, or the potential impact on their work-life balance.
- 40% of travelers would refuse a business trip out of safety or social concerns about the destination.
Challenges to Ensuring Duty of Care for Employees
Amidst an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape, duty of care has clearly become a greater responsibility for companies of all sizes. Whether your team is traveling, working remotely, or navigating geopolitical uncertainty, your organization’s duty of care must evolve to meet rising expectations.
But while managing risk and ensuring duty of care for employees is both morally right and good business, research points to challenges in doing it well:
- 37% of travel managers are expected to support duty of care without visibility into all travel.
- 38% anticipate a more difficult year due to travelers not using company tools to book or update travel plans.
SAP Concur and International SOS have partnered to create a practical guide, Your Most Important Duty is Duty of Care, that helps organizations turn concern into action. Here are four key strategies to strengthen your duty of care for employees—wherever they are.
Your Most Important Duty is Duty of Care
Read our guide for 4 tips to help ensure employee travel safety and wellbeing.
Get the tips!1. Use Reliable Intelligence to Protect Employee Safety
Protecting your people starts with knowing where they are and what risks they face. But in a world flooded with misinformation and fragmented data, that’s easier said than done. In fact, according to the 2025 International SOS Risk Outlook, 27% of organizations have struggled with the disruptive effects of misinformation, and 18% have been challenged by disinformation.
How to Build a Travel Risk Management Framework
To build a strong foundation for employee travel safety, organizations must:
- Integrate trusted data sources like health advisories, weather alerts, and security updates.
- Capture travel data from all booking channels—including direct supplier bookings—to ensure full visibility.
- Build risk scoring systems that evaluate destinations based on political stability, healthcare quality, and neighborhood safety.
- Develop scenario models to simulate potential incidents and prepare for rapid response.
These strategies help organizations shift from reactive to proactive, ensuring they can guide, support, and protect employees in real time.
Learn more about building a framework of reliable intelligence in our guide.
2. Adapt to Geopolitical and Cultural Travel Risks
Global volatility is no longer a distant concern—it’s a daily reality. From civil unrest and regional health crises, to shifting regulations and cultural tensions, the risks facing business travelers are complex and evolving.
To manage these challenges, organizations should:
- Conduct regular risk reviews to identify emerging threats to travel safety.
- Form cross-functional teams that include legal, HR, and security experts to assess and respond to geopolitical shifts.
- Evaluate cultural and ideological travel safety considerations, especially for travelers from vulnerable groups such as women and LGBTQ+ employees.
- Maintain open communication channels to keep employees informed and supported.
Tips for Precise Travel Risk Management
Understanding the nuances of each destination—beyond just the country-level risk—is essential. For example, a city may be considered high-risk, but a traveler staying in a secure hotel with reliable transportation may face minimal danger.
“The data travelers need involves the risk at the neighborhood level. How safe is the hotel and/or event center? Is there a police presence on the street? How close are the hospitals? Are women and LGBTQ+ communities in any particular danger? These are the answers your
travelers want.” — Jeremy Prout, Security Director, US North-East for International SOS
3. Prioritize Mental Health in Duty of Care Policies
In 2024, medical incidents accounted for 71% of reported travel issues—nearly double the number of security-related incidents. This trend underscores the need to treat physical and mental health in the workplace as a central component of the duty of care for employees.
Best practices include:
- Encouraging pre-travel health checks and mental wellness assessments.
- Providing access to counseling, crisis hotlines, and health education.
- Making mental health in the workplace a core part of employee travel safety and remote work safety policies.
- Offering flexible work arrangements that allow employees to rest and recover when needed.
Creating a Supportive Employee Wellness Culture
Business travel can be stressful, and that stress can impact performance, decision-making, and overall well-being. A simple “stoplight” model—green for good to go, yellow for caution, red for stay home—can help employees self-assess their readiness to travel.
Organizations must be aware of the mental and physical tolls of travel and be open to making accommodations. This type of culture fosters an environment where travelers feel secure and confident that their well-being is a priority.
Bumps in the road: 5 tips to support traveler well-being
Are your employees feeling the strain of business travel? Here are 5 ways to support traveler well-being and mental health in the workplace.
Well-being tips!4. Ensure Duty of Care for Remote & Hybrid Employees
Remote and hybrid work are here to stay, but they come with new risks—many of which are harder to see and manage.
To support remote work safety, organizations should:
- Establish home-office safety guidelines, including ergonomic standards and equipment recommendations.
- Foster virtual engagement through regular check-ins, social events, and team-building activities.
- Provide tech security protocols to protect company data and devices in remote environments.
Remote work safety is just as important as employee travel safety
Isolation, burnout, and tech vulnerabilities are real concerns for remote employees. By extending duty of care beyond the office walls, companies can ensure that all employees—regardless of location—feel supported and protected.
Building a Culture of Duty of Care for Employees
Duty of care isn’t just a legal obligation—it’s a leadership imperative. It’s about building a culture of safety, trust, and resilience that empowers employees to do their best work, wherever they are.
By embracing smarter data, inclusive policies, and proactive communication, organizations can transform their approach to duty of care for employees. And with the right tools and insights, they can turn uncertainty into confidence.
Get started with these resources:
- eBook: Your Most Important Duty is Duty of Care: Tips for Ensuring Employee Health & Safety
- Guide: Your Guidebook to Travel and Expense Risk
- Checklist: Duty of Care Essentials: A checklist for travel, workplace, and everywhere in between
- Podcast: Return on Intervention: Why Proactive Travel Risk Management Pays Off with International SOS
- eBook: Supporting Traveler Well-being: Practical Strategies for Organizations
- Report: 7th Annual Global Business Travel Research Report
- Report: Risk Outlook 2025 | International SOS
FAQ
Q: What is duty of care for employees?
A: Duty of care is an organization’s responsibility to protect the health, safety, and well-being of its employees—whether they are traveling, working remotely, or navigating complex work environments. It involves proactive risk management, clear policies, and support systems to ensure employees feel safe and supported.
Q: How can companies ensure travel safety for employees?
A: Companies can ensure travel safety by using reliable intelligence on risks, evaluating geopolitical and cultural factors, monitoring destinations at a granular level, and providing mental health support. Tools like travel data integration, scenario modeling, and clear communication help employees stay safe while traveling.
Q: Does duty of care extend to remote workers?
A: Yes. Duty of care includes remote employees by addressing risks such as home-office safety, technology security, isolation, and burnout. Regular check-ins, ergonomic guidelines, and engagement initiatives help companies protect and support remote workers effectively.
Q: What is duty of care for employees?
A: Duty of care is an organization’s responsibility to protect the health, safety, and well-being of its employees—whether they are traveling, working remotely, or navigating complex work environments. It involves proactive risk management, clear policies, and support systems to ensure employees feel safe and supported.
Q: How can companies ensure travel safety for employees?
A: Companies can ensure travel safety by using reliable intelligence on risks, evaluating geopolitical and cultural factors, monitoring destinations at a granular level, and providing mental health support. Tools like travel data integration, scenario modeling, and clear communication help employees stay safe while traveling.
Q: Does duty of care extend to remote workers?
A: Yes. Duty of care includes remote employees by addressing risks such as home-office safety, technology security, isolation, and burnout. Regular check-ins, ergonomic guidelines, and engagement initiatives help companies protect and support remote workers effectively.
