Yesterday’s Advisor covered some travel expense-saving techniques as well as Zika-oriented travel safety tips. Today, we’ll take a look at general business travel safety tips.
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Traveling comes with quite a few potential pitfalls other than Zika. Do you have short-term medical insurance for traveling employees? Are you aware of all the health risks associated with travel? Do your employees know how to maximize safety while traveling? Let’s take a look at some general safety travel tips that can help.
General Travel Safety Tips
These tips for employees can reduce the risks associated with business travel:
- Establish a means for tracking employee travel and develop a communication system for emergency situations;
- Check with the company health insurance provider and consider making short-term medical insurance available for employees who travel;
- Be sure employees know how to contact the company’s travel insurance or assistance provider while away on business, especially if they’re going outside their home country;
- Make sure employees with known health risks are fit for travel;
- Maintain emergency contact information;
- Avoid sending a concentration of employees in the same plane, train, bus, or livery car; and
- Conduct training programs to review travel risks and response protocols.
Also, make sure that employees:
- Know to move away from any type of disturbance not toward the potential threat;
- Carefully examine rental vehicles to confirm that everything is in good working order before leaving the rental facility;
- Become familiar with the route they will be traveling and have access to a good navigational system and map or written directions;
- Pack a travel health kit that includes first-aid supplies, prescription medicine, and over-the-counter diarrhea medicine;
- Stay hydrated while traveling and avoid alcohol and caffeine to reduce the chance of jet lag;
- Try to sleep on long flights;
- Eat healthful meals, exercise, and sleep well to minimize travel-related stress; and
- In every situation, learn the location of the nearest fire exits, elevators, and phones.