Company directors are risking legal action from shareholders by failing to respond to the increased need to recognise a duty of care to employees working overseas.
ArmorGroup International, a provider of defensive protective security and security training services, has warned that companies have yet to properly address the issue of duty of care to employees and were leaving themselves open to litigation as a result.
The company has launched a report which analyses the issues companies need to address when deploying staff to hazardous countries and suggesting possible ways forward for companies and government.
ArmorGroup's research shows that a third of finance directors and financial controllers of medium and large UK companies do not believe pre-deployment or hostile environment awareness training should be mandatory for employees before they are sent to work in higher-risk regions.
The company said this potentially left them to open to legal action in which they might be unable to demonstrate to courts that they took all reasonable steps to protect staff and therefore failed in their duty of care.
The report says that businesses in the manufacturing and transport/communication industries were least likely to believe training should be mandatory. However, it found that finance firms, mining companies and hotel groups were all strong supporters of training.
The ArmorGroup research comes ahead of the launch this week of a discussion document advanced by the UK Ministry of Defence on how companies should treat contractors deployed on operations.
Research shows 21% of employees of medium and large UK companies have been on business trips to countries included on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) ‘Don't Go' list'
Around 6,000 finance directors and financial controllers who had visited or sent an employee to an FCO ‘Don't Go' country admitted that neither their company's employers' liability nor its personal accident insurance covered them, their families or their employees for personal injury or death while working and living in the higher risk country.
Christopher Beese, chief administrative officer of ArmorGroup, said: “Our report shows a company's failure to take all reasonable precautions will attract the censure of employees, their families, clients, shareholders, trades unions, other pressure groups and the courts if something goes wrong."
ArmorGroup's report advises companies of the need to conduct a full risk assessment on the country they are deploying staff to before they are sent and to develop a programme to respond to risks before staff go.
The report says they should consider secure accommodation for staff at the very least and also look at offering close protection advisers or protective security details. It adds that contingency plans for injury, kidnap or death should be in place including advising staff on local medical and diplomatic support.
ArmorGroup said insurers needed to be fully briefed on where staff awee being deployed. It said failure to do so could mean insurance cover would be invalid in the event of a claim.
The report said the UK government could help by specifying a need for a duty of care in requests for proposals and issuing relevant regional risk analyses. It should also recognise the value of pre-deployment training and consider it in the budgets submitted.
