This whitepaper aims to help corporates understand the ISO 31030’s potential implications for an employer’s travel security obligations and liabilities in the context of existing French law. Understanding ISO 31030 will help corporates, whose employees are required to travel, to consider the extent to which they are meeting their duty of care to their employees and others in the context of travel.
Objectives and key elements of ISO 31030
The ISO 31030 is geared towards providing organisations and more importantly, management, with the tools to identify, assess and manage travel risks for work-related travel. This approach has been defined as “Travel Risk Management” (“TRM”), i.e. “coordinated activities to direct and control an organisation with regard to travel risk”.
The ISO 31030 provides a structured and comprehensive approach to formulating a TRM programme with defined objectives as well as a TRM policy.
The ISO 31030 builds on the ISO 31000, which provides principles, a framework and a process for managing all forms of risk, as well as on ISO 45001 (for an occupational health and safety management systems) which specifies the requirements for an occupational health and safety management system. This standard applies to all types of organisations, irrespective of their line of business or size.
Before exploring French civil and criminal legal implications that may affect an employer in the event that an employee sustains damages, it is critical to elaborate clearly the employers’ obligation. Under French law, Article L. 4121-1 paragraph 1 of the Labour Code provides that the employer must take the necessary measures to ensure the safety and protect the physical and mental health of employees. Thus, employers shall ensure the complete physical and mental safety of their employees. As such, employers whose employees travel should have procedures in place to anticipate and limit the risk of accidents during business travel, as well as procedures for dealing with accidents.
In this regard, ISO 31030 provides a framework and tools for employers to set up procedures to prevent potential health and safety hazards to their employees while travelling on business.
