GSA facilitates first peer-benchmarking event for travel security and risk professionals

Ever since face-to-face events started back up, security and risk professionals with responsibility for travel have been calling for a peer-led event to share best practices and bounce around ideas. Answering the call, we decided to host an event in London dedicated to doing just that.

Kindly hosted by AVEVA, the event gathered several security and risk experts including Andy Miller of JLL, Emma Lamb of Mitie@Meta, Kate Samore of MacQuarie Bank, Laetitia Piroddi of PwC, Matt Childs of Deloitte, and Tracey Mendes of KPMG.

Highlighting the issue

We initiated proceedings by sharing common findings from more than ninety ISO31030 reviews undertaken before identifying the common pain points companies had when trying to meet the standard’s guidelines. Each participant also shared one or two areas they were specifically interested in, including:

• Health data management: How can companies demonstrate duty of care to employees without seeking or holding unnecessary and sensitive personal data?
• Departmental coordination: Aligning company policies and procedures with ISO 31030 is a tall order – one that is made even trickier for large organisations with various departments. So, what’s the best way to get all departments singing from the say hymn sheet?
• Internal communications between employers and mobile workforces: In the age of smartphones and global connectivity, contacting travellers during their trip is no longer an issue. However, the problem is getting post-travel feedback. Many organisations are struggling to get this feedback, so what are the best ways to do this that don’t rely on the traditional survey?

The afternoon was widely considered a success, with attendees agreeing that another session in autumn would be extremely beneficial.

If you have responsibility for your company’s travel risk/security management and would like to be considered for the next event, please do let us know [email protected]