“A moral or legal responsibility not to allow someone to be harmed”
In a business context, Duty of care is about the moral and legal responsibility that employers have to ensure the safety and health of their employees, contractors, and their families.
Duty of care and modern challenges
If it were so easy as it sounds, why do many organizations struggle to fulfill it?
Part of it is because responsibilities vary across jurisdictions and the other part is how you choose to view it. But what happens when work is no longer a place, and working remotely is the new normal – it becomes even more complex.
In today’s day and age when we tend to be more out of office than ever – we work from home, go on business trips, work from cafés, and so on. Because of this switch in the workplace, the traditional risks that employees get exposed to has also been changed dramatically.
Three main traditional risk categories
Health
It is estimated that up to 80% of deaths abroad are from natural causes such as heart problems.
Accidents
It is estimated that 24% of deaths abroad are from accidents – mostly road accidents.
Diseases
The last big traditional risk category is catching some kind of infectious disease; it’s estimated that 2% of all deaths abroad are from diseases.
The “new” risks that are becoming a bigger part of our day to day work can be, for example, unsafe areas, terrorism, epidemics and climate.
As businesses expand into previously unknown areas with emerging economies, changes in countries that previously were regarded as safe, unknown viruses, and the ever-increasing climate change these risks will take a bigger part of the statistics moving on.
More than 25% of organizations do not have any risk management strategy
Other categories that fall under the duty of care umbrella are:
- Sexual harassment
- Theft
- Health problems
- Physical damage by third parties
- Terrorism
- Tropical diseases
And with 91% of responsible managers see that duty of care is part of their role, still, more than 25% of organizations do not have any risk management strategy.
Do you have a risk strategy and the correct tools at your disposal?
With Safeture you get the correct information, can easily communicate and locate your employees to help fulfill your duty of care obligations. It’s key to make your employees feel safe, all the time.
To be able to fulfill the duty of care, you need a solid strategy and the correct tools.
