Applying personal awareness to travel risk.
Most of us will be familiar with situational awareness and cultural awareness and the impact these factors can have on our safety and security during travel, however an area of equal significance, which is often ignored or overlooked is personal awareness.
Personal awareness refers to individual factors that influence or shape our personal risk profile. Many organizations make the common mistake of relying on a generic risk rating when comparing the relative safety and security of one country to another, however this one size fits all approach fails to account for personal risk factors or what we’ll refer to here as the totality of circumstances.
Totality of circumstances is a term we have borrowed from the law, which simply refers to a method of analysis where decisions are based on all available information rather than relying on a single rule or standard. While country risk ratings are a useful guide for identifying those countries that require additional safety precautions or security measures, personal risk factors, including an individuals age, health, gender and experience can have a significant impact on their level of risk.
In other words, not all travelers are equal. For example, Mexico is considered to be a high-risk environment for business travel, however if the traveler is Hispanic, speaks Spanish and has a firsthand knowledge of their operating environment this will significantly lower their level of risk. The opposite scenario is also true, if the traveler is a white US citizen who only speaks English and has no previous knowledge of their operating environment then the risk to this individual will be significantly higher.
The practice of applying personal awareness can be challenging. For an individual it requires maturity and a level of self-awareness that many people simply do not possess. It is not easy to exclude yourself from a potential project or international travel for the reasons described, even though it might be the right decision, under the circumstances.
For organizations this practice can be even more difficult as selecting personnel based on their gender, age or health might be viewed as controversial or even discriminatory, however ignoring these factors is an equally serious decision and could be viewed as negligence from a Duty of Care standpoint.
As with cultural awareness, personal awareness can have a significant impact on our personal safety and security when traveling so it is vital to consider these issues prior to departure and take proactive steps to limit our exposure to the risks identified.
Stay safe.
