Restriction to number of staff travelling together at any one time: safeguarding the safety of staff members on official travel

In ensuring ILRI’s business continuity and to guard against the loss of senior leadership and key Institute personnel should an accident occur when people travel together, IMC has given consideration to restrictions that should be put in place to mitigate this risk.

With immediate effect, the following restrictions will apply to travel by aircraft, rail and watercraft:

1. The Director General shall travel with no more than two of his direct Reports. However, only one Deputy Director General will travel with the Director General at any one time.
2. The Board Chair and Vice-Chair will not travel together at any time, this restriction will also apply to the Board Chair and the Director General travelling together at any one time.
3. No more than two of the Director General’s Direct reports shall travel together.
4. No more than three members from any one Programme/Department/Unit shall travel together.

We would ask that Programme Leaders, Heads of Departments/Units evaluate the business continuity risk for their respective areas and determine who within their areas shall not travel together and inform those people in their respective areas with direct oversight for coordinating/arranging travel for their areas.

We recognize that for road travel, involving short distances, such as travelling across town to a meeting, or for undertaking field work or field trips associated with conferences etc. the restrictions above may not be not practical and therefore ask trip organizers to ensure that travel arrangements minimize the risk and exposure. This can be achieved through, for example, when multiple vehicles are on the same trip that senior staff travel in different vehicles, or hiring two mini-buses rather than one big bus.

In addition, we would ask that Progamme Leaders and Heads of departments ensure that those with direct oversight for coordinating travel ensure that due care is taken when booking and/or organizing travel for external attendees to ILRI hosted/ILRI sponsored events/conferences/activities.
Thank you for cooperation in the adherence to these guidelines.

October 2014
People and Organizational Development