Duty of Care for Associations: Traveling Staff, Volunteers, Spouses, etc.

I recently had the opportunity to lead a roundtable discussion with about 10 association executives on the particularly knotty issues involving corporate duty of care for employees and volunteers. Please note that the notes below DO NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE. Duty of care policies and issues require consultation with an attorney with expertise in this area. The roundtable discussion centered on surfacing issues that are at the intersection of law and practice.

Key takeaways, issues, and questions:

• What is duty of care? Duty of care is the moral, legal, and ethical obligation to maintain the well-being of a person who is traveling on your organization’s behalf

• Who is included? For associations, this can potentially cover:

  • Staff

  • Volunteers

  • Members

  • Contractors

  • Speakers/Presenters/Keynoters

  • Spouses/Family of the Above

• The key is that they are traveling at the request of the organization or as part of their official duties. It becomes fuzzy when a volunteer travels at his or her own volition, offering to represent the organization.

• Who pays for the travel (the organization or the traveler) helps determine whether there is a duty, but it is not dispositive.

• In practical terms, the duty begins at deciding who will travel where and when.

  • Is the person fit for travel?

  • Is there a process for determining the safety of a destination, travel routes, local events, government stability, weather situation, etc?

  • Can the person refuse travel for any reason? Is there a reasonableness standard (e.g. can a staff member based in Washington, DC, refuse to go to Istanbul but not Omaha)?

• How do you determine the amount of security necessary?

  • Pre-trip briefings

  • App with safety tips and updates

  • Emergency  phone numbers/contacts (eg. US embassies, reputable hospitals)

  • Insurance (travel, evacuation, medical, kidnap, etc)

  • Vetted drivers

  • Hardened vehicles

  • Executive protection agents

  • Security advances

  • Personal tracking/monitoring (e.g. via cell phone)

• When does the duty of care end if the employee attaches personal days, outings, or a vacation--prior to, during, or following a business trip? What is the company technically liable for and what should it ethically do if there is an incident while, say, a volunteer is injured on a zipline in Costa Rica after presenting at a conference there for the association?

• What if a key employee fears traveling--either refusing to go or asking for a cost-prohibitive level of security?

• Which volunteers are covered by the duty of care? Only Board members? Senior volunteers? Anyone claiming to travel on official association business? Only those expressly approved to travel on official association business? Board members often sign an agreement with the association at the beginning of their terms, including when they are asked to be traveling for the association or do so of their own accord.

• What about volunteers who travel to chapter events that are out of the control of association headquarters? Does the duty fall on the chapter? HQ? Neither? Does it make a difference if some chapters are individually incorporated and some aren’t?

• If your policy dictates that the duty attaches only to people who are asked to travel by, say, a chief staff officer, how do you handle this logistically in a large organization with members traveling all over the place on their own accord?

• What if a volunteer demands a higher level of security than the association’s risk assessment deems is necessary? Who pays the difference--the association or volunteer?

• As with staff, to what travel does the duty of care extend if the volunteer adds or mixes in vacation time?

• These issues should be discussed with legal counsel, security, the head of membership/volunteers, the CFO (typically responsible for insurance), and the chief staff officer, at a minimum.