Have you got the right mindset for safe travel in a post-covid world?

As we prepare to travel again, are we doing enough to ensure our workforce is sufficiently trained to mitigate the risks that may be encountered? Jim Lawrence, Director at Peregrine Risk Management, talks with Andy Thompson about launching Travel Risk Management training, behavioural change, and empowering people to think differently to reduce their risk exposure when traveling. 

Who are Peregrine Risk Management?

Peregrine Risk Management was established June 2019, so we’ve been trading for 18 months. It was spawned from a previous role with a company where I was the Director of Operations and my business partner [at Peregrine] was a Director of Sales and Business Development, and we saw an opportunity to provide a better service.

Our focus covers travel risk, operational security, physical security, risk consulting, training and advisory / intelligence services.

With regard to Training, we deliver Crisis Management, Business Continuity, and Incident Response courses, with a lot of focus is on travel risk: pre-travel preparation, risk assessment, training, and how to assess projects. That breaks down further and specifically to hostile environment training. We also deliver basic travel safety awareness designed specifically for female / LGBTQ+ travellers.

Our aim is to look at the travel cycle for an organization and its people, to prepare them correctly so that when they’re in country, they behave in a certain way, and if it does go wrong, they can respond as an organisation and as an individual. Either that’s an immediate response to try to target the initial incident, or that actually escalates into crisis management and, from there, how they then deal with it crosses into business continuity.

We’ve just put in a bid, actually, for a UK government agency that we are quite likely to win, which covers all those elements. So, there is certainly an ongoing need for this type of training, and I think in the wake of the pandemic, it’s going to be needed even more. I think what people don’t understand is – and this is what we try to convey when we speak to clients – is that risks that were there pre-covid, are still there, post-covid, if not even bigger. We’re going to see, for example, increased criminality targeting the travellers’ perceived wealth. We are going to see increased unrest because of austerity or economic depression or unemployment.

So there is most certainly an ongoing need for the training we offer, and I think now is a really good time to push that. And we’re looking to delivering some of our courses online as well.

How do you deliver your Training?

There are three tiers of training that we look at – operational, tactical, and strategic.

Usually the bulk of the work is done up front. As an example, we’ve just recently won a new client, an NGO, and part of the work is conducted in the different tier training packages.

Tier One is pre-travel awareness for those that have been traveling overseas. That’s either a half day or full day course, depending on which one they choose and depending on how much detail they require. We break it down to half of the day looking at travel awareness. The second half is integrating that with their travel policy, preparation, and procedures. So, the travellers are aware, and how they can they cross migrate that into the company’s way of doing business.

The second level of training is training for those that approve travel. This includes how they assess the threat, how they risk assess; how they then approve based on the mitigation that’s being provided within the risk assessment. The outcome is a level of consistency across an organisation, because usually what we’ve seen historically is people base their approval on personal perception or personal experience, and that tends to give a murky way of approving travel. You may have, for example, a 21 year old who’s just there as travel booker, who’s approving somebody going to Iraq, but then you may have somebody that’s been a research academic for years and years, and he’s been to Iraq 20 times and they may take it the other way, but request too much. So it’s finding that balance and consistency.

As a result, one of the other things that we focus on is risk appetite. We often encounter companies who, when asked about their risk appetite, don’t know what I mean! It’s about how much risk you willing to accept. Because, if we don’t know how much risk you’re willing to accept, how can we risk assess and then and how can you approve if you’ve got no tolerance or benchmark.

The third tier of training is protecting the organisation from a governance standpoint: how are we going to make sure that those getting communicated with are getting the right information, the right training, but also when it does go wrong, it impacts a strategic level. How are we going to protect the business? Because obviously the longer an incident goes on, the more reputation, and economic impact there is.

What market sectors does Peregrine target – do you have specific verticals you serve, and how do you view the market, currently?

In my previous role, with what was predominantly a maritime security risk company, I was focused on building the land side of the business. I built the travel risk management arm of the company from scratch – from creating new software, to training, to all the plans and procedures and a consultancy – a whole new department.

Peregrine has continued that aim of expansion beyond Maritime. The sectors we’re focusing on at the moment are Higher Education, NGO, Oil and Gas – they’re the sectors willing to take more risk as the pandemic eases.

Universities, for example, need to keep doing cutting edge research to keep international students coming to the university. If they’re not doing the cutting-edge research, they’re not competing against the other Russell Group Universities. NGOs, obviously want to help you around the world. They can see the humanitarian crises that are happening, and they want to provide support and aid. Oil and Gas clearly want to continue up and downstream operations as best they can.  

We have picked up other corporate clients – manufacturing clients, for example – but those three are the ones we’re going to see move first. Corporates, I think, will lag – maybe six months to a year. But with universities, we are seeing a significant shift. Significant!

You are relatively young company, at 18 months, but doing well and serving a clear market need. Where do you differ from your competition?

Industry understanding.

For example, as a business we’ve grounded using ISO 18788, which laid our foundation as a security operations business for such a small, new company. We advise Universities – the University Safety and Health Association, USHA. I also have been heavily involved in advising APTA, the Association of British Travel Agents – I rewrote their health and safety guide on the security elements in the incident response.

So because I’ve been in the industry fully for six, seven years now, I think as a business, we’ve got so much experience and we are the “go to” people. Even though we’re a new company, I think it’s based on personal reputation, and my business partner’s relationship building, that people come to us. We’ve probably got about between 20 and 30 universities that we actively support. We’ve also got a growing NGOs base. That’s harder to get into because they tend to have security teams within them.

The Education sector is really tough as well, because there are so many nuances. Student travel may have a different risk appetite to post-grad travel. The hoops they’ve got to jump through and the fact that they want to do cutting edge research and they want to keep attracting people…. they get funding from donors to go and research a certain topic, so they naturally want, and need, to do it. So, understanding that environment can be quite difficult.

What are the standards you are delivering your Training courses to?

We work to our own internal standards at the moment because there isn’t really anything formal on the market relating specifically to the training we provide. That said, we’ve been in discussions with Pearsons to underpin what we do, and that’s continuing.

There’s a new ISO standard coming out, 31030, which is the Travel Risk element aligned to 31000. A lot of our training is based on that, and British Standards. That’s the only way to do it at the moment because there’s nothing out there on the market.

We stayed away from flooded market in CP courses! Quite frankly, they’re not worth the paper they’re written on because people just use it as a safety check, simply because you get a background check as part of the course! If we do source any sort of health and safety courses, we always ensure that it is IOSH or NEBOSH and the Approver is an accredited Centre.

How do you see the Training Sector, or your niche, specifically, innovating at the moment?

There’s a big shift to online training, but detail matters. If we think about it in the three layers mentioned earlier: operational, tactical, strategic: operationally, organisations seem really happy for people to do an online course – it’s quick, its easy. But when you get to the more technical type of courses, they always prefer face to face. The content has had to change over time to conform to equal opportunities and human rights regulations, and so on. We always check an organisation’s recruitment policy, equal opportunities policy, diversity policy, and GDPR regarding how we’re storing how we’re using data. So obviously that’s kicked in quite hard as well, especially in going into the European markets.

Operating in Germany can be very complex, for example. You can’t hold anything there. You need to understand that they have the right to purge data. When I built an online training course in a previous role, we had to put in a GDPR addendum which was communicated to each student about how they can access their information. So it has had to evolve. It’s not as free as it used to be. And it’s not just a case of turn up and run a course these days – there are so many things you’ve got to run through to make sure that you’re politically correct in delivering the right manner. But we usually identify that anyway, when we do a TA, [training analysis], at the start, and how the Clients want that to be delivered.

We’re going to be starting Training Wing soon, using a platform called Thinkific: a step-through wizard for building your own courses. I’ve really noticed over time is that you can build a course that’s very good on the eye, and the user experience is amazing, but it takes two hours. But, if I’m honest, I can deliver the same course in 30 minutes. And that’s what people want. They want a “no frills, this is what you need to know”, course, and I’ve seen a massive shift because people don’t have time to sit for two and a half hours.

So what we’re seeing is, if people want to change in time frame for delivery; the way information is translated and it needs to be quicker and harder and faster – because the environment we’re in the world is becoming quicker – innovation, technology is making things so much quicker. So why do I have to sit there and step through a two and a half hour e-learning training package when I can be told what I need to know in half an hour with a complimentary test at the end? So that’s what we’re seeing, a big shift in a speed.

What are your biggest challenges?

From a business development perspective, a major issue is tire kicking and ambulance chasing. It’s been really hard during this pandemic, even though I know I’ve got a lot of courses and a lot of training, and a lot more information I can give to companies, there is such tunnel vision at the moment. They can only see one day after the next and they are not forward thinking. Trying to change that behaviour, to get them to think three months, six months down the line when they start to travel again – because, let’s face it, you are going to travel again – but many haven’t looked at any of their contingency plans. They haven’t had not look at how their travel safety programmes are run. They’re not utilising this time effectively. And what’s going to happen is, like I said at the start, you’re going to get into an environment where the risks are higher. So that’s been really difficult. And, when people are struggling with closing down businesses, it’s hard to go in and sell, especially when training budgets don’t come out until next year. 

What has been your biggest impact so far with your training courses?

Keeping people safe.

One of the biggest things that we really focus on is empowering travellers, empowering people. If you empower somebody with information and you empower somebody with the tools and functions, then they’re going to change their behaviour, and their perception of how they act.

I’ll give you a give you a perfect example. I was talking to somebody from a competitor of mine and he was saying “we dealt with a thousand incidents last year. How many did you deal with?” Proportionally to how many clients we have, we dealt with about 80 percent less! Why? Because we focus on the preparation… so we do the training, we give them advisories and guidance, the risk assessment part. By doing that, you’re empowering the traveller and already adjusting their mind set. So, when they get into country, you’re minimizing their risk exposure by changing the behaviour in the way they act. Consequently, I’m not going to have as many incidents as the other company because all they do focus on tracking people where they are and maybe send them out with a PDF “Country Guide” that offers nothing!

So, I think our biggest success comes through the training and the preparation we’re giving people. We’ve seen a considerable downturn in the number of incidents we’re dealing with, so it’s clear it’s working and we’re having success.

In terms of failure – it’s getting attendance. It is making course attractive enough for people to want to do them. So, translating the business need to do the training in the first place. Now, our message is “this is this is what we do and this is the successful outcome” which achieves buy-in through demonstrating quantifiable results. 

What’s your advice on what companies should look for and also what to avoid in a service provider?

Credibility of the organisation is delivering it. There are a lot of companies out there delivering off the shelf, with no real experience. Research the potential provider. Get some case studies, some references and request feedback forms.

From a delivery point of view, avoid trying oversell what you’re trying to deliver. A lot of people would say that that course does X, Y and Z, but actually it doesn’t really give the content and experience that they’re selling. An example is the “Close Protection Course”. How many Close Protection Course providers are out there? We know that all this is, is a tick box exercise. You can have somebody from the Job Centre go on a 5 day Close Protection Course, or somebody from the Army. They’re still going to walk away with the same qualifications. So it’s understanding if you want to do a tick box course and get through it or do you actually want to learn something? And I think that comes from researching the provider and talking to other people that attended as well.

What’s your experience of receiving training – can you cite a provider you admire?

I did my CP course back in 2000, with a company called Ronin Concepts – I’m not sure if it is operating now – but it was run by an ex-Special Forces guy, John Graham. I was expecting a CP Course to be a tick test. It was completely the opposite because the level of instructor he had within the course was, I would say, a lot higher than was needed to meet the course criteria. So I walked away from that course thinking I was fully prepared. It was a brilliant experience. I thought it was very, very informative

But, conversely, I’ve been on a Conflict Resolution Instructors’ course, and the instructor just span a dit [told a story] for every point that came up on the PowerPoint, so it proved to be an absolutely pointless waste of time. I learned nothing of what I was supposed to. Frankly, the guy was just trying to show how great he was. But all I wanted to do was learn about the course.  Instead, every two seconds I got a story about “When I was in such an such” or “When I did this and that”. What a waste of time! Don’t do that!

I undertook a Master’s Degree in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management from Leicester University too, which was excellent. That was a really good experience – a completely different way of learning: a self-driven, self-disciplined.  Albeit stressful, with a large family, full time job, but certainly worth it!

James Lawrence MSc CSyP MSyl can be contacted about Peregrine’s Risk Management and Training services at jlawrence@peregrine-rm.com, or visit https://www.peregrine-rm.com/

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