Duty of Care in Poland and Ukraine: A Practical Guide for Companies

Many companies now have people moving between Poland and Ukraine: engineers on reconstruction projects, auditors checking supply chains, sales teams meeting partners, or managers visiting a local office. Polish and Western companies alike ask the same question: if something happens to one of our people, are we ready?

Duty of care is often treated as a policy document. In practice, it comes down to whether your people know what to do, whether your managers know who decides, and whether help can reach someone when it is needed. The precise legal requirements depend on the country and the employment relationship, so take legal advice on those. This guide covers the practical side.

Start with the realistic risks

Planning should start with what could realistically happen to your organisation. Poland and Ukraine call for different levels of preparation, but a company active in both should consider each.

In Ukraine, conditions can change quickly because of the war. Plans need to account for air alerts, shelters and curfews, checkpoints, disruption to power and communications, and medical emergencies far from suitable care.

In Poland, daily business is stable, but companies should still think about the effects of the war next door. As we have written in our article on crisis management in Poland and on sabotage signals, these can include disruption to supply chains and energy, cyberattacks, sabotage and floods.

Know who is where

You cannot look after people you cannot locate. Before an emergency, you should be able to answer these questions:

• Who approves travel to Ukraine, and on what basis?

• Who is in the country today, and where?

• Do we have their emergency contacts and relevant medical details?

• Do contractors and visiting staff fall under the same rules?

Treat frequent visitors and staff based in the country as separate cases. They face different risks and need different plans, and each group is easy to overlook in a policy written for the other.

Assess each trip, not only the country

"Ukraine" is too broad to be a useful risk rating. A trip should be assessed by its destination, route, venues and timing, shortly before it happens. Our Ukraine travel security page shows what such a journey can include, from route assessment to protection on the ground. There are no flights in Ukraine, so routes and timings must be planned by road, and Poland is our preferred hub.

A security audit can also review how your organisation handles travel more broadly, including destinations, duty of care procedures, emergency contacts and escalation. See our corporate security audits.

Write a plan people can use on a bad day

A good plan is short enough to use on a bad day. It should set out:

• The scenarios that matter most to your organisation

• Crisis team roles, and who has decision-making authority

• Contact lists and escalation paths

• How you will communicate internally, externally and with families

Decide in advance who may order a return, cancel a trip or authorise an evacuation, including at night and at weekends. In a crisis, confusion about authority costs time. More on this is on our crisis management planning page.

Agree evacuation and medical arrangements in advance

Evacuation arranged in the middle of an emergency is harder and slower than evacuation planned beforehand. Your plan should explain how people would leave, where they would go and who would coordinate the move. Since February 2022 we have completed over 250 evacuation missions in Ukraine, bringing more than 2,000 civilians to safety, and our plans draw on that work.

Medical arrangements deserve the same care. For clients already in Ukraine, we can arrange medical transport to a suitable hospital in Ukraine or evacuation to Poland or other European countries, with verified medical partners. A medical team can also travel with your people as an optional service. Air transport within Ukraine is not currently possible, so flights are arranged from neighbouring countries or elsewhere. Evacuation may be charged separately, so it is worth discussing the budget before you need it. See our medical evacuation page for details.

Train your people, then test the plan

Staff who travel should be prepared before they go. Depending on the role and destination, this can include a safety and security brief, first aid and trauma care, hostile environment training and an understanding of air alerts and shelters. The first minutes of an emergency are often in the hands of whoever is nearby. See our security training for more.

Plans are proven only when they are tested. A tabletop exercise with your leadership team, built on your own scenarios, will reveal weaknesses in a safe setting. Scenario-based drills do the same for staff. Update the plan after each exercise, and review it as your operations change.

A short self-check

• Do we know who is in Ukraine today?

• Has each trip had a current risk assessment?

• Does every traveller know who to call, and has that number been tested?

• Who can order an evacuation, and who is their deputy?

• Have we practised any of this in the past year?

If any answer is unclear, that is the place to start.

How GSC can help

We work with corporations, government agencies and NGOs on security audits, crisis planning, risk assessments, protective details and evacuation planning, run from our Operations Centre in Warsaw with a permanent team in Ukraine. Scope and budget are agreed in writing once we understand your operations.

To begin, we ask for the size and structure of the organisation, its countries and sites of operation, and any current concerns. An NDA is available before any details are shared. Request a confidential call.