Duty of care: Workforce support in conflict regions

Workforce readiness starts strong. Long-term preparedness is less common.

Organizations have invested significantly in immediate crisis response. Nearly three-quarters of surveyed employers maintain a dedicated crisis management team, 76% track employee location and safety, 78% offer remote work arrangements, and 87% maintain full employee benefits during an evacuation.

These findings suggest many employers have the operational mechanisms needed to act quickly when a crisis occurs. The gap appears later in the response journey, where financial support, communication cadence, tax education, and documented policy frameworks are less consistent across organizations.

Financial support remains one of the biggest differentiators

Support for employee evacuation is split almost evenly. While 51% of surveyed employers provide evacuation assistance, 49% do not. Among the organizations that do provide support, assistance is concentrated on immediate needs: 83% cover travel costs and 48% fund temporary housing.

Longer-term or risk-based financial support is less common. Among companies surveyed, 70% provide no hardship allowance and 83% provide no danger pay. Only 22% of companies that offer evacuation assistance provide a formal relocation allowance.

For employers reviewing their duty-of-care programs, the findings raise a practical question: does the support program cover only the move to safety, or does it address the employee experience across the full arc of a crisis?

Communication strategies often rely on reactive outreach

During a fast-moving crisis, employees need timely and reliable information. Yet the survey shows that communication is often event-driven rather than scheduled. Most organizations, 62%, communicate only as needed, while 22% provide weekly updates and 11% communicate daily.

Email is the dominant channel, used by 91% of surveyed organizations, with manager cascades used by 56%. Town halls, text messages, and dedicated apps play smaller roles. That reliance on a limited set of channels may leave employees waiting for information when conditions are changing quickly.

The report points to a clear opportunity: establish a regular communication cadence and reliable backup channels before a crisis tests the system.

Policy and tax readiness present the largest preparedness gaps

The survey identified policy and tax planning as two of the least mature areas of workforce support. Only 11% of surveyed employers operate from a formal emergency evacuation policy. Others rely on work-away-from-home arrangements, case-by-case decisions, or no defined policy at all.

Tax preparedness shows a similar divide. Following an evacuation, 80% of surveyed companies keep employees on home-country payroll and 64% limit employee activities to manage permanent establishment risk. But employee-level tax education receives less attention: 33% have told employees nothing about personal cross-border tax exposure, 44% have shared basic information, and just 7% have provided a comprehensive briefing.

The implication is clear: a company may be ready to move people quickly, while still leaving important tax, payroll, legal, and employee communication questions unresolved. Those frameworks need to be in place before a crisis forces the issue.

What separates stronger programs?

The strongest programs identified in the survey appear to move beyond immediate response. They prepare a formal policy framework ahead of a crisis, keep employees informed on a regular schedule, and protect employees financially across the full arc of an emergency, from evacuation through hardship and danger pay.

As competition for skilled talent sharpens, the benchmark for workforce support in conflict regions is rising. The question for employers is no longer only whether they can respond when a crisis happens. It is whether their programs are built to support employees through one.