When you have spent ten hours on site, driven through the rain and finally made it back to your hotel, you probably have three things on your mind: food, a shower and bed.
Checking where the fire exit is? Probably somewhere further down the list.
For field workers, engineers, construction teams, technicians and other mobile employees, hotels and self-catering accommodation can become a second home for days or weeks at a time. That makes accommodation an important part of travel safety, particularly when workers are arriving late, carrying expensive equipment, driving between sites or staying somewhere unfamiliar.
There is also a wider responsibility for employers. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states that employers must manage health and safety risks for workers who drive or ride as part of their work, with health and safety law applying to work activities on the road in much the same way as it does at a fixed site.
Good travel risk management therefore starts well before someone reaches reception.
The accommodation you choose, its location, parking, journey from site and the information employees receive can all influence how safe and comfortable a working trip feels.
This guide covers the practical checks businesses and field workers can make before booking, at check-in and throughout a stay.
A two-night corporate trip to a city-centre meeting and a six-week engineering project are both technically corporate travel.
In practice, they have very different requirements.
A field worker might leave their accommodation before sunrise. They could return after a long shift, park a commercial vehicle containing tools or equipment and stay in an unfamiliar area for several weeks.
There may be a rotating workforce, multiple rooms, night shifts or employees travelling alone.
That changes what “good accommodation” looks like.
A rooftop bar and enormous breakfast buffet are nice. Secure parking might be considerably more useful to an engineer carrying thousands of pounds of equipment.
Likewise, a hotel that looks like a bargain may become less appealing if workers have to drive an hour back from site at the end of every shift.
Safety needs to be considered as part of the entire working trip.
For the person travelling, most hotel safety checks are refreshingly simple. You do not need to conduct a security audit every time you walk through reception.
A few good habits cover a lot of ground.
Before you leave
- Check the accommodation address and route from site
- Save the booking confirmation somewhere accessible
- Check parking arrangements if you are driving
- Make sure somebody knows where you are staying
- Save the relevant company and emergency contact details
- Check whether reception is staffed when you expect to arrive
- Review any relevant local travel or safety information
- Make sure your phone is charged before the journey
When you arrive
- Park somewhere appropriate and secure
- Avoid leaving tools, laptops or valuable equipment visible in the vehicle
- Check that your room locks properly
- Find the nearest fire exit
- Check the evacuation information
- Store valuable items securely
- Report anything that feels wrong with the room or property
During the stay
- Keep room keys and access codes secure
- Lock your room whenever you leave
- Tell the appropriate person if travel or accommodation plans change
- Avoid driving when excessively tired
- Keep phones and essential work devices charged
- Report safety or security problems rather than putting up with them
None of this takes particularly long, but that is exactly the point. The best safety processes are the ones people can realistically follow after a long working day.
For employers, the first hotel safety check happens before anybody has packed a bag.
Choosing accommodation purely by nightly rate can miss factors that matter considerably once a worker arrives.
Look at the location properly
“12 miles from site” can mean very different things depending on where the project is.
Twelve motorway miles might be straightforward. Twelve miles of narrow rural roads after a night shift could be a very different journey.
Look at:
- Actual journey time to the worksite
- The roads workers will need to use
- Parking availability
- Public transport where relevant
- Surrounding amenities
- Expected arrival and departure times
- Whether workers will be travelling alone
This is especially important for teams working unusual shifts. A perfectly reasonable journey at 3pm may feel slightly different when it comes to 3am.
Check parking before someone arrives with a van
Anyone who has spent twenty minutes circling an unfamiliar town in a work van looking for somewhere legal to park knows why this deserves its own section.
For field teams, parking can affect safety, security and practicality.
Check whether parking is:
On-site. Workers should know whether the accommodation actually has its own parking or whether “parking available” means a public car park three streets away.
Suitable for the vehicle. Height barriers, underground car parks and tight entrances can cause problems for larger vans.
Secure. Lighting, controlled access and CCTV may be relevant where employees are travelling with work vehicles or equipment.
Available overnight. Some parking arrangements change after certain hours.
Workers should also follow company guidance on storing tools and valuable equipment. A hotel room is preferable to the passenger seat for a laptop, and visible equipment can make a vehicle a target.
Anyone who has spent twenty minutes circling an unfamiliar town in a work van looking for somewhere legal to park knows why this deserves its own section.
For field teams, parking can affect safety, security and practicality.
Check whether parking is:
On-site. Workers should know whether the accommodation actually has its own parking or whether “parking available” means a public car park three streets away.
Suitable for the vehicle. Height barriers, underground car parks and tight entrances can cause problems for larger vans.
Secure. Lighting, controlled access and CCTV may be relevant where employees are travelling with work vehicles or equipment.
Available overnight. Some parking arrangements change after certain hours.
Workers should also follow company guidance on storing tools and valuable equipment. A hotel room is preferable to the passenger seat for a laptop, and visible equipment can make a vehicle a target.
Some travelling jobs repeatedly take teams back to the same towns, cities or project areas.
If a company knows employees will be returning to an area regularly, its accommodation strategy can become much more deliberate. Procurement teams can review booking patterns, identify frequently used locations and assess whether longer-stay options could provide better value.
Roomex can also work with businesses to negotiate bespoke rates in their most-booked locations, helping companies make recurring workforce travel spend work harder.
Project sites do not always sit conveniently beside a large selection of hotels.
Construction, infrastructure and engineering work can take employees to industrial areas, smaller towns and locations where suitable hotel inventory becomes limited, particularly when several contractors are operating locally at the same time.
Access to self-catering properties gives bookers another pool of accommodation to consider and can widen the practical radius around a project.
Rail is usually one of the lowest-carbon ways to move employees between cities and regions, particularly for domestic and short-haul journeys.
To measure rail emissions, organisations should capture:
- Origin and destination
- Journey distance
- Ticket class
- Frequency of travel
- Traveller or project code
Rail data is also useful for reduction planning because it shows where flights may be replaced by lower-carbon travel.
Roomex Rail helps organisations manage train travel centrally, apply travel policies, use approval workflows and access split-ticket pricing. For carbon reporting, centralising rail data makes it easier to measure how much rail is being used and where policy changes could encourage further adoption.
Accommodation planning can sometimes focus heavily on getting people to a project.
Getting them safely back afterwards deserves equal attention.
HSE guidance identifies fatigue, long working hours, journey length, time pressure, traffic and weather among the factors employers should consider when managing work-related driving risks. It also specifically advises employers to consider overnight stays where workers could otherwise be driving home excessively tired.
That makes accommodation location a genuine safety consideration.
If a team finishes a physically demanding 12-hour shift, adding a long drive to reach their beds may create unnecessary fatigue.
Sometimes paying slightly more for accommodation closer to site is a very sensible trade.
Nobody needs to inspect their hotel room like a detective.
But the first few minutes after arrival are a good opportunity to check the basics before shoes come off and the television goes on.
Check the door and locks
Make sure the room door closes and locks properly.
If there is a deadbolt or secondary lock, use it when you are inside. Do not prop hotel doors open, even if you are popping down the corridor to see a colleague.
If the lock appears damaged or unreliable, contact reception and request another room.
This is one of those situations where British politeness can take the evening off. A door that does not lock is a perfectly reasonable reason to move rooms.
Find the fire exit
Yes, we know.
You have seen the little evacuation map on the back of hotel doors hundreds of times and probably ignored it hundreds of times too.
Give it ten seconds.
Find the nearest exit and check whether there is an alternative route. This matters particularly when workers are staying in large or unfamiliar properties.
In an emergency, nobody wants their first thought to be: Was the staircase left or right past the ice machine?
Know how to contact reception
Reception may be downstairs, but it helps to know how to reach staff without leaving the room.
For self-catering accommodation, the setup may be different. Workers should know who manages the property, how to contact them and what to do if there is a problem outside normal hours.
Check windows and access points
Ground-floor rooms, balconies and accessible windows deserve a quick check.
Make sure they close and lock properly.
If a worker is uncomfortable with a room because of its location or access, there should be a straightforward way to raise the concern.
Field workers often travel with considerably more than a laptop and overnight bag.
Tools, testing equipment, specialist devices, PPE and company technology can all come along for the ride.
Leaving expensive equipment visible in a vehicle overnight can create an obvious security risk.
Businesses should therefore have clear guidance about:
- What equipment can be left in vehicles
- Where valuable items should be stored
- Whether specialist equipment needs additional security
- How theft should be reported
- What workers should do with confidential documents
- How company devices should be protected
The employee should not have to invent a security policy in a hotel car park at 11pm.
Make the rules clear before they travel.
Hotel safety and road safety are closely connected for field workers because accommodation often sits at either end of a drive.
HSE describes driving for work as one of the most dangerous activities workers undertake and advises employers to consider the journey, driver or rider and vehicle when carrying out risk assessments.
Fatigue deserves particular attention.
Tiredness can affect reaction time, vigilance, concentration, information processing and decision-making. HSE identifies long journeys, long working hours and journeys after night shifts as situations where fatigue can become particularly relevant.
It also notes that sleep-related incidents are most likely between 2am and 6am and 2pm and 4pm.
For field teams, that has obvious implications.
A worker finishing a night shift should not feel pressure to drive a long distance because somebody found a hotel £8 cheaper three towns away.
A sensible travel risk management policy should consider:
- shift length
- journey duration
- rest breaks
- hotel distance from site
- check-in availability
- early starts
- late finishes
- consecutive working days
The Highway Code recommends a minimum 15-minute break every two hours when driving, according to HSE guidance.
For longer projects, accommodation should be part of fatigue planning rather than something organised after the rota has already been finalised.
Field work can involve plenty of solo travel.
An engineer may arrive the evening before everybody else. A technician might cover several locations alone. Someone working an unusual shift may be returning to accommodation when the rest of the team is asleep.
This does not mean businesses need to constantly monitor employees.
It does mean there should be a sensible system for knowing where travelling workers are expected to be and what happens if something changes.
HSE advises employers to consider risks to lone workers when managing work-related driving and identifies regular check-ins and tracking systems among measures that may be appropriate when managing risks such as violence and aggression.
Keep it simple.
For example, employees might confirm that they have:
- arrived at accommodation
- changed accommodation unexpectedly
- experienced a vehicle problem
- been significantly delayed
- encountered a safety concern
- become unable to reach the planned property
The process should also explain who receives that information.
“Tell someone” is not a process.
“Call the project manager on this number” is.
Keep it simple.
For example, employees might confirm that they have:
- arrived at accommodation
- changed accommodation unexpectedly
- experienced a vehicle problem
- been significantly delayed
- encountered a safety concern
- become unable to reach the planned property
The process should also explain who receives that information.
“Tell someone” is not a process.
“Call the project manager on this number” is.
Field work does not always respect hotel check-in hours.
Projects overrun. Traffic happens. Trains are cancelled. A five-hour journey somehow becomes seven.
Before booking, businesses should check whether the property can accommodate the worker’s expected arrival time.
If somebody is likely to arrive very late, consider whether:
- reception will still be staffed
- there is a secure self-check-in process
- parking will be accessible
- the worker has clear arrival instructions
- they know who to contact if access fails
Few things improve morale quite like reaching accommodation at midnight and discovering reception closed at ten.
A reservation check can also be valuable for workforce bookings, particularly when employees are travelling to unfamiliar properties or arriving outside standard hours.
Roomex carries out reservation checks before stays, helping reduce the chances of a worker reaching their accommodation only to discover an avoidable problem with the booking.
A hotel can feel perfectly comfortable for two nights and considerably less practical by night 22.
Longer field assignments introduce additional considerations around cooking, laundry, equipment, vehicle security, rest and general wellbeing.
This is one reason self-catering accommodation can work well for project teams.
Roomex provides access to 170,000 self-catering options for longer stays, allowing businesses to look for accommodation that better suits workers spending extended periods away.
For longer stays, think about the following:
Cooking facilities: Are they suitable for the number of people staying there?
Laundry: Workers spending several weeks away should have realistic access to washing facilities.
Parking: Is there secure, reliable parking throughout the stay?
Access: How are keys or codes managed between occupants?
Location: Is the property close enough to site to keep daily driving manageable?
Living space: Does the accommodation provide enough room for employees to properly rest outside working hours?
Property support: Who should workers contact if heating, plumbing, access or another essential service fails?
Safety and welfare become harder to separate on a long assignment.
Someone who is well rested, comfortable and able to cook, wash clothes and properly switch off after work is in a much better position to face the next day’s shift.
Some projects take teams considerably further than the next county.
When employees travel internationally, the safety checklist needs to account for the destination itself.
The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office recommends checking current foreign travel advice, including information about entry requirements, safety and security, health risks and local legal differences. Its foreign travel checklist also recommends arranging appropriate insurance and preparing for unexpected events.
For businesses operating overseas, the UK government’s Overseas Business Risk service also provides country-specific information covering areas including political and economic issues, security, terrorism, corruption and human rights.
Before international field travel, employees should know:
- Relevant entry requirements
- Local emergency numbers
- Appropriate insurance arrangements
- Where they are staying
- How they will travel between accommodation and site
- Who their company contact is
- What to do if plans change
- Where to find current government travel advice
The information should be accessible from a phone rather than buried in an email thread from three months ago.
A good duty of care travel management programme needs to recognise that travellers can experience risk differently.
This does not mean creating alarmist policies. It means giving employees a genuine route to raise concerns about accommodation, transport, arrival times or location.
For example, a worker may be uncomfortable arriving alone at an isolated property late at night. Another may prefer accommodation with staffed reception. A particular route between parking and accommodation might feel inappropriate after dark.
Businesses should make it easy for employees to flag those concerns without feeling as though they are being difficult.
Travel policies can also consider whether late-night arrivals can be avoided, how solo travellers are supported and whether alternative accommodation should be available where an employee has a reasonable safety concern.
The best policy leaves enough room for common sense.
This is where corporate business travel can become unnecessarily complicated.
A safety policy does not need to become a 47-page PDF that everybody confirms they have read and nobody actually opens.
For field teams, short and practical wins.
A hotel and accommodation safety policy should explain:
Set minimum expectations around suitability, location, parking, property access and any relevant security requirements.
Centralised booking helps the business retain visibility over where workers are expected to stay.
If everybody independently books whatever they find online, knowing where teams are during disruption becomes considerably harder.
A five-point checklist is more likely to be remembered than a page of policy language.
Door. Fire exit. Parking. Valuables. Emergency contact.
Done.
Make this explicit.
Who should they call? Can they request another room? Can they move property? Who approves it?
An employee should never have to weigh personal safety against whether finance will question an extra £30 accommodation charge.
The policy should cover theft, security concerns, accidents, near misses and accommodation problems.
HSE recommends having systems for workers to report work-related road incidents and near misses, followed by investigation to understand underlying causes and whether controls need to change.
That same learning mindset is useful across wider corporate travel.
If three workers independently report the same unsafe car park, the next team probably should not be booked there.
Policies are useful. So is judgement.
No checklist can predict every situation somebody might encounter while working away.
A worker might arrive and discover that the accommodation looks very different from the listing. A car park might feel unsafe. The room lock may be broken. Severe weather could make the planned journey risky.
Your travel policy should give employees enough flexibility to respond.
That includes making it clear that workers can report concerns, stop and seek advice, or request alternative arrangements where there is a genuine safety issue.
A strong safety culture depends on people feeling comfortable speaking up.
This is probably the biggest takeaway for businesses managing field workers.
Accommodation safety cannot be separated from the journey, project or working day around it.
A perfectly secure hotel 50 miles from site might still be a poor choice if it adds two hours of driving after every shift.
A cheap room may stop looking cheap when the team has to park valuable work vans on an unlit street.
A fantastic property may be unsuitable if reception closes before a night-shift worker arrives.
Good accommodation planning looks at the whole experience.
That means considering where people are working, how they will get there, when their shifts begin and end, what they are carrying, how long they are staying and what they need to rest properly.
Roomex is built around the realities of workforce travel.
Businesses can search more than two million hotels and self-catering apartments, with accommodation options suited to project teams and workers staying away from home.
Centralising bookings also gives businesses greater visibility over where accommodation has been booked, while custom travel policies and approvals help teams keep bookings within company requirements.
For longer assignments, there are 170,000 self-catering options, giving workers access to practical facilities that can make extended stays considerably more comfortable.
Our support team can also help with complex bookings, groups and projects, while reservation checks before arrival help make sure the accommodation is expecting your traveller.
Because after a long day on site, the last thing anybody wants is an argument at reception about whether their room actually exists.
A good hotel safety checklist should be simple enough that people actually use it.
Choose suitable accommodation. Think about the journey. Check the essentials on arrival. Give employees clear contacts. Make it easy to report problems.
And then let them get some sleep.
Managing accommodation for field workers, project teams or travelling employees? See how Roomex can help you find workforce-suitable accommodation and keep business travel easier to manage.
What should field workers check when they arrive at a hotel?
Field workers should check that their room door and windows lock properly, locate the nearest fire exit, read the evacuation information and make sure they know how to contact reception or the property manager. Valuable equipment should also be stored securely rather than left visible in a vehicle.
What should employers consider when booking hotels for field workers?
Employers should consider location, journey time from site, parking, expected arrival times, shift patterns, property access and the facilities employees will need during the stay. Longer assignments may also require laundry, cooking facilities and additional living space.
How does accommodation fit into travel risk management?
Accommodation forms part of the wider working journey. Its location can influence driving time, fatigue, parking security and how easily employees can reach a site. Effective travel risk management therefore considers accommodation alongside transport, working hours, destination risks and employee welfare.
What is duty of care in corporate travel?
Duty of care refers to an employer’s responsibility to take reasonable steps to protect employees from foreseeable risks associated with their work. For corporate travels, this can include assessing relevant risks, planning work-related journeys appropriately, providing suitable information and establishing processes for employees to report problems or seek help.
Should field workers stay close to the worksite?
Where suitable accommodation is available, reducing the journey between accommodation and site can help limit unnecessary driving and may be particularly valuable after long or late shifts. Location still needs to be considered alongside price, availability, facilities and the individual requirements of the project.
Is self-catering accommodation suitable for field workers?
Self-catering can be particularly useful for longer projects because workers may have access to kitchens, laundry and additional living space. Businesses should still assess factors such as property access, parking, location, security arrangements and suitability for the number of people staying.
What should a company hotel safety checklist include?
A practical checklist should cover accommodation location, parking, room security, emergency exits, valuable equipment, lone working, late arrivals, fatigue, emergency contacts and incident reporting. Keeping the checklist short and specific makes it easier for travelling employees to use.
How can businesses improve travel safety for lone field workers?
Businesses can establish clear check-in procedures, keep accurate accommodation and itinerary information, provide emergency contacts and make sure workers know what to do when plans change. The appropriate measures will depend on the employee’s work, destination and level of risk.
Why should fatigue be considered when booking accommodation?
Fatigue can reduce concentration, vigilance and reaction time while driving. For employees completing long or unusual shifts, the distance between the worksite and accommodation can therefore become an important part of the travel plan.
Where can UK businesses find current safety information for international work travel?
The UK government’s foreign travel advice provides current information on safety and security, entry requirements, health risks and local laws for individual destinations. Businesses operating internationally can also consult the government’s Overseas Business Risk guidance for relevant country-specific business risks.
