Office Relocation

Taiko

Hoping someone can interpret this for me, and make sure I'm understanding the contract term correctly.

My current office will be closing down in the next few months, and relocating to another office about 10 miles away, albeit with an added travelling time of about 30mins.

My current contract states my usual place of work is my current office, but the agreement that I perform my duties in other locations as required by the business. This has meant occasional meetings in other offices dotted around the country.

With the current office closing down, is there likely to be any entitlement to reimbursement of the additional expense for any period of time? There's nothing specific within the contract detailing closures and permanent relocation.

sangie595

There's no entitlement no. It is up to the employer if they are willing to offer anything.

Guest101

10 miles is hardly a long way in the grand scheme

TBagpuss

No. It's likely that the change of venue is a reasonable variation of your contract.
If not, you could argue that you were redundant as your place of work was closing, they offer the same job at the new location as a reasonable alternative
Either way, the outcome is the same, you do the extra travel and have burned some goodwill with you employer.

You could ask your employer whether they are willing to offer anything to ease the transition - some employers may offer something on a short term basis to help you adjust

Taiko

Thought as such. It's not a major issue for myself, but we have a couple staff reliant on public transport, and the new office itself has no bus routes, and the nearest rail station being around an hours walk. We are due to meet with HR at some stage, so wanted to confirm the position we'd be in, which sounds as if we should take any beneficial offer.

Thanks all!

London50

My partner had the same situation a number of years back {located less than 5 mins from home to 8/10 mile away}. The company agreed to a fuel allowance for car drivers and a yearly reducing upfront payment {4 years} for travel fare for staff using public transport.
It is just a case of asking and see what is on possible offer.