Travel / Work time

graymic

Hi all,

I have a question that I'm having a hard time trying to work out from a legals point of view.
I have to potentially travel to a client on behalf of work for 2-3 days a week up north. As far as travel goes, this is never mentioned in my contract albeit the "you may have to work additional hours in order to fulfill your duties" part.

Work is asking that I travel up on a Sunday or super early on the Monday to be at the clients office for 10am. (London to Manchester). I've stated that the travel time alone is approximately 4 hours, both eating into my personal time (Sunday) and my return journey (Tuesday or Wednesday) and that I want this back in lieu.

The current debate is that they feel they can ask this of me. More-so, they are putting a cap on travel expenses of around £90 but have told me so last minute that all fares are circa £200 now...

Does anyone have any advise here, should I just be kicking up a stink / refusing to travel. Keep in mind my seniority is fairly high up in the group, but the person managing all this doesn't seem to know what they are doing...

Savvy_Sue

Do you have any precedents for this - do other people have to travel to visit clients and if so what arrangements have been made for them?

I don't think what you are asking for is unreasonable, but if 'everyone else does it' (ie does not take time back in lieu of travel and claims very limited expenses) then it may be a struggle to establish that.

gettingready

Expenses - ask them to book you a ticket for when you have to travel so this expense falls on them not you to have to haggle over the cost later.

What is your normal daily commute to your usual place of work? How much extra would travelling to client's site be?

andygb

I think that if that was to become a regular part of the job, then I would be looking around for another one.
They do not seem like a very good employer if they are putting a cap on fares over that distance.

graymic

So typically everyone else who travels to client sites goes for a longer period of time but within working hours. i.e. they are allowed to arrive late on the first day of the client site, therefor they are travelling within usual working hours. Likewise when heading back down to London they would leave the day at 12:00 pm and go back to the office in London.

The issue I take is travelling largely outside of normal working hours (9-5:30) meaning I'm travelling an additional 4 hours each way than I would usually be travelling, whereas everyone else is leaving their homes at 8 arriving on the client site around midday.

I'm effectively having to leave for the client site at 4am to get to the client site for 9am on the dot. This is because I'm only on site for 2 days on average (and cost a lot more to consult), the client wants more of my face-time (Which is a fair assessment from their PoV) but obviously inconveniences me massively.

I have outright refused to spend any longer than 2/3 days in future, namely because my contract states nothing about travelling and one of my conditions was worklife balance upon joining stating that I did not wish to travel for work.

I have stated that even flights at this point are cheaper than taking the train as its so late in the day (We have a lot of airmiles accrued) but they are unwilling to send me via flight (which would take travel time down to an hour).

ThemeOne

Trains from mid afternoon on Sunday onwards seem full of business people travelling in readiness for work the next day, so it seems fairly normal - I've done it myself on many occasions.

Your employer's last-minute cap on fares does seem unfair though. I would just put in expenses in the normal way and argue about it later if need be.

PasturesNew

I've often/usually travelled outside of office hours to be on site, for no extra pay.

e.g. worked 9am-6pm in the office before loading up my car with equipment and driving 400 miles, arriving circa midnight. In reverse I'd do a full day at the client site then drive 400 miles home.

Another job meant leaving home at 4.30am to catch the first train to London, arriving at 10am by train. Then leaving the office and catching the last train home leaving at about 4.30pm and arriving home at 11pm.

I've often travelled on a Sunday afternoon/evening, to be on site first thing on Monday mornings, etc.

Generally, if you're doing this and any additional salary doesn't give you any personal financial value to doing it, then you need to leave and find a job more suited to what you had in mind.

Many jobs/travel are misrepresented at interview.... the lying b4st4rds.

As for expenses/costs, if you cannot afford to do the travel that shouldn't be your problem - that's the employer's problem to provide the means to cover your essential travel/expenses. It might be, say, that there are other (longer/awkward) ways of travelling and they'd expect you to take a 4-hour train ride with 2 changes rather than a 1 hour plane journey.

Maybe you need to have the conversation yourself face-to-face, citing examples of where the policy doesn't work. Maybe you've misunderstood what they will pay/when/why and what they won't. Get an agreement with the boss who signs off expenses as to how to proceed when this happens to you - they might have solutions you hadn't even thought of. Maybe they've no idea how much stuff costs as they don't book their travel and/or just stick it on a card so they're clueless.

Wealthier people have no idea that poorer people can't just do the things they do, how they do it. They think everybody has what they have, money/cards/a cash float and disposable income. Many workers would struggle to come up with £50 to travel to/from a work event and have to wait up to 2 months to have it repaid.

sangie595

Whilst I have a lot of sympathy with your position, the law does not generally dictate such matters, and I believe that I am correct in saying that this is a new job? So you need to be cautious that what you want does not get in the way of your continued employment. If you don't find this travel acceptable, then I would suggest that starting to look for another job immediately would be the most sensible approach. Unless they actually have you a commitment that you would not be required to travel for work, then what you stated at the point of joining is irrelevant; and since traveling to clients is part of the job, there is no requirement for it to be in the contract.

Your previous posting history suggests that the travel time would not take you below the living wage, so your only option is to refuse. At which point, unless you are rare and exceptional, you would probably be dismissed. That is a card to play only if you are prepared to lose your job over the issue. If that is the case then the employer may back down. But you can't bet on it.

cmthephoenix

Where is your normal work office based?


Assuming the 10am start time you said in your first post then 3.5 hours getting from your house (leaving at 4) to London for 7:30 (in time for central Manchester at 10am) is quite a fair old commute in itself.


I do a lot of South-North travelling by train. 12 hours both ways in a day wouldn't be uncommon for me. However I would then balance that out with working less on other days of the week.


Absolutely work must pay your travel expenses for the time they are expecting you to travel at.

graymic

Well technically my contract does state a fixed amount of hours and overtime is paid for. The issue at hand is they are not considering the commute to a non-fixed-place of work as working hours.

This is what it boils down to. My fixed place of work is in London. I even gave noticed of cancelling the opt-out clause in my contract the first week of employment which was accepted.

At the moment I'm trying to get them to answer if travelling is technically "part of my job", if they admit it is so. Then I'll be using the "time taken travelling to clients – when this is a regular part of your job" as a means to justify it being working hours otherwise I'll be refusing on grounds it's not within my job requirements - unless an amicable agreement can be met.

As far as losing the job goes, I'm easily prepared to quit over this as my personal time means a lot to me. Obviously I don't want it to come to that because for most part I have a serious amount of control on process in other parts of the business being one of two most senior management staff in the engineering dept.

Also to highlight some answers to a few other questions raised, my usual working hours are around 9-5:30, however the 10 am start was for the client up north but I agree it's a ridiculously odd commute. I've also been digging around with my equivalent level peers from the other teams and they have had their time in lieu back - so I suspect out "team client relationships manager" just hasn't got a clue on what's going on.

SandC

Last minute train journeys London/Manchester are extortionate and I would definitely get some examples of fares to show them that the £90 will in no way cover it. Furthermore you won't be able to get train travel on the Monday morning, you would have no alternative but to travel on the Sunday. They then have accommodation costs to consider on top of that.

Driving would be cheaper but, again, would have to be done on the Sunday as it's not feasible to drive all the way to Manchester and then do a day's work. Also, not advisable to do it the other way around for the return either.

It's normal in my place of work for anyone who has to travel to clients to do so outside of work hours, not necessarily all the time but generally that's how it works. However, I would say that this is reflected in their salary and job description. I imagine this would be seen as a reasonable ask if your job is not specifically office based with no mention of going off site to client premises.

If it were me I would try to negotiate a payrise to cover it - that in itself may prompt them to agree to time off in lieu instead as they are either a bit tight or genuinely ignorant of the cost of commutes such as this.

Either way you need a discussion sooner rather than later.

*Edit to say cross posted with you, good luck OP.