Company relocating office

Mistermeaner

Hi

My company is is in the process of looking for a new office for me and approx 30 other staff. We are currently in an office attached to a manufacturing site but the manufacturing site has closed and we need to vacate. 

There has been a 'consultation' of sorts where we were asked for our views on importance of things such as meeting rooms, amenities, free parking (which we currently enjoy), commute times etc. Never seen any results from this.

Not yet confirmed but current view is that we will be relocating about 15-20minutes drive west to an out of city office/retail park just outside a nearby city. 

For those who currently live west of the existing office this will be great as generally shorter commutes (this benefits about 70% of staff)

For me and others who live east or north of the site this will add an addition 15-20mins on commute each way.

In my case it currently takes me about 30-40mins (depending on traffic) to get to the office, so with the move i will be now looking at 45-60mins each way (up to 2 hours a day in the car)

My contract (and i presume others are same) contains no clauses about office moves or relocation - just something about 'occasional travel for business' (which i already do, approx 4-5 nights away per month)

What rights do each of the company and me have in a situation like this? The extra travel time would be a real pain for me, particularly as i often do school runs so am tied to particular times. I also don't want to waste any more of my day sat in a car. 

Should the company be offering additional compensation / shorter hours / flexibility etc. or anything else to compensate for the extra travel time?

Interested to hear peoples thoughts


Thanks

Ath_Wat

You have no rights whatsoever.  No compensation unless they choose to give it to you.

If they moved from London to Newcastle you may have a case for redundancy but a 15 minute move won't even come close to qualifying you for this.

If a job changes so you don't like it any more, just start looking for one you do like.

SiliconChip

Alternatively, move house so that your commute is shorter.

beckstar1975

Blimey - I live in London and my 12 mile commute takes me 1.5 hours on public transport each way.

15 mins extra on a commute you'd already deemed acceptable is nothing

Penguin_

15 minutes extra to myself in the morning sounds like heaven!

killerferret666

this happened to me, took an office from 30mins away to about 1hr 15mins

you have no rights effectively when we looked into it (although I guess things may have changed). they did the consultation like you, let us know of the couple of sites they were considering. we ended up doing car sharing to go in to keep costs down, the company did actually pay a relocation cost for the additional costs to get in, but I'm unsure if they had to based on the distance as it was a fair way or they did to keep us all happy.

We raised getting in for 9am with the traffic on this road made it not feasible, so our hours were changed to 8-4 which really helped.

Eventually I ended up working from home and that office got closed some 6 yrs later.

Undervalued

Mistermeaner said:

Hi

My company is is in the process of looking for a new office for me and approx 30 other staff. We are currently in an office attached to a manufacturing site but the manufacturing site has closed and we need to vacate. 

There has been a 'consultation' of sorts where we were asked for our views on importance of things such as meeting rooms, amenities, free parking (which we currently enjoy), commute times etc. Never seen any results from this.

Not yet confirmed but current view is that we will be relocating about 15-20minutes drive west to an out of city office/retail park just outside a nearby city. 

For those who currently live west of the existing office this will be great as generally shorter commutes (this benefits about 70% of staff)

For me and others who live east or north of the site this will add an addition 15-20mins on commute each way.

In my case it currently takes me about 30-40mins (depending on traffic) to get to the office, so with the move i will be now looking at 45-60mins each way (up to 2 hours a day in the car)

My contract (and i presume others are same) contains no clauses about office moves or relocation - just something about 'occasional travel for business' (which i already do, approx 4-5 nights away per month)

What rights do each of the company and me have in a situation like this? The extra travel time would be a real pain for me, particularly as i often do school runs so am tied to particular times. I also don't want to waste any more of my day sat in a car. 

Should the company be offering additional compensation / shorter hours / flexibility etc. or anything else to compensate for the extra travel time?

Interested to hear peoples thoughts


Thanks

Morally maybe! However the same morals would of course suggest that the 70% this move suits should either be paid less or work longer hours for free! That should go down well!!!

Legally you have no rights to "additional compensation / shorter hours / flexibility" at all in the circumstances you describe. If they had moved much further away you might have had some possible claim, however tribunals have upheld an additional hour's commute as reasonable in many circumstances.

The firm might of course be willing to offer some sort of compromise, some would. Or, if you are a highly valued employee that would be difficult to replace, you may have some leverage by implying that you are thinking of resigning. Play that card carefully if you decide to play it at all!

caprikid1

I think you can effectively force redundancy if you could prove the new location cannot work without any additional flexibility. It's a difficult argument but I believe it can be achieved. Not a lot of other options I am aware of.

School runs, elderly parents, cost of commute etc can all be used as leverage to achieve the above outcome.

Andy_L

https://www.gov.uk/employer-relocation-your-rights

"If an employer moves the location of their business, employees should check their employment contract for a ‘mobility clause’.

A mobility clause says employees have to move within certain limits. It means that employers can normally force their employees to move to places allowed by the clause, unless this is completely unreasonable...
Employees without a mobility clause in their contract can choose whether or not to move."

"Employers can make their employees redundant if they decide not to move.

Employees may have a right to redundancy pay if:...

• they haven’t ‘unreasonably’ refused an offer of suitable alternative work

‘Unreasonable’ could mean refusing to move even though the new location is nearby and the employee could drive or easily take public transport."

An extra 15-20 min is unlikely to be interpreted as not a suitable alternative 

Undervalued

Andy_L said:

https://www.gov.uk/employer-relocation-your-rights

"If an employer moves the location of their business, employees should check their employment contract for a ‘mobility clause’.

A mobility clause says employees have to move within certain limits. It means that employers can normally force their employees to move to places allowed by the clause, unless this is completely unreasonable...
Employees without a mobility clause in their contract can choose whether or not to move."

"Employers can make their employees redundant if they decide not to move.

Employees may have a right to redundancy pay if:...

• they haven’t ‘unreasonably’ refused an offer of suitable alternative work

‘Unreasonable’ could mean refusing to move even though the new location is nearby and the employee could drive or easily take public transport."

An extra 15-20 min is unlikely to be interpreted as not a suitable alternative 

That is obviously good practice but not an automatic "get out" if there isn't one. Unless the opposite was spelt out (i.e the place of work being very specifically limited to one location) it would be reasonable to assume that any business may choose (or may be forced) to move premises from time to time. We then come down to our old friend of what is reasonable.

Many years ago, for complex personal reasons, I had a part time contract with a large academic employer. I was able to get the normal mobility clause and the normal requirement to occasionally work away from home removed from my contract. Even then, had the place burnt down and they moved a mile across town, I very much doubt if I could have relied on the letter of the contract and refused to work. It wouldn't have been "reasonable"!

Undervalued

caprikid1 said:

I think you can effectively force redundancy if you could prove the new location cannot work without any additional flexibility. It's a difficult argument but I believe it can be achieved. Not a lot of other options I am aware of.

School runs, elderly parents, cost of commute etc can all be used as leverage to achieve the above outcome.

You can in some circumstances if it is excessive. However, based on precedents I'm aware of, I doubt if what the OP is describing is in that category.