Company relocating - rights?

viktory

Evening all, hoping you can offer some advice on the following:

My husband's company has advised that they are relocating in approximately 6 months. The new location is about 25 miles away, in a fairly remote area, whereas his place of work at the moment is less than a mile away. Fortunately, we have a car and it is feasible for him to drive to the new place, but it'll cost an arm and leg in fuel and if every anything happens to the car it'll cost £150 a month in train fares (plus bus fares either end).

Having done some research I am aware that a company re-locating can mean redundancy for staff if the distance is too great. Question is, what sort of distance is considered too great? Has anyone had experience of this happening?

Hoping someone can help!

zowoods

My husbands company re-located and they helped find us a flat and paid the rent for 6 months, it was from central london down to Gatwick. This was just a gesture from the company and not written into their policy, but its down to the company to decide what is "reasonable". My boss has new job in turkey with same company and they are paying relocation for his stuff to be sent abroad and costs involved but this was negiotated as part of deal. You have 6 months til this happens and I think I would ask the company for some information on this?? In my opinion 25 miles is not that far so not sure would be financially viable for the company to make him redundant I know people that travel to work over that distance (working in central london kinda have to if live outside of london - I pay annually £1300 to travel into london and live 7miles!!) but I know that is by choice and your husband does not have a choice.
I would not worry at this stage until you can get some answers from the company as they may be flexible on terms such as increasing his salary once you know their position then start researching would be my advice...

viktory

We are not overly worried at the moment – however, it would be foolish to waste the months we have been given to either secure a satisfactory payrise or look for another job. Historically, Nov – Feb are hard times to be looking for work.

My question regarding redundancy is because I read somewhere that a company re-locating an unreasonable distance away would have to pay redundancy. However, there is no mention of how far an unreasonable distance is.

I accept that commuting 20 odd miles is not a lot, but some choice would have been nice! In all honesty, my husband would never have applied for a job so far away. He works very long hours, with very few breaks (7am – 5pm with only one 45 minute break) and so the extra travelling will have a huge impact on him, not to mention the additional costs in both fuel and running costs of the car.

Obviously, the company would not pay for him to relocate as it is not that far and anyway, we don’t want to.

mymatebob

I suppose it depends on the size of the workforce and how many people will be involved in the move/
Do they want to take all the staff with them or are they changing the size of the organisation?
Is there a Union and have their been consultations with the staff (whether or not there is a Union)
There may be staff for whom the new location is closer.
IMHO 25 miles may well not be considered excessive.

I worked with people who lived over 40 miles away.

I trust he is getting his break within the terms of the working time regulations.

SoozyJ22

Have you checked your husband's contract and staff handbook? I know mine defines certain distances below which I'm expected to relocate as standard, and then the levels of support they'd give and processes they'd follow for distances above that.

viktory

mymatebob wrote: »

I suppose it depends on the size of the workforce and how many people will be involved in the move/
Do they want to take all the staff with them or are they changing the size of the organisation?
Is there a Union and have their been consultations with the staff (whether or not there is a Union)
There may be staff for whom the new location is closer.
IMHO 25 miles may well not be considered excessive.

I worked with people who lived over 40 miles away.

I trust he is getting his break within the terms of the working time regulations.

The workforce is quite small and there is definitely talk of 'losing' certain members of staff (not my husband), although this is only among the staff - obviously the owners of the company have said no such thing! As far as the company are concerned, this changes nothing, even though there are some staff who do not have access to a car.

The company is quite small; there is no Union and there has been no staff consultation. There are no staff for whom the new location is closer - although it is closer for the owners!

Yes, his break does (just) fall within the Working Time Regs.

SoozyJ22 wrote: »

Have you checked your husband's contract and staff handbook? I know mine defines certain distances below which I'm expected to relocate as standard, and then the levels of support they'd give and processes they'd follow for distances above that.

Good point! I have checked his contract and it gives the location that he is to work at (the exact address) and also any other location that is within a 'reasonable' distance (there's that word again!). My husband will check for a handbook at his place of work. It is a small company though and so any level of support is highly unlikely. The best we can hope for is a pay rise.

We have decided that he is going to write & request a pay rise to (help) cover the additional fuel costs and travelling. Then negotiations can begin and at least if they refuse to meet us halfway we still have time for my husband to find another job. In the meantime, we will clear the small debt we have and will start saving - all planned but there is nothing like the merest hint of job insecurity to focus the mind!

Thanks for all your help.

eamon

Good employers will take the following into consideration.
Travel time .i.e. public transport versus private car. In real life situations, e.g. you may need to pass by numerous schools, traffic light controlled junctions etc it could take 2hrs one way if you have a bad route
Cost of either, for example current rising fuel cost means approx £40 per week if using a car. Thats a lot of money just to go to work. (I know that many people pay a lot more than this, but maybe they have huge salaries!)

Of course many employers will sudsidise this for a period of time. But as others have said you need more information from his employers.

yours

Eamon

Lakeuk

It depends on what the company terms as reasonable, my company relocated and at the time they considered reasonable as no more that 30mins travel time from the current office or no more that 30miles from current office.

It turned out the office they wanted to more us to was 60mile/1hr away, with this if anyone didn't want to relocate then they could take redundancy. Whose that did relocate got a mileage allowance on a sliding scale for 3yrs (inline with revenue guidelines to avoid tax), plus they got 3mths at the new location to decide if it's right for them and still be entitled to redundancy - some even negotiated better deals of 6months trial and other even managed to get redundancy and come back on high contractor rates.

I relocated to a small office 10mile and got a mileage allowance on a sliding scale for 3yrs - this is probable going to be the best you could negotiation

CFC

What is reasonable is a piece of string. Fundamentally a tribunal would be the body that needed to pronounce on it, eg if your husband left because he did not feel the distance was reasonable, but the company did, he would take them to a tribunal and the tribunal would decide.

I think that probably most people would believe 20 miles was reasonable, although not desirable. Certainly asking for a payrise is a good idea, and perhaps looking around for a new job too. The best thing is that the commute is possible, so your husband certainly won't be jobless.

Conor_3

Go by train anyway. 25 miles away is a 50 mile round trip which works out around £40 a week doing it by car so in his case, the train is about £50 a month cheaper.

whiteroom184

i appreciate why you and your husband are cheesed, but bear in mind the bigger picture. A business always does what it does for its own benefit and not for its employees. Be positive with this move and be greatful your husband still has a job in this economic climate. You will only be sucessful in a payrise request if your husband is truly valued or contributes financially to the business, else they will tell him to !!!!!! off, which will leave him bitter!
GET OVER IT OR GET ANOTHER JOB!