mysterym

should be factored into the business model / service offering

some times certain expertise is needed in a certain location and the client is willing to pay for that expertise to be on-site. some times man power is needed in a certain location.

i used to travel for business for a large firm.

i could travel during working hours and bill travel time to the client. fly out monday AM c. 7am back by 7pm thursday. client got billed for all travel time. some people would choose to fly out sunday night and they could not bill the client for that weekend travel and they typically would start work a few hours earlier than me on monday.

GetSetJetSet

Presumably because they want their employees to be rested and functional when they land.

jamesreid978

I would agree with this approach rather than asking if a J policy is in place. I once had a guy in an interview say he would only fly J if travel was required and he can across so bad by saying that, we immediately no longer wanted to hire him.Perhaps it was the way he asked it, but he came across super entitled and arrogant.

If this is a deal breaker for you, I suggest you look elsewhere for a job or comply with their system, nobody should be self-funding their own business trips, it's just not right. If you are travelling just once a month and "only" paying 500 GBP each trip to make it business class, then that's 6,000 a year. This 6,000 GBP is after tax also so you will likely have to have earned 12,000 GBP in order to self-fund travel for business purposes. Y is really not that bad and this is coming from someone who's previous policy was J/F for long haul for around 4 years, which meant enough Avios to fly J/F for personal travel at no extra expense for about 5 years. Once that dried up and I changed jobs which have a Y/W policy, and I don't have so much Avios anymore, I would never be spending any of my own money on a business trip to allow myself to sit in J. Over a few years the cost you might incur might be huge if you get into a place where you have to fly J.

The other issue here is in a situation where you and a customer end up on the same flight and you are in J and them in Y, good luck getting continuing work with that customer! An ex colleague of mine did this in F with the customer in J before (tweeted about it too) and right enough, the contract was lost.

Flexible preferences

So here you had a candidate who clearly set out his boundaries around company travel at the appropriate time - and he was seen as being 'super-entitled' and 'arrogant'. To be fair I don't know the way he said it, although I guess was there any way he could have let you know at interview that he would only fly J without it costing him the job? You say it yourself - it costs the company Ł12K a year extra.

It does seem a super-delicate area of negotiation (or non-negotiation!) for job candidates.

jamesreid978

It was the way it was mentioned it that made it a lot worse, as soon as the possibility of occasional travel was mentioned, we were interrupted with "Well I'll be flying in Business Class then" sort of response.

Flexible preferences

Interesting, and thanks for the extra information. If it was 'a lot worse' then that seems to imply having that requirement around his business travel was bad for this candidate anyway.

Another way of looking at this would be that maybe candidates like this express something that is unbearable for the company - a desire to be properly taken care of when travelling long distances on business. If a candidate voices that, they are rejected, as it goes against the defensive 'humility' of the corporate structure? However this could be so costly for the company who deprive themselves of candidates who have the confidence and motivation to voice their belief in their value.

Sheikh Yerbooty

Solution: Refrain from accepting flights longer than 3 hours.

If a company flogs staff off on long-hauls in cattle, they don't value the staff. Simple as.

Seraglio

Flexible preferences

I think it is worth considering how travel policies like this may gain their own gravity and become entrenched in a corporate structure. If an employer has had a Y only policy for years, then employees who have lived with that might feel a great resistance to new candidates that negotiate better terms. The 'good aggression' in being able to voice one's own wants becomes stifled, and instead comes out in sneaky ways to get around the policy. You end up with a surface culture of compliance and even celebration of the corporate prudence and egalitarianism, and hidden undercurrents of sneakiness, obstinacy and even resentment.

Wickersley

ba bob

Please can you let me know how to do that?

ba bob

It does help, thanks. I have been offered another job with another firm and selected the firm with the all Y policy as it was a better role. But in the negotiations with the job I did not take I did raise the travel policy and made it part of the negotiation, and got J for long haul. It's just for the firm I am at now (and moved internally) the all Y policy is a non-negotiable, everyone apart from the owner travels in Y under the policy (if they actually do or not remains to be seen!). The owner flys in one of his jets.

bisonrav

It doesn't cost a business Ł12k, as the comparison getting there required it to be paid out of taxed income, and a business isn't doing that. But anyway, if the business culture is Y, a candidate coming in has got to be pretty indispensable to demand J. There are definitely people here who fall into that category, but it's not the general case. I'm not one for hair shirted gestures, and very happy for people who do fit the category and get business class, I'm just not one of them, not many are.

Anyway, rationally, the difference between Y and J isn't vast in terms of improvement in effectiveness on arrival, I suspect there's a bit of ego in play about turning left. I'd rather have a rest day and be completely functional rather than come out of a hot noisy cabin having had fitful sleep on a not very comfortable bed into a detail meeting where I'm catatonic after a couple of hours. So if I look at my career objectives, flying in J isn't even on the list. Nice when it happens, but not a big deal.

I don't play against the system as a rule. As I mentioned, I request and get a rest day after non J long haul where I think I need it (typically India and the Far East, almost never to the US), usually on the way home, plus time in lieu for non-working days spent travelling. Beyond that I will look at a trip as if it were my own money, and I work with the bookers to find the best deal. That means I get reasonable latitude when choosing flights, because people don't start off thinking I'm trying to pull a fast one. Which of course allows me to pull the occasional fast one.

I made the point about meeting customers in a lower travel class in another thread too, it does happen, particularly on the way to exhibitions and so on, and certainly I've been in that position following a POUG last year when I was doing the GGL project. Not the most comfortable thing to happen.

ratechaser

SonTech

You could always say "If I can fly J I will take a pay cut...." ......