gglave

The other challenge is when all the other employers have the same travel policies.

I have friends in many different industries working for many different companies. They all fly Y, all the time, everywhere.

So it's not like most people can up and choose a to work for a different company, because that one would have the same policy.

chrisl137

ADA requires companies to make reasonable accommodation for disabilities both in employment and in serving customers.

Try being a retailer that isn't accessible and saying you're just going to fire the customers that need ramps or accessible restrooms. It leads to things like construction of ramps everywhere and addition of elevators where there were none.

If the employee meets all the other job requirements, then it's a matter of whether that's a reasonable accommodation or not. If the employee had a long and documented history of exemplary reviews, the company might be on shaky ground.

fassy

We are not talking about firing somebody based on his or her disabilities, like firing somebody after an accident where they lost one leg and now need some facilities for disabled people.

The highlighted sentence is the important one. Business travel is a high stress environment and if somebody produces a medical note saying they are not up to traveling under the given conditions, then it is very much reasonable to accommodate them some other way, e.g. give them an internal job which doesn't require travel, e.g. make the sales manager which always travels to the customers a inside sales manager managing the CRM, explore leads and build some account strategy.

Assuming your sales guy had a terrible accident (or like one of my former colleagues had MS) and now needs a wheel chair. Would you ask him to continue to travel around the world? Ordering WHCS, making sure there will be a limo service being able to move around disabled persons, book accessible hotel rooms etc, or offer him an internal position instead? My colleague was very happy that they offered him the inside sales position.

Second, as I pointed out, the employment contract says the company can reassign you to another position/duty if needed. Well, that goes both ways. It can be a step up, but it also means they could send you to a position you do not particular like based on business needs. Then it is just bad luck if sometime later the company will not need that position anymore but also has no vacant position free to re-accomondate.

And by the way, if things like these would go to court, I guess most companies would ask for independent review of the medical history and have a couple of second opinions. I doubt that the initial note basically saying 'my back hurts and economy gives me the creeps' will hold up.

Also, these kind of stories travel through a company pretty fast... and the career is over. PERIOD. Nobody likes people who pull off this kind of things. Nobody would willingly take them into their team. Who knows what such a guy would do next if there is something he doesn't like? Producing a note he can't sit in a open office with cubicles like every other foot solider in the company and need to high floor office with window to the river, the CEO can have his cubicle?

chrisl137

*You* are not talking about firing someone based on their disabilities. The post by invisible where I asked if it was in the US had the person fired a week later. That would be a big red flag for an ADA suit.

And FWIW, a few years ago I quit a sort-of-travel job abruptly because the travel sucked and there was not only no fallout, but things are better than ever. I was working off-site for a couple years with a daily commute that required a drive through downtown LA, and about a month/year of transcon travel. I got sick of the drive, gave them 2 months notice of the date I'd stop doing it (complete with a "go ahead and fire me") and then stopped on the appointed date, knowing that if I waited for a replacement they'd never bother finding one (I think they didn't really think I'd stop). It took another 3 months past that date to get a replacement willing to go, and it took a bunch of arm twisting at that. I continued with a little of the transcon part of the travel for a while, until they tried to impinge on my holidays one time too many. There was one manager a couple levels up who was peeved because he ended up doing the commute. He started to try to get me to keep doing the drive, but everybody else was afraid I'd quit and made him stop...

Working off-site I was basically invisible for a couple years and got standard raises, even though the project was very high profile and I had ended up accumulating a whole team at the off-site location. Back at my normal location visibility went up and raises went back up to well above average.

fassy

Ah well, true. But as said, as a smart company I would fight that medical note and try to prove the employee is trying to cheat on me.

A bit different story since you WANTED to stop traveling. There is nothing wrong with telling your boss or peers "look I really had enough of this, it is time for something different", be it doing the same job for years, traveling or not traveling or whatever. But it just plain wrong insisting to do a job which involves a lot of traveling and then trying to cheat the system by providing a poor medical excuse for premium cabin travel while the corporate policy is economy only. I meant, this behavior will travel (hrrhrr) fast and you will not be well liked anywhere in the company.

gooselee

Our policy is economy everywhere (but employees may upgrade on their own dime/miles/status/instruments/charm if they wish). Our contracts state that 75%+ travel is a requirement of the job, and that such travel must be in accordance with our travel policies.

This makes the amount and class of travel a requirement of the job, and we will attempt to amicably separate from people who cannot meet such a requirement. If they have a genuine disability constraint prior to accepting the job, we make it clear what the job requirements are before they are employed in that role, and many people either decide it's not the right fit, or very occasionally agree and understand they will need to pay for any upgrades/accommodations on their own. If they develop a disability constraint after they have been employed, our reasonable accommodation is generally moving them to another position which very likely pays far less, since we pay our travel-heavy roles at a premium. If none of those roles exist, we will not create one for them, but then they must decide whether they can/want to still meet the core requirements of the job. Often, they cannot - again unless they choose to leverage that part of our existing policy that allows them to pay for upgrades on their own.

"Reasonable accommodation" means exactly that - reasonable. It does not mean an employer has to change core elements of a position in order to accommodate an employee who could be as/more successful in another job.

We have been challenged on this a couple times and neither challenge was successful.

chrisl137

I think most companies will ask for a second opinion or do something like yours where a person is reassigned and gradually shuffled out. In a large company that's likely easier and lower risk than fighting it. One guy I worked with for a while is tall and his knees were starting to go so he asked about getting company-paid E+. They put a note in his file to put him in F for a year and re-evaluate. He's not anybody high up, but is a very high-skilled non-exempt.

I don't even mind traveling. It was driving through DTLA. I was nice about it after the first year and said I'd had enough, but the project was extremely high visibility (even if anything I was doing wasn't really) and so I put up with it until I hit my threshold. The two months fortunately included December holidays and a week of transcon (that turned out to be a "hurry up and wait to do nothing at all" on the other side of the country, saved only by a local sci fi con on the weekend at the end of it).

Yeah, I don't really disagree there. If there's a real medical reason the company should deal with it, but if it's just an attempt to sneak F, handling it the way yours did is fine. It's true that the difference in my case is that I was utterly unapologetic and owned it ("you want me to go? there are three helipads within 2 miles of my house and it's a 10 minute ride. If it's that important that you send *me*, fly me, otherwise here's a list of qualified people who should have been at the top of your list already. Don't disturb my nap again. And stay off the lawn.")

Being up front and unambiguous about everything goes a long way toward making that work.

onetess

We've just been issued a new travel policy which requires economy for anything less than 9 hours, then premium economy for anything more - unless no PE available and then we can go business. As I live on the east coast of the US, there aren't going to be too many flights anywhere in the US nor to Europe that are more than nine hours - and I'm dreading the overnight flights.

Interestingly, I work for a consulting company and our travel gets billed back to the client - so it used to be that we could follow the client's travel policy (not to say that it's any better). But now, we have to follow our own only. It did make me wonder, though, what other corporate travel policies are like. What are yours like?

(I fly a lot, but not enough on a particular airline to get the kind of status that would nail me a nice international upgrade.)

Mwenenzi

Are they making a difference from real premium economy [separate class] to economy plus or what ever various airlines call it?

onetess

@Mwenzi - yes, the policy actually says "those on flights that are 9 hours or more may travel premium economy, or if not available on the required flight, business class."

jrl767

FlyingHighlander

My company policy is Business is allowed for international flights over 6hrs. Premium economy isn't part of our policy. It's quite simply coach or business per above rule.

Allan38103

What another company does or does not allow regarding travel really has little bearing on what YOUR company does or does not allow. (Unless you are in a position to influence travel policy)

Many large companies have detailed policies that go through endless review at upper management level before being pushed down to the actual travelers on a "take it or leave it" basis. Then their policies are constantly being revised because users are always trying to find ways to beat the system. Another way would be to ask travelers what THEY would like to see in a company travel policy. Either way, you end up with a policy/guideline/regulation that works for your company. Different companies? Different policies.

ft101

Here's a few hundred posts over a few years discussing this.

Corporate Flight Policies for Employees Booking Business/First Class?

JamesKidd

Surely with this policy they cannot expect you to hit the ground running on either side after travel of 6+ hours ? does the policy allow for rest days ? With this kind of policy, I would not be flying overnight and would expect a rest day.