options for compensation for travel 1

[ProEpro]

Trying to guess how much travel there will be and adjust my salary expectations when looking at a new job is difficult. Is there anyone out there that is getting paid extra for traveling? If so how is it done? Is it overtime, perdeim or something else?

I am working in the US but welcome the interesting international perspective this board always gives.

ProEpro

http://www.whitelightdesign.com

 

[JedClampett]

You'll likely be compensated for your reasonable expenses and nothing else, unless you're traveling to a war zone. You'll get paid nothing extra for your trouble or inconvenience. Most places won't pay you for travel time beyond regular hours.

 

[KENAT]

Yeah, from my experience you're often lucky to even get 'time in lieu'.

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[tygerdawg]

Yep, what Jed said.
I haven't seen Per Diems for normal business travel in many years. Seems to have been phased out with the implementation of computerized travel accounting systems to eliminate the abuse. Generally I have seen "actual meal costs, up to a prescribed limit". And hotels & car rentals from "preferred" vendors (even when the hotel was inconvenient, but less expensive). Per Diems still paid by some places when you must go on extended time, though.

I haven't heard of this in a long while, but there was a time when some companies demanded you hand over your Frequent Flyer miles back to the company since those miles was "their property." But that made a lot of travelers angry & reluctant to travel, so maybe that policy was squelched.

Travel is expensive, so companies have implemented all types of policies to reduce the costs. As a result, I hate travelling now.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[IRstuff]

Our company decided that "policy" prevented compensation for travel on weekends, so they happily volunteer us to show up for Monday morning meetings cross-country, knowing that we'll be forced to travel on Sunday, and not get paid. Or, they'll volunteer us to go to meetings on Friday afternoons, forcing us to return on Saturdays; yay! another uncompensated travel day...

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[ceac]

I think it always depends on the market... but I would flat out refuse travelling on a Sunday or leaving on a trip with a booked return on a Saturday for free. However, with the way the job market is at some places, bosses do have plenty of people to choose from to fill your place which leaves you in a bad spot.

I think it is best to clarify from the beginning what is expected, and also the conditions of travel... will you accrue travel miles? If the travel is very frequent and not done in business class, will the company buy the miles or pay to give you a lounge access card (priority pass or something like that...)?
Will the travel be done in business?

Some companies also use travel time to define if an employee can fly business or not. If a trip is above 8 hours, you get business, if not monkey class... the thing with this is that they may not count total flying time. So a trip to Dubai from NY can be split in two flights under or just about 8 hours each... leaving you stuck in economy.

Last but not least, be sure to have everything described in your contract regarding travel (if it means that much to you) instead of "According to company travel policy.". You are in charge of your contract... you have no input on the company's policies and they can change at their will depending on the state of the market, etc...

 

[TheTick]

Business travel seems to be devolving into a form of ritual abuse.

 

[DRWeig]

Get to Omaha! (let's see who remembers that one)

Yes, don't bank on compensation for travel. If any happens to come your way, it'll feel like a bonus. In my current position, I don't have to travel unless it's for field investigation. We do meetings via Skype or WebEx.




Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[zdas04]

I've never really had a big problem with the Friday/Monday meeting game. I had a Monday meeting in London once and the travel office tried to book me leaving home on Sunday afternoon to get into London a couple of hours before the meeting, but refused to book a room for Sunday/Monday-morning (they expected me to travel in my business suit and schlep my bags to the meeting). I cried "foul" at the top of my lungs. When all the dust settled I went on Thursday and had a weekend of tourist stuff before the meeting, but it was a close thing.

My point is that it is your body. You have to decide what it is reasonable to subject it to. My tolerance has always been pretty high (something like 2 million lifetime miles), but at the end of the day the company wants you to be where they are sending you more than you want to be there. I've never heard of an engineer losing his job for demanding (respectfully) reasonable treatment.

I've never gotten comp time after a trip and don't have a problem with that. I have frequently arrived early/left late from the few nice places the Oil & Gas industry operates. If you think that an extra weekend in Auckland or Bucharest is a perq, then it is. If you think you need to be compensated for doing the travel then you need to find a non-travel job (I've heard they exist, they just never looked like fun to me).

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[spongebob007]

"Trying to guess how much travel there will be and adjust my salary expectations when looking at a new job is difficult"
It's not difficult. I frequently see ads on job boards that tell candidates approximately how much travel the job involves. If it's not listed in the ad, surely you can ask at the time of the interview. How you get compensated for travel is going to depend on a lot of different things. I have never had a job where I traveled more than 25% of the time excluding local travel. I have also never been an hourly employee. The only compensation I get for travel is for my actual travel related expenses. On the other hand, I know guys who are field service engineers and they are on travel the majority of their time. They get paid per-diem. At my company test technicians are hourly employees so they get paid for actual hours worked plus travel expenses. Again, all of the specifics of travel policy can be discussed at the job interview if it is a concern of yours.

 

[SectionIX]

Whatever travel time they tell you in the interview, it will be on the low side. Add 15% to 25% for a realistic number.

DRWIG: Amusing timing on the 'Get to Omaha' comment...I used it just yesterday during a chat with the regulator.

 

[ivymike]

I'm not usually compensated for travel, but once I had to spend 3 weeks continuously at a remote mine site, and asked my boss for some extra vacation days when I got back. He actually started the conversation, not me. I didn't get the vacation days, but they did give me a nice cash bonus instead (about 2 wks pay). I was pretty happy with that outcome. I didn't mind the time at the site either, but 17hr workdays (to keep up with the 14 hr days on site plus doing the important bits of my regular job in the evenings) left me pretty tired. I missed the kids, but it was really good to have a break from the (now ex) wife.

 

[Hoxton]

As an old friend of mine once said, it all went downhill when people stopped dressing up to fly in aircraft.

We once made a stand and refused to travel on anything else but the same terms as service engineers, paid overseas allowance while flying etc.

Problem is that most employers see this as an easily controllable cost.

Then they delegate it to some PA who never travels.

Worst I had was to be told I was flying from a remote airfield in southern England to Frankfurt-Hahn on a Sunday morning for a Monday afternoon meeting. When I said no, I was told that the ticket was booked. I flew Monday morning........Frankfurt-Hahn is nearer to Moscow than Frankfurt city!

Expect to be treated like cattle and you will not be disappointed.

We did take time off for weekends away at 1 day per weekend, as you cannot replace family time.

My advice is to get it all clear before taking he job on.

 

[GregLocock]

The official policy now for us is a 500 buck payment if we travel over a weekend. Most of our flights are 8-10 hours, plus 4 hours on the ground. So it isn't exactly the path to riches, but does at least kill the de facto assumption that weekend travel is the preferred option.

Well they claimed they wanted the engineers to unionise, now they've got what they wanted. Just wait until the engineers are in the majority at the bargaining table...

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[ceac]

I worked as Service Engineer for quite some time and one of the things I pushed constantly (without much luck) was the quality of travel. One cannot expect a person (and I'm not exactly small) to travel across the world (Europe to Singapore/Korea) and be ready to take on a big day of work just as they arrive.
The fact that you didn't sleep and jet lag make you a zombie for a few days when getting there.

Because these were massive projects, the customer didn't control how much we would do when arriving. I must admit I didn't do much on the first day or two due to tiredness and sleepiness.

They had their lesson when I arrived at a customer site in East Africa where their production plant was completely down and told them I was going straight to bed because I'd been flying economy and haven't slept for thirty hours. These guys completely snapped at the company and flat out refused to pay the extremely extortionate air fare (that would pay for a last minute flight plus administrative costs easily...) as they had proof I wasn't flying in the class they paid for.

It didn't turn out so bad for me on that trip as the company, to save face, said there had been a mix-up with the tickets and changed my return flight to business.

Still, even if you think your body can handle a high frequency of travel, it won't... and you will have to account for the psychological stress of air travel. Going through security, dealing with the noisy airports, very short layovers (where you have to sprint across the terminal), waiting lines, the people that carry half their house in the cabin and leave you without room for a small briefcase, etc, etc,...

 

[ornerynorsk]

No comp days or bonuses for weekend travel, but I do get to arrive a FULL day early and stay an extra after business is done for international locations. That together with my choice of hotel (within reason), eating and drinking well, I really can't gripe too badly. Been able to take some interesting side trips on those extra days. Generally only 4X per year, if it got to be a routine thing it wouldn't be as palatable. 20 years ago I was getting a per diem, in cash, so with a little frugality I could bank quite a bit of it.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[wroggent]

I work in the 'corporate office' where my duties are a blend of design, project management, and plant support. We have a policy that covers what is acceptable for the cost of hotel, car, flights, etc and we are compensated for those costs. No per diem, but the small engineering group does unofficially (not in policy) get 15 minutes of comp time for every hour worked over 8 per day. Engineering also does not really follow the travel policy so tightly since we have to travel frequently. Depending on the situation I will have to travel any day of the week at any time. I am finishing a project at one of the plants right now and have flown the last 10 weeks in a row. Monday will be the 11th time. I typically spend 16 to 18 hours per day at the plant 5 or 6 days a week; go home on the weekends unless it is super crunch time. Still paid like a new grad.

 

[GTstartup]

I'm a service engineer, US based, salary plus OT. I have never, ever, ever traveled for work (billable job) without getting paid my hourly rate. Sometimes, rarely, it is limited to 8 to 12 hours, but I have charged 24 hours when I've traveled 24 hours.

Don't sell yourself short, it's not that unusual to get paid for travel. If you traveled on a Monday 8 hours and payroll deducted those hours because you were not "working" how would you react?

 

[squeeky]

After reading this I'm in the cattle class / slave trade. I travel constantly and get a couple of days at home between trips. We work weekends and up to 18 hours a day. We are meant to get one day off for every weekend worked. I did this and got hacked off and started taking one for one at the end of last year. No one has said anything yet.

We get 2.5% of a days pay for working away to a maximum of 10 days per calendar month. After that???? sorry you lost.

We get up to US$10 per day for expenses but we are expected to produce slips and tally them up and put them on a spread sheets and define a category for them, then list costs in each catogroy. At my rate of pay this costs the company a fortune but they want it so I do it. I used to have a secrectary for that in my last job.

If we happen to get home early, say 15:00, the rest of the day is yours. If you get back late, up to 22:00 you are expected to be at work the next day. Up to midnight you can take an extra hour. 02:00 came in at 10:00. Then the written rules get loose from there on.

Where I go the TV is limited. Internet almost impossible (I'm in Dwangwa northern Malawi on a good night) and cell phone is intemitant.

We get our Security bill at home for armed response so our wives can feel safe (South Africa). We can bill meals while we travel and it is not part of the allowance. No Alcohol. Does not include free bees in the Frequent flier lounge.

We are expected to travel smart.

When we get to the airport we can travel for three to four hours to get to where we are going. An inter Mill transfer (which I will do on Monday) can take between 8 and 12 hours on some really interesting roads. (old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times")

So if any one has vacanies I can send my CV.

 

[sibeen]

I started as a service engineer in early '88. It was Australia, so even an intra country flight could be up to 5 or 6 hours. The company never expected me to travel on weekends. I would have to be at airports quite early on Monday mornings, but that wasn't a big deal.

When I was away I received a $70 per diem allowance, (probably about $150+ now days) and the company paid all hotel rooms, car rental, petrol etc. The $70 was to cover my food and drink expenses for the day, and if I could avoid the pub I could afford to eat. If I was away on a long job there was generally no use flying home on the weekends; even if I didn't work the per diem was still paid. I did spend an amazing amount of time away from home, but I was young, and the financial considerations weren't too bad, especially as the per diem was tax free.

After about 5 years I moved on, never intending to get back into a travel mode again. In 2000 I was dragged back into a traveling mode job, at a fair bit more senior level. This one included quite a bit of international travel, and I was on a plane at least 35 times a year. For this role there was no per diem. The company paid my expenses and that was it. I was rather amazed how the company treated their traveling employees. International travel - make sure you leave on a weekend. Intra country travel- here, we've booked you on the red eye.

So I made sure that I got a receipt for every purchase I made. If I bought an apple from a street vendor in Tokyo, I got a receipt; a pizza from a local shop in Bologna...a receipt. I'd come back with hundreds of receipts from each trip. Hand them in, and let the office staff sort it out. I eventually got "called in" to explain myself. I just put my foot down. Explained to the company if you wanted to treat me like a serf then dumb insolence was going to be my standard response.

As to the question about whether you'll get paid more for being a traveler, I doubt it. Just don't let the bastards treat you like crap and stand up for yourself.

Never let the bastards get you down