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Commuting costs vs others in team staying at home

LegacyUser

Hi,

I work in a small dept in a large company. My team consists of 11 full timers and a few contractors.

When Covid arrived we were all told to work from home from March, which was fine. I was told to come back early June full time which I did without a problem. Three other full timers are working with me in the office full time, coming into the office every day. These three have company cars/vans and fuel cards, so their commuting costs are covered. There are others in the greater team that are full time employees that only come in maybe once a week or once every two weeks, some have not come in at all since March. They all have private vehicles like myself.

My issue is, I'm the only full time employee with a private car that commutes in every day. Due to my position I'm required to be in the office every day. I have never been offered a company vehicle as its not really needed. I pay between €200 and €250 on fuel every month since coming back in June. Under normal circumstances our entire team would commute into work every day and I would not have a problem with my commuting costs as its just part of going to work, never had an issue as we were all on the same level playing ground.

But now, I feel like I'm taking a pay cut by coming into work, when the others in my team that are working from home effectively are getting a pay rise by not commuting.

Would I be an idiot to say something to my manager? Would it seem petty? I am just commuting to work, its expected of me, but the fact that I'm the ONLY full timer paying commuting costs, I AM down €200/€250 in comparison to others in the team that are working from home. It seems unfair.

I dont want to rock the boat but again I cant shake this feeling

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Jim2007

bucketybuck wrote: »

Well, they kinda have changed.

Nope the have not. The employee has not been give a new contract nor notified of changes to the terms of employment in another way.

It really does not matter what you think or feel, it is just a question of fact in law.

He main whine to his manager if he wants, but I doubt very much there will be much motivation for the company to change anything.

bucketybuck

Jim2007 wrote: »

Nope the have not. The employee has not been give a new contract nor notified of changes to the terms of employment in another way.

It really does not matter what you think or feel, it is just a question of fact in law.

He main whine to his manager if he wants, but I doubt very much there will be much motivation for the company to change anything.

If anal pedantry is your thing then you said his circumstances have not changed, when in fact they have. His market conditions have changed and he is better to recognise that. I never said his contract had changed.

Your comment about whining to the manager is also baseless, you have zero idea of how the company views him and how they would react to that conversation, regardless of what you may think or feel.

JustAThought

OP - there are half a million unemployed and another half a million drawing the covid unemployed payment. How great will your regret and jealousy of those working be if you present your argument to your boss and they find you replacable at half the price (restructured out) .
Try and see if you can organise your workload or tasks to WFH one day and if not keep your silence. Colleague comparison and jealousy are not great negotiating tools and what will you do if your manager takes against you as many have here? You are currently the office martyr/saint - why ruin wht you achieved to become the office churlish bad guy?

You have also not had to take a cut in pay or in hours. Lucky you.

dubrov

I am amazed by the number of people on Boards with the opinion that you should work as hard as you can, keep your head down and never complain to your employer.

Looking around my friends, those types of people tend to be in the more stressful, poorly paid jobs.

Getting to the top with hard work is a myth. Respect and relationships are much more important

[Deleted User]

JustAThought wrote: »

OP - there are half a million unemployed and another half a million drawing the covid unemployed payment. How great will your regret and jealousy of those working be if you present your argument to your boss and they find you replacable at half the price (restructured out) .
Try and see if you can organise your workload or tasks to WFH one day and if not keep your silence. Colleague comparison and jealousy are not great negotiating tools and what will you do if your manager takes against you as many have here? You are currently the office martyr/saint - why ruin wht you achieved to become the office churlish bad guy?

You have also not had to take a cut in pay or in hours. Lucky you.

Interesting segment on The Last Word today with two consumer/employment experts, I missed the start of it so didn’t catch their names. They both agreed that those wfh are at a greater risk of losing their jobs as they are out of site and therefore often out of mind. The temptation for employers will be to rely more on those they can see and less of those they can’t so when it comes to cost cutting, the wfh are more vulnerable and more likely to have jobs merged or automated. Their synopsis was, the wfh’s have more to fear than the ones who are in the office and can be seen by management.

https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/the-last-word-with-matt-cooper/workers-likely-made-redundant-theyre-not-seen-office

[Deleted User]

dubrov wrote: »

I am amazed by the number of people on Boards with the opinion that you should work as hard as you can, keep your head down and never complain to your employer.

Looking around my friends, those types of people tend to be in the more stressful, poorly paid jobs.

Getting to the top with hard work is a myth. Respect and relationships are much more important

The general consensus here always seems to be:

The company is always right and shall never be questioned. Whatever job you’re in you’re lucky to have it.

[Deleted User]

JustAThought wrote: »

OP - there are half a million unemployed and another half a million drawing the covid unemployed payment. How great will your regret and jealousy of those working be if you present your argument to your boss and they find you replacable at half the price (restructured out) .
Try and see if you can organise your workload or tasks to WFH one day and if not keep your silence. Colleague comparison and jealousy are not great negotiating tools and what will you do if your manager takes against you as many have here? You are currently the office martyr/saint - why ruin wht you achieved to become the office churlish bad guy?

You have also not had to take a cut in pay or in hours. Lucky you.

If they’re doing all the work then I should hope they’re not taking a pay cut. Why are they lucky?

[Deleted User]

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

The general consensus here always seems to be:

The company is always right and shall never be questioned. Whatever job you’re in you’re lucky to have it.

To be fair, that is not what is happening on this thread. The op feels he is somehow losing out by commuting to work as normal. And now when unemployment is high and companies tighten their belt in the coming months, I don’t think whining like this will endear the op to their boss. There are certainly battles to fight, knowing which ones is important.

[Deleted User]

Dav010 wrote: »

To be fair, that is not what is happening on this thread. The op feels he is somehow losing out by commuting to work as normal. And now when unemployment is high and companies tighten their belt in the coming months, I don’t think whining like this will endear the op to their boss. There are certainly battles to fight, knowing which ones is important.

Depends on the boss. None of us know what they’re like.

dubrov

Dav010 wrote: »

To be fair, that is not what is happening on this thread. The op feels he is somehow losing out by commuting to work as normal. And now when unemployment is high and companies tighten their belt in the coming months, I don’t think whining like this will endear the op to their boss. There are certainly battles to fight, knowing which ones is important.

Not all companies are tightening their belts.
Asking for something is not whining although I would agree that asking for something repeatedly would be.

In this life, you don't ask, you don't get

[Deleted User]

dubrov wrote: »

Not all companies are tightening their belts.
Asking for something is not whining although I would agree that asking for something repeatedly would be.

In this life, you don't ask, you don't get

It’s worth listening to that podcast I linked above dubrov, the time when most companies will really feel it is when the Covid payments stop, it is easier for companies to cut costs than it is to add additional income so the temptation will be there to reduce workforce. Not all are tightening their belts now, but the next 6-9mths may be challenging for a lot of businesses. That is why I’d say, pick your battles.

HerrKuehn

It probably wouldn't hurt to ask if there is something they can do given you are coming into the office. I guess it depends on the leverage you have in the company. However, 200-250 a month in fuel costs is huge. You must be driving from gorey to dublin or something. Your long commute wouldn't be the fault of the company.

devnull

This is an interesting topic, I have a similar situation ongoing at my workplace.

In the second half of March many of the staff at my employer were told not to report for work and we are not working and are on full pay until we heard otherwise so that is exactly what we did. Meanwhile a group of colleagues in different positions have worked throughout the pandemic at home and have not had any leave.

In May some of us were called back to start working again because the staff who were actually working needed some more hands on deck and needed certain people back with certain knowledge. We've been working ever since from home and expected to continue to do so until at least the end of July, along with the staff who were always working.

In the last week, those who cannot work from home and office administrators who need to be physically present for access to physical documents, scanning, post etc, have come back to work in the office having effectively been off for three and a half months on full pay without working an hour and have been screaming absolute blue murder about so called unfairness.

These people who have been off for 3.5 months on full pay, have now said that they are being treated unfairly as they are expected to come back to work and other staff are not. This is despite the fact that such staff they are complaining about have not had the luxury of 3.5 months off and have been working over that time.

There's also another ridiculous debate about if when the people who have been working from home for months return to the office, they should have to hand back their newer IT equipment because it would not be fair if these people kept newer laptops when other people who have been off did not get new ones also.

What I have found is that some people just don't seem to realise the extraordinary times that we are in. They are raising complaints and issues about stuff like this where many people have had reduced pay, face uncertain job futures or indeed have lost their job altogether and instead they are too busy focusing on having their cake and eating it when it's really time to knuckle down and make yourself an asset because the chances are that employers may be looking to cut further staff and being seen as a troublemaker now isn't going to help your job security and finding a new job isn't going to be easy.

The Spider

Dav010 wrote: »

Interesting segment on The Last Word today with two consumer/employment experts, I missed the start of it so didn’t catch their names. They both agreed that those wfh are at a greater risk of losing their jobs as they are out of site and therefore often out of mind. The temptation for employers will be to rely more on those they can see and less of those they can’t so when it comes to cost cutting, the wfh are more vulnerable and more likely to have jobs merged or automated. Their synopsis was, the wfh’s have more to fear than the ones who are in the office and can be seen by management.

https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/the-last-word-with-matt-cooper/workers-likely-made-redundant-theyre-not-seen-office

Of course this depends on what you do, people who have skill sets that are in demand would probably be happy enough to take a bag of cash and go work somewhere else, all this talk of being fired and replaced by someone cheaper is absolute nonsense, it’s illegal to do that.

Any employer deciding to take advantage and cu5 some staff would wan5 to be very careful, court cases will stack up. If you make someone redundant that means their position no longer exists, so good luck with making asotware engineer redundant and then hiring a cheaper one, you won’t have a leg to stand on

The Spider

Dav010 wrote: »

To be fair, that is not what is happening on this thread. The op feels he is somehow losing out by commuting to work as normal. And now when unemployment is high and companies tighten their belt in the coming months, I don’t think whining like this will endear the op to their boss. There are certainly battles to fight, knowing which ones is important.

Again this depends on what you do, people with skill sets can either freelance, work in a company or for themselves, in which case what’s the probl3m with telling the boss what you want? If you’ve been in the company longer than a year he can’t fire you without putting you on a pip, monitoring performance, giving warnings and having some solid evidence, otherwise you can5 be fired.

devnull

The Spider wrote: »

All this talk of being fired and replaced by someone cheaper is absolute nonsense, it’s illegal to do that.

Any employer deciding to take advantage and cu5 some staff would wan5 to be very careful, court cases will stack up. If you make someone redundant that means their position no longer exists, so good luck with making asotware engineer redundant and then hiring a cheaper one, you won’t have a leg to stand on

That's very naive.

The redundancy laws do state that if someone is laid off then they cannot be replaced with a new hire doing the same role as the job does not exist. That is very true and I am not going to argue with that. But think logically about the wording I have just used and the way around it will become obvious.

The common way of getting around such redundancy regulations which can and does happen, is by creating a new job title with a different job spec, with some of the duties of the old job, often deliberately worded in a different way or in more vague terms, along with other duties that were not in the other job spec that are hardly ever required to fatten it out and make it look different.

Then there are the people who have been given settlement agreements who are processed as a redundancy to avail of tax breaks for both the company and the employee to get the settlement over the line, only for their replacement to be hired with a slightly different job title or remit so it looks like a different job.

Also with many redundancies, even those with consultation periods, the people who are being let go are known right at the start before the consultation even starts and the whole process may be designed to ensure that happens by doing such things as laying off three positions, creating two new ones in a revised structure and then setting the requirements for those two positions as such that the two people they want to keep have an advantage over the one who they would like to get rid of.

I'm not saying it is right and ethically it is wrong, but there is a dark side of HR and if you are clever enough, a restructuring of a company is an ideal time to get rid of staff that you otherwise might not be able to. There are so many different tactics that can be used and are frequently up and down the country by HR Departments.

afatbollix

I can only tell you what my company has done.

We were all told to work from home which we all have but myself and some of the team have had to go to the office to check equipment and what not for the other teams.

HR said not to take public transport and to claim milage.

They did a risk assement about going back to the office and pulic transport was a risk so told us to drive in.

devnull

The Spider wrote: »

Again this depends on what you do, people with skill sets can either freelance, work in a company or for themselves, in which case what’s the probl3m with telling the boss what you want? If you’ve been in the company longer than a year he can’t fire you without putting you on a pip, monitoring performance, giving warnings and having some solid evidence, otherwise you can5 be fired.

I would try and avoid getting on a PIP if you possibly can, although sometimes it is not possible if a manager is determined to put you on one. You would be amazed at how many people are actually put on PIPs for a reason that is actually completely different to what the PIP says, since a PIP is a useful tool for a company to create evidence to defend itself against any legal or grievance claims that an employee may make against them later on.

I once had a boss who was supposed to random quality check peoples work every month and what he would do for the people he liked who did poor quality work more often than not, was go through all of their work and if he found a bad piece of work, exclude it from the quality audit and ensure that the rare good pieces of work were picked. For the people he didn't like he would review every piece of their work until he found a less than perfect one and pick this for a random check. This would be done over the course of a few months and then the people he didn't like would be put on PIPs.

The people who were then put on PIPs would then be expected to deliver almost perfect work every month in every element to pass their PIP, whilst the rest of their team would continue to churn out rubbish with the manager continuing to state the quality audit for everyone else, is the luck of the draw, when the draw was rigged. When the people didn't achieve perfect work, they would fail their PIP and it would be written that they didn't meet their targets. This then creates a strong case for a warning and you see where I'm going.

Jim Root

Do not persue this....

The Spider

devnull wrote: »

That's very naive.

The redundancy laws do state that if someone is laid off then they cannot be replaced with a new hire doing the same role as the job does not exist. That is very true and I am not going to argue with that. But think logically about the wording I have just used and the way around it will become obvious.

The common way of getting around such redundancy regulations which can and does happen, is by creating a new job title with a different job spec, with some of the duties of the old job, often deliberately worded in a different way or in more vague terms, along with other duties that were not in the other job spec that are hardly ever required to fatten it out and make it look different.

Then there are the people who have been given settlement agreements who are processed as a redundancy to avail of tax breaks for both the company and the employee to get the settlement over the line, only for their replacement to be hired with a slightly different job title or remit so it looks like a different job.

Also with many redundancies, even those with consultation periods, the people who are being let go are known right at the start before the consultation even starts and the whole process may be designed to ensure that happens by doing such things as laying off three positions, creating two new ones in a revised structure and then setting the requirements for those two positions as such that the two people they want to keep have an advantage over the one who they would like to get rid of.

I'm not saying it is right and ethically it is wrong, but there is a dark side of HR and if you are clever enough, a restructuring of a company is an ideal time to get rid of staff that you otherwise might not be able to. There are so many different tactics that can be used and are frequently up and down the country by HR Departments.

Nope been through this (redundancy) twice at this stage in IT, I've also seen attempts to remove people by putting them on special projects and then cancelling the project etc, it never works, in most cases the company has to pay above and beyond what it would do in a normal redundancy, and more often than not needs the employee to sign a form saying they won't sue when they get the bag of cash, and in turn the company will only ever say nice things about the former employee.

Its extremely difficult to get rid of anyone who's been in an organisation longer than a year, I managed managers who managed teams and I can tell you its almost Impossible.

However what you can do and this is extremely common, is take someone to one side, say you want to go in a different direction and write a check thats really the only way out, apart from taking away responsibilities and hoping they leave, you can't demote them thats illegal.

Conversely this is where you're kinda screwed if you've been with the same company for six plus years, you need them for the reference, so you have to play ball, a year or two you're not so reliant on the reference so you can be much more of an asshole about it.

Of course the advice I would give to anyone facing this is get a solicitor ASAP, I've seen c level people all the way down to software testers get made redundant. C level and one level below always get their lawyers involved and make out like bandits, lower level employees dont and tend to take what they're given, iftgeygot legal involved they would walk away with much better deals for themselves.

bucketybuck

The Spider wrote: »

it never works, in most cases the company has to pay above and beyond what it would do

Narrator: It does work.

The saying "Never waste a good recession" didn't spring up for no reason, the concept of managing somebody out of the business through creative HR practices is a tale as old as time.

Sure, companies will frequently do a deal with the employee just to get it done, been there done that, but there is nothing unique about changing roles, reassigning tasks, moving locations, inventing new job titles, all those little facets of the redundancy game.

I had a lad once, a toxic employee in every way but thought he was smart. I would have gotten him through the disciplinary process sooner rather than later anyway, but to speed things up I promoted him to a new role developed just for his skillset, gave him a little bump in wages and negotiated a good bonus structure. Even got a good handover period out of him.

Yeah, that role doesn't exist anymore. Smart lad alright, didn't even know what game he was playing.

Jim Root

bucketybuck wrote: »

Narrator: It does work.

The saying "Never waste a good recession" didn't spring up for no reason, the concept of managing somebody out of the business through creative HR practices is a tale as old as time.

Sure, companies will frequently do a deal with the employee just to get it done, been there done that, but there is nothing unique about changing roles, reassigning tasks, moving locations, inventing new job titles, all those little facets of the redundancy game.

I had a lad once, a toxic employee in every way but thought he was smart. I would have gotten him through the disciplinary process sooner rather than later anyway, but to speed things up I promoted him to a new role developed just for his skillset, gave him a little bump in wages and negotiated a good bonus structure. Even got a good handover period out of him.

Yeah, that role doesn't exist anymore. Smart lad alright, didn't even know what game he was playing.

Of course it works.

I guarantee you there is a couple of lists knocking around most struggling companies at the moment; the “awkward” employees being on the “redundancy” list. There’s loads of ways to make it happen legally.

lawred2

JayZeus wrote: »

You’d have some cheek to expect to be compensated in some way for travelling the same way to the same job for the same salary as before COVID-19 emerged.

It would be a poor decision to take that argument to a manager. Now is not the time to be holding out your hand looking for more for doing the same. Your sense of entitlement is ridiculous.

Jaysus... Relax will you. The OP is feeling a little hard done by. No need to be so rude.

The Spider

bucketybuck wrote: »

Narrator: It does work.

The saying "Never waste a good recession" didn't spring up for no reason, the concept of managing somebody out of the business through creative HR practices is a tale as old as time.

Sure, companies will frequently do a deal with the employee just to get it done, been there done that, but there is nothing unique about changing roles, reassigning tasks, moving locations, inventing new job titles, all those little facets of the redundancy game.

I had a lad once, a toxic employee in every way but thought he was smart. I would have gotten him through the disciplinary process sooner rather than later anyway, but to speed things up I promoted him to a new role developed just for his skillset, gave him a little bump in wages and negotiated a good bonus structure. Even got a good handover period out of him.

Yeah, that role doesn't exist anymore. Smart lad alright, didn't even know what game he was playing.

Did he see a solicitor, if not he wasn’t that smart, I’ve seen t happen been around it by proxy, our department head at the time when wanting to get rid of one individual, said let’s let him know the door is open, made life difficult for him he still didn’t go, so they did similar to what you describe promoted him into a position they wouldn’t need, then three months later decided to tell him the position was redundant.

What did he do? He got his solicitor is what he did, he still went but he went with 150k in his pocket. Same happened with multiple people for multiple reasons, there were those that went quietly but vast majority engaged legal advice.

The only people who walk away from a situation like that without seeing a solicitor are people who don’t know their rights, and who don5 get a solicitor to look over a new contract their presented with in line with their new position, which is what everyone should do, so they’re aware of any pitfalls or clauses in the new contract, it’s just common sense.

Oh and always go through your email history and select emails that may incrimnate other individuals of absolutely anything and keep them, always have ammunition you’d be surprised what people send in emails.

[Deleted User]

The Spider wrote: »

Did he see a solicitor, if not he wasn’t that smart, I’ve seen t happen been around it by proxy, our department head at the time when wanting to get rid of one individual, said let’s let him know the door is open, made life difficult for him he still didn’t go, so they did similar to what you describe promoted him into a position they wouldn’t need, then three months later decided to tell him the position was redundant.

What did he do? He got his solicitor is what he did, he still went but he went with 150k in his pocket. Same happened with multiple people for multiple reasons, there were those that went quietly but vast majority engaged legal advice.

The only people who walk away from a situation like that without seeing a solicitor are people who don’t know their rights, and who don5 get a solicitor to look over a new contract their presented with in line with their new position, which is what everyone should do, so they’re aware of any pitfalls or clauses in the new contract, it’s just common sense.

Oh and always go through your email history and select emails that may incrimnate other individuals of absolutely anything and keep them, always have ammunition you’d be surprised what people send in emails.

Was the person let go in a management/well paid position?

The Spider

Jim Root wrote: »

Of course it works.

I guarantee you there is a couple of lists knocking around most struggling companies at the moment; the “awkward” employees being on the “redundancy” list. There’s loads of ways to make it happen legally.

Redundancy means the role is gone not the individual, so you can’t make a software engineer redundant and then hire a software engineer. Also big difference between individual and collective redundancies, company is protected more in collective redundancies.

Usual way is a pay off discussed in a protected conversation, and usually substantially more than redundancy would have delivered, I remember a company I was in wanted to get rid of one individual this way, until they hauled out some dodgy emails from their boss which if it went to court, the company would have lost big time, needless to say they had to pay a lot more than they bargained for, and find the individual a job in another company.

The Spider

Dav010 wrote: »

Was the person let go in a management/well paid position?

Well more team lead than management, and would’ve been paid decently enough, his solicitor found enough loopholes to drag the company through the courts, like I say even if you get on with everyone and like your boss you should still see a solicitor, you’d do it if you were buying a house, or anything else, Im constantly surprised when people don’t, and it is literally going to stop them being able to provide for their family etc, any new contract the company asks you to sign should be looked over by your solicitor, and where possible get him to deal with it.

bucketybuck

Ah yes, the solicitor, the magic man that always wins, 2nd only to Joe Duffy in making companies tremble.

Do you really think businesses don't have their own solicitors? That they can't make sure every i is dotted and t is crossed, that every procedure and regulation is followed to the letter?

You began by saying that "Nope", "getting rid of people was "almost impossible", "extremely difficult", "won't have a leg to stand on".

Now you may talk about companies that do it wrong, that **** up and leave the employee with a very strong case, of course they exist. But the suggestion that companies cannot effectively manage people out the door is demonstrably untrue, it is happening quietly and constantly all of the time.

screamer

I think the sense of entitlement amongst some employees is unbelievable. I’ve also had someone moan about the 25 euro they spend on petrol being a waste of money when/ if we return to the office. Getting to and from work is not your employers problem, you chose where you live, you chose to work where you do, it’s your choice and your duty to get to the office if you’re needed. I certainly find this sense of entitlement stronger among the younger crowd, although some of the crusties are equally demanding but it’s more awkwardness in their part. With uncertain times ahead I’m very glad to have my job and have been able to work from home. I’ll go back to the office when my employer requests and I’ll be grateful to have a job to go to each day.

[Deleted User]

The Spider wrote: »

Well more team lead than management, and would’ve been paid decently enough, his solicitor found enough loopholes to drag the company through the courts, like I say even if you get on with everyone and like your boss you should still see a solicitor, you’d do it if you were buying a house, or anything else, Im constantly surprised when people don’t, and it is literally going to stop them being able to provide for their family etc, any new contract the company asks you to sign should be looked over by your solicitor, and where possible get him to deal with it.

Was he on €75k a year. Compensation for unfair dismissal is usually capped at the equivalent of 2 yrs pay. Any company who is subject to a complaint like this, from the outset would know how much they could have to pay.