I joined the company in 2017 and there just seems to be a permanent ultra-obsession with keeping travel costs down to virtually nothing, to the detriment of effectiveness, agility, and customer responsiveness. It's a massive hassle and is completely unproductive. A colleague of mine recently left the business after being worn down by the petty bureaucracy. He had to jump through endless hoops for the sake of < $5 in fuel to travel to a customer site at short notice. It not only takes his time, but it also had to go to about 4 or 5 others (including going right up to regional General Manager level). It's just crazy. Yes I get it, we have to be competitive but it treats the staff as untrustworthy, while Mike Lawrie has literally made tens of millions in share selloffs this year alone. It's a very strange kind of tinpot oligarchy that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing! Yhanks to Oscar Wilde for that one :-)
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To the guy who posted his favourite story about £4.40 getting escalated up to a L3 manager, I think you might be who I was referring in my original post.
My new employer also doesn't bother with pre-approvals and pays the full amount per mile. Only 1 Manager approval email is required for up to £250. I booked an internal flight without any formal pre-approval, but I let them know just in case they cared. Most of the time, they leave you alone and trust you to do the right thing. So I still find myself travelling off peak or being sensible with hotels. I don't know if that's just me or my deep, ingrained DXC 'training'.
I took the payoff and ran last year. My new employer pays 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p a mile thereafter inline with HMRC rules. All dealt with by a simple spreadsheet record of mileage claimed that I put through once a month retrospectively and without a requirement for preapproval.
My employer trusts me to do the right thing. I get the money with my pay every month by simple bank transfer. It's never been late.
It's all one more benefit of leaving this shambolic company and setting up on your own.
Try comparing the Corporate justifications for the Travel bans ("we should always try and work remotely wherever possible - we have excellent communication tools") and the Corporate justifications for off-shoring your job ("your job can literally be done from someone on the other side of the world - we have excellent communication tools")
with the Corporate justifications for why we all have to relocate to RDCs in the UK ("we all work much better if we're sat in the same room - remote working is ineffective")
Erm???
I got so fed up with it i traveled under my own cost (petrol) to a couple of client meetings - my manager found out and told me to stop or it would become a disciplinary matter!
Jumped ship back in April and the obsession with cost cutting was one of the reasons.
Favourite story - I was asked to visit a supplier 20 miles away so 40 miles in my car. The travel approval went to my Line Manager (not quite sure why he needed to approve but hey-ho), the PM picking up the bill (fair enough), then an L5 manager then finally an L3 manager, all for the grand total of £4.40.
The word "madness" doesn't quite do this justice...
Yes, short story. I was a new hire years ago, on a project/travelling. No cell phone, not even (CSC) laptop yet and had to use personal for work (for months). Was staying at a hotel, after working 15+ hour days, missed a phone call from work at the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. Front desk came and knocked at the door and gave me message. Called back work using hotel phone and was not refunded because out of policy. At least had per diem in those days. And those were golden days compared to this. Should have known that was not good a sign for things to come.
Then have these Build-a-thon's where we fly people all over the world. What happened to DIGITAL Skype , Teams, WebCam's no one needs to be in the same room these days.
Short-sightedness. Petty rules that affect everyone instead of going after the 20% who can't play within more sensible rules.
Account guys can bring in 20-30K of upsell and still have a cup of coffee bounced on a 2hr journey because 'it is not a meal'
Tender meeting travel rejected, leaving staff unable to hear the client brief the suppliers and be in the fortuitous position of being able to ask important questions.
Clients having you as the only speaker phone attendee in the room. Embarrassing when other suppliers could be bothered to turn up.
Clients do appreciate onsite attendance when there is a problem, frustration or clarity is sought. Whilst they are mostly tolerant of phone calls, I don't think it helps communicate as effectively and you learn so much more of what they really need and you get the "Between these four walls..." discussions and you understand their problems much better. Suppliers that are prepared to give f-2-f time to premium paying clients and understand them seem to win more work in my experience.
The company is a joke. If they spent as much time investing in their employees and customer relationships, as they do in finding ways to eek out an extra dollar from every action, the company would be going from strength to strength, and not down the porcelain portal.
I get that it's smart to control cost - but at some point, the cost of controls is outweighing the savings from those controls, not counting the loss of goodwill-value from customers or employees.
Thénardier would be proud...
I could not agree more!!! Spot on!