This Business and Moment...

Random question for those with car allowances / company cars - how are these treated for you? Are they a contractual benefit or out of the contract?

ChrisD. said:
First day back in work after being off since June is going to be a shock to the system. :confused::cry::o:rolleyes:
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Hope it went well pal, I know the PSO team is stupidly busy as we tried to palm some stuff off them that we didn't have time to do and got laughed out of the door with the waiting list.
 
Throrik said:
Random question for those with car allowances / company cars - how are these treated for you? Are they a contractual benefit or out of the contract?
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My car allowance is essentially a salary top up. I'm much rather we signed up to an EV scheme so I can take advantage of the pre-tax benefit and rock about in a Taycan.

Throrik said:
Hope it went well pal, I know the PSO team is stupidly busy as we tried to palm some stuff off them that we didn't have time to do and got laughed out of the door with the waiting list.
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Thanks. I'm back with the same customer I've been working with for coming up two years now. :D I still have pretty much all my leave allowance to take so I've got until December then I'll likely beef again. Hard times!
 
Ltd Co. owner here. We're looking at attending some engineering exhibitions/conventions in Europe over the next few months. We won't be exhibiting, just attending and getting a feel for the environment. Hopefully we can learn from others from the UK how they go about exhibiting abroad.

It'll be our first time at these type of events outside the UK. Am I right in thinking flights and accommodation are business expenses?

Any other tips for such a trip? I checked gov website and there's nothing about Visa/permit requirements for business trips of this nature. That's all I could think of that concerned me.
 
flights, accommodation, ground transport, meals... it's all business expenses and anything associated with the trip as the trip is for business activities. Shouldn't require any other stuff, unless you're going to a random country haha
 
Throrik said:
Random question for those with car allowances / company cars - how are these treated for you? Are they a contractual benefit or out of the contract?
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Car allowance just appears like a salary top-up, except it doesn't attract employee/employer pension contributions (so feels like more than it is, net).

Depending on how the company car scheme is run, mine is a pre-tax deduction from gross salary. Nil deposit/insurance/tax/maintenance, and a small Benefit in Kind (BIK) charge. That is because I have an EV though. Petrol cars are $lol on BIK so probably not worth it.

I imagine some firms offer "proper" company cars whereby you forfeit the allowance and the firm cover the car payment, but the BIK is still $lol.
 
randomshenans said:
flights, accommodation, ground transport, meals... it's all business expenses and anything associated with the trip as the trip is for business activities. Shouldn't require any other stuff, unless you're going to a random country haha
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Thanks. I will likely put just one meal a day through the business as after work hours we'll be going for a wander and use our personal for meals, tours, attractions and what not.
 
dLockers said:
Car allowance just appears like a salary top-up, except it doesn't attract employee/employer pension contributions (so feels like more than it is, net).

Depending on how the company car scheme is run, mine is a pre-tax deduction from gross salary. Nil deposit/insurance/tax/maintenance, and a small Benefit in Kind (BIK) charge. That is because I have an EV though. Petrol cars are $lol on BIK so probably not worth it.

I imagine some firms offer "proper" company cars whereby you forfeit the allowance and the firm cover the car payment, but the BIK is still $lol.
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Yeah this is what I thought, this contract is vague and does not specify an amount for the car allowance, and they've gone from it being a non-contractual benefit, to now being one, but the contract only mentioning 'Travel Allowance or a Company Car' so this feels to me like a pretty big red flag as I want the car allowance as a salary top-up, but I don't want a car etc.
 
Throrik said:
Yeah this is what I thought, this contract is vague and does not specify an amount for the car allowance, and they've gone from it being a non-contractual benefit, to now being one, but the contract only mentioning 'Travel Allowance or a Company Car' so this feels to me like a pretty big red flag as I want the car allowance as a salary top-up, but I don't want a car etc.
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FWIW my contract didn't specify it either because it was a "policy" driven thing. The only place you can find the value written down is in the policy handbook. I think they build distance from payroll so people don't try and argue it was part of the base package blah blah blah.
 
I hate being honest and truthful at times. Currently going through the bureaucracy of starting a new job, have 99% got the job but I got a phone call yesterday asking me if I could pop-in today for a risk assessment. The reason? On the application form I was honest and ticked the box saying that I'd received a court fine when I was 16/17 for a minor offence, the story is strange but it boils down to the fact that I received a fine for criminal damage due to me ripping a jumper during a scuffle. Now because my enhanced DBS check came back clean I had to go in for this risk assessment. The real kicker is the girl I had the meeting with today said that if I hadn't ticked the box then there's no way they would've found out.

On the plus side, she said that whilst the decision is not up to her, it's up to HR and she's recruitment, she couldn't see how it would affect my future employment. Let's hope she's right.
 
Malevolence said:
Now because my enhanced DBS check came back clean I had to go in for this risk assessment. The real kicker is the girl I had the meeting with today said that if I hadn't ticked the box then there's no way they would've found out.
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If the job falls through (which I'm pretty sure it won't), it might be worth getting some professional advice, I believe it's illegal to refuse a job to somebody where they've been convicted of an offence, but where that offence is now considered "spent" under the rehabilitation of offenders act.*

*I believe this may differ if the job involves working with children, or vulnerable people.

unlock.org has lots of useful info, I used them before as I had a formal caution for an Affray in 2005, and I've had lots of good telephone advice from them regarding US visas; https://unlock.org.uk/advice/convictions-employment-law-2/
 
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Screeeech said:
If the job falls through (which I'm pretty sure it won't), it might be worth getting some professional advice, I believe it's illegal to refuse a job to somebody where they've been convicted of an offence, but where that offence is now considered "spent" under the rehabilitation of offenders act.*

*I believe this may differ if the job involves working with children, or vulnerable people.

unlock.org has lots of useful info, I used them before as I had a formal caution for an Affray in 2005, and I've had lots of good telephone advice from them regarding US visas; https://unlock.org.uk/advice/convictions-employment-law-2/
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Nice one. Have bookmarked that for future reference.

Mine was criminal damage and it was back in 1988/89, so it's definitely spent. If, as I hope, they apply some common sense I can't see it being an issue at all, it's just little things like this get in your head and start to gestate.
 
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ChrisD. said:
Yeah it’s spent, they absolutely cannot refuse you the job unless it’s certain circumstances.
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This is the worry that's fermenting in my overly cynical and pessimistic brain. The job is only a hospital porter but that involves you being around children, the elderly, the disabled and also having access to patient files and records as you move them around the departments.
 
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This will probably not be popular here, but we're working to try and get more people to come into the office. Sitting at our SLT meeting I suggested that we start with 1-2 days, I mean ultimately that's what working was... you'd go to work. Although it's 90 miles one way for work, I do make the effort to go there once a day, and then into london once or twice as well. You get a lot more done in collaborative working in a face to face environment, no matter how good the technology is it cannot replace human interaction. I have warned that it might push some people away, which will be a shame, but we need teams to be together especially for more sticky problems.
 
Freefaller said:
You get a lot more done in collaborative working in a face to face environment
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I'd say that this is highly subjective and dependent on the type of job / role. I work in a highly distributed company with various different offices / geographical regions and if I went into my office I would still spend the entire time talking to people not in the same physical location as me. But I think we're in different professions, but I think part of what pushes a lot of people away is blanket statements like this.
 
Throrik said:
I'd say that this is highly subjective and dependent on the type of job / role. I work in a highly distributed company with various different offices / geographical regions and if I went into my office I would still spend the entire time talking to people not in the same physical location as me. But I think we're in different professions, but I think part of what pushes a lot of people away is blanket statements like this.
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Sure but in your immediate teams and in your regional locations I would propose that you probably get more done in a face to face environment? We have teams from all over the UK, I'm not suggesting they come in for a 1hr meeting - but make the effort to come into the office and spend some time with colleagues and/or at least their teams. They knew they were working for a company based in a certain location, our contracts don't say 100% WFH, but hybrid. So that's up to us to state what hybrid means.

Anyway, regardless, in the civil engineering and infrastructure sector you can't deliver projects and change remotely, you have to go, look, see, and spend time with people. Solving problems on a virtual whiteboard isn't as good as doing it in person, or missing out on those incidental conversations in an office environment, as well as vocational training just cannot function as well remotely. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur, but I prefer human interaction. :)
 
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Freefaller said:
Sure but in your immediate teams and in your regional locations I would propose that you probably get more done in a face to face environment? We have teams from all over the UK, I'm not suggesting they come in for a 1hr meeting - but make the effort to come into the office and spend some time with colleagues and/or at least their teams. They knew they were working for a company based in a certain location, our contracts don't say 100% WFH, but hybrid. So that's up to us to state what hybrid means.

Anyway, regardless, in the civil engineering and infrastructure sector you can't deliver projects and change remotely, you have to go, look, see, and spend time with people. Solving problems on a virtual whiteboard isn't as good as doing it in person, or missing out on those incidental conversations in an office environment, as well as vocational training just cannot function as well remotely. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur, but I prefer human interaction. :)
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Nobody in my immediate team works or lives within a 100 miles of me :D some of them many thousands of miles away. I do agree though that some teams will do it better in person, as you say as a Civil Engineer that's definitely something different. Our teams that maintain our studios, and do our physical Engineering works all meet up regularly for the very reasons you state. My main issue is I dislike the blanket statement of 'You get a lot more done in collaborative working in a face to face environment' as that is so incredibly subjective. I also agree on the contracts, mine says that I report to an office so if they chose to make that distinction they could force me to go (although they did last week announce closure of the office due to low attendance)

I've been to my local office a few times, but it's depressing as nobody from any team I interact with is there, so you end up sitting there on your billy doing exactly the same as I did at home, except I have to wear pants instead of shorts :cry:

I'd disagree on the training too, we both delivery weekly L&D remotely and our third party vendor lead training is mostly remote now. I won't turn this chat into a remote vs in person thread though :)
 
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I still feel that vocational training is better done under supervision of a competent professional, theoretical or desktop study, sure that can be done remotely. However, problem solving, strategy-type, creative meetings are so much more effective in person. They of course CAN be done remotely, however, there's nothing quite like getting people in a room or in a similar space and engaging with them directly. Seeing the body language, exploring the reactions to certain elements of the work undertaken etc... However, I don't come from a techy / sit behind a desk, sort of world. Even when I first started working I used to travel globally to go to the projects, couldn't do it remotely at all, so perhaps that's why this behaviour has been instilled into me.

I don't think I would have achieved my career capability having done it all remotely.. but as I said I'm probably a bit of a dinosaur! :)

Online collaborative spaces are good though, and I agree they can bridge the gap of the physical world digitally, but I don't think they are a replacement for physical interactions at all. You just have to look at London now (not that that's where I go all the time, but I do go at least once a week) it's busy again, so people must be willing to go back to their offices and actually spend time with one another physically. That's the thing I think a lot of people also miss out on. Physical interaction. There's something visceral about being with other humans that sitting at home just cannot come close to. Even grabbing lunch together or a coffee, or those spontaneous conversations that trigger interesting opportunities.

However, I agree, it's role/sector dependent - what I don't think I agree with you on, is that regardless of the sector, humans do better when they are with other humans - unless you're outside the standard deviation and do suffer from crippling social anxiety and other mental health issues, but that would not be the norm.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else that I'm right :) Just stating that we're pushing for more office time from our people - fortunately the majority seem on board - I think 2 days is not a lot to ask really. I'm loving being at home, but I'm buzzing when I come back from the office, despite a 2+ hr commute. Everyone's different though :)
 
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