Episode 404: Employees Traveling – Dos and Don’ts

Voice Over: You’re about to listen to another episode of What The Hell Just Happened?! Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss and sometimes even solve some interesting HR problems.

Paul: And… I’m gonna go off the rails sometimes and talk about whatever I want.

Paul: All right, everybody. Welcome to today’s podcast, What The Hell Just Happened in HR?! As is our habit, we’re going to be pulling up some kind of question and answering it. We’re going to be looking at something that just happened in HR. I’m joined today by Michelle Richards, who is one of our senior experts and over at the CEDR HR Solution Center, which is that bank of experts who take phone calls from all of our members and answer questions. Our third person on this podcast is Amanda. Amanda is our novice.

Amanda: [laughing]

Paul: Amanda is here to ask good and stupid and any kind of question that Amanda comes up with…

Amanda: Yeah! [laughing]

Paul: As we go along. So anyway, welcome and Michelle, how are you doing today?

Michelle: I’m doing well, Paul. Thank you. Thanks for that kind introduction, by the way. [laughing]

Paul: Yeah! Yeah, well, I kind of… we’ve been doing the podcast and sometimes we have two people on, sometimes we have three. And so we determine after the last one that I probably should explain who I’m talking to, and why.

[laughing]

Michelle: I love that.

Amanda: Well, Michelle is a fan favorite.

Michelle: Oh my gosh.

Amanda: Fans love her. Her episodes are so popular.

Michelle: The expectations are soaring over here. Sweaty palms, you guys.

Amanda: [laughing]

Michelle: So we’ll just get into that, into the topic before I completely space out and forget what I was going to ask. So… Paul.

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: We recently wrote an article –

Paul: Uh huh.

Michelle: About “Can employees or should employees share rooms when they’re traveling?”

Paul: Oh, yeah.

Michelle: That was a hot topic.

Paul: Was it really?

Michelle: It really was. And –

Paul: I know how I feel about it.

Michelle: It’s always in…we get a lot of questions about it anyways. So we thought, “Hey, let’s chat about that because people want to know.”

Paul: Uh huh.

Michelle: Not only that question, but there’s some other questions that come up that aren’t directly related to all the, you know, “Do I have to pay?” Obviously, you know, there’s a whole analysis for that.

Paul: So something about, we’re going to talk about going out to meetings and stuff –

Michelle: Exactly.

Paul: And you’re setting up the team and can you put them all in one big bunk room? Can like rent an Airbnb at a ranch and put everybody in the same room or…Yeah. Okay.

Michelle: Exactly. Yup.

Paul: Okay. All right. So I just wanted to, I have to…I like to start these with a story. Our one listener out in North Carolina, Kenny. If you’re listening, Kenny, you know who we’re talking about. I’m not going to name the person. Every year, Kenny and I get together, along with other friends, and we go on a kind of a festival camping trip for several days. And over the years, we’ve progressed or regressed, however you want to look at it. Kenny and I used to be younger 20 years ago, or I used to be younger, and we would chop our way into the woods and set up this big campsite and we’d string tarps and people would come in, and sometimes we’d have as many as ten people, twelve people in a campsite and everybody be in their own tents. Just bear with me, Michelle. I swear –

Michelle: I’m with ya.

Paul: This has an application here.

Amanda: [laughing]

Paul: But over the years, as I don’t live in North Carolina any more, which is where we do our, have our fun together. What we’ve done is rent an RV and now I’m coming back to the subject here because what happens is, is that me and Kenny, and Kenny’s wife and me and usually another friend or two end up in an RV. We try to rent a big enough RV and we have one member of our team who snores. And I mean, when I say –

Amanda: [laughing]

Michelle: I grew up with a bunch of snorers, so.

Paul: When I say snore, I mean, it’s a…it’s real.

Michelle: Like, is there a bear out there?

Paul: It’s a bear in there and it’s in the RV with me.

Amanda: [laughing]

Michelle: We’ve been breached! [laughing]

Paul: And so [laughing] you know, if I’ve got to get up and go work in the communal kitchen at 8:00 in the morning, I need to get my sleep.

Michelle: Mm hmm.

Paul: And if you’re out there traveling and going to a seminar or a conference, you need to get your sleep. And so I just want to make that point. When you were talking about it, I was like, I know how I feel about this: Everybody gets their own room. However, and I don’t know if anybody’s noticed or not, but it’s very expensive to fly your people just on the planes alone now. It’s like double or triple of what it was pre-pandemic. And the hotels aren’t giving away their rooms for free either. And what I find is when we go to these conferences, the hotels are actually jacking the prices of their rooms up, you know, so the special price we get is the double price as participants. So putting everybody in their own room, you’re sending ten, 12, 15 employees or even if you’re only sending five, begins to get very expensive. So there’s that. There’s a balance there, right?

Michelle: There really is. And the approach we take is, okay, legally, what do you need to do?

Paul: Right.

Michelle: Because we need to cover our base there right?

Paul: Right.

Michelle: Well, legally, you can do really whatever you want with that. There’s not a law about employees needing to have –

Paul: Their own space.

Michelle: Their own space. Now, things get gray, right? They get a little hairy.

Paul: Yup.

Michelle: The snoring happens. The dynamic of two employees –

Paul: Oh we’ve seen some crazy –

Michelle: Being in a very private area alone together. I mean, the stories, right, that we’ve seen come through unexpectedly most of the time –

Paul: As a result of two people being in the same room together.

Michelle: Exactly.

Paul: I mean, the problem or the thing? The thing. Not everything is a problem, but the thing was always there. But you don’t learn about the thing. You don’t get exposed to the thing until two people are in the same room together.

Michelle: And let’s name the thing. The thing could be a medical condition. Right?

Paul: Or when a person drinks, they get obnoxious. And if you send them to their own room at 11:30 and they can just be in their own room with their own texting and doing whatever they do, that’s a different story than having them in a room with someone else where they begin to just say stupid things.

Michelle: Absolutely. Yeah. So it, really, the takeaway here is: Can you do it? Yes. Should you do it? We would recommend to keep them separate. If you can afford it, let’s house them separately, keep them in separate rooms. It’s usually going to be worth the cost so that you later on don’t have to deal with a major headache, you know, of something, a big HR problem happening, that could put you in some hot water.

Paul: So a good point, Michelle, is you said a major HR thing happening. So just so we’re clear here, from the moment you all leave from, you know, Wherever, Idaho, and you jump on the plane and you go to Vegas or you go to Orlando or you go to New York City to the big conference, till you get back, you are essentially… they, they’re your employees. There is some kind of employment relationship going on.

Michelle: Exactly.

Paul: I mean, you don’t get out of it. So what happens in the hotel room doesn’t just stay in the hotel room. It now becomes your problem.

Michelle: Exactly. And to make a quick point on that –

Paul: Mm hmm.

Michelle: The rebuttal might be, “Well, they’re not clocked in.”

Paul: Yeah, but that’s just…

Michelle: What do you have to say to that?

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: Right? I mean –

Paul: That’s not…

Amanda: [laughing]

Michelle: They’re still your employees. [laughing]

Paul: It’s still an employment situation –

Michelle: Yeah.

Paul: Because you are controlling them to a certain degree.

Michelle: Uh huh.

Paul: And you are, you tell them. The employee handbook. You know, if you use our form you say, “Look, nothing’s changed here.”

Michelle: Uh huh.

Paul: And you can do that. You can kind of say to everybody, “Our rules still apply, you know. Sexual harassment, still not okay.” All those things that are forbidden in the employee handbook while at work are still okay to enforce while you’re out on a company sponsored trip. I, Michelle, the approach that I like for them to take is to say, “We’re going. You know this is expensive. I’m happy to do this, to sponsor this. I want as many people who want to go, to go. I’m asking for you guys to talk amongst yourselves and if any of you are okay bunking together, just let me know and we’ll make arrangements to get two queen beds in that room or, you know, whatever that looks like. But if you need to be on your own, just tell me and I’m happy to put the room together on my own.”

Michelle: I love that approach. You’re a human.

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: And as an employee, I would be very receptive to that because there may be some people I feel comfortable sharing a room with that I have a friendship outside of work with. Still doesn’t completely take away a possibility, but it’s less likely to happen. You know, realistically, chances are very low if two friends are sharing a room on a trip.

Paul: Yeah and although women run the business of healthcare, our listeners, dental offices, you know, urgent care. You know, everybody that we service out there, there are men. And we just want to be clear. You want to separate that. You just don’t let the two sexes room together, not that anything inappropriate or it can’t be done in a completely copacetic way.

Michelle: Uh huh.

Paul: But it is one of those things that I think where you know, you’re better as an employer to just kind of split everybody up.

Michelle: Absolutely. Yeah. And one of the points that you’re, the article that we released made was that employees, you know, we don’t want to make assumptions either, right?

Paul: Right.

Michelle: That, hey, two women are comfortable staying in the same room.

Paul: Exactly.

Michelle: Two men are comfortable. That’s why you present it to your employees. Ask them who feels comfortable. And then on the back end, you know, you have your own line, your own boundaries as an employer, you’re not going to let an employee cross when it comes to sleeping arrangements like that.

Paul: Right. Right.

Michelle: So if we have time, I’d like to ask one more.

Paul: Yeah, do it.

Michelle: Travel question.

Paul: Okay. Ask the travel question.

Michelle: We get this question a lot: Can I keep my employees from drinking when they go to Vegas?

Amanda: Oh, my gosh. [laughing]

Paul: Wait, so we get that question?

Michelle: We do.

Paul: Really?

Michelle: Well, not Vegas specifically.

Paul: Okay but you use Vegas because that makes sense.

Michelle: Yeah. I mean, if you’re going to, somewhere in Ohio…I don’t know.

Paul: But if you would like –

Michelle: Temptation is there.

Paul: If you would like to pay them 24/7, then you can regulate what they do when they’re not on the clock. Because they are on the clock, right?

Michelle: Exactly.

Paul: So if they’re going out for three days and you say, “Look, I’m paying for every minute. I’m paying all the overtime that we’re going to incur here and I don’t want anybody drinking,” then I think you can get away with that. I think you can make that a rule. Otherwise within the context of everybody’s at work, but everybody’s not actually at work once they’re not at work and you’re at an away event, meaning that at 6:00 or the seminars over and everybody can go on their way and go to Disneyland or go do whatever it is they want to do, you don’t have control over them. So it’s no different than any place else in your home office. When they leave the office, they can go have a glass of wine and do whatever they want to as long as they’re not at work. Certainly you can regulate, they can’t drink on the plane. You could tell them “Can’t drink on the plane.”

Michelle: Yup.

Paul: You can tell them, “Can’t drink during the conference.” You can regulate while they’re on the clock and while you have some control over them. But you have to give up control because as soon as you don’t and you try to regulate what they’re doing off duty, they’re at work.

Michelle: Exactly. And that sometimes is a disappointing answer, you know, to some that are asking and I get why, you know, they’ve probably seen some situations happen that they don’t want to repeat themselves.

Paul: Uh huh.

Michelle: But here’s where you can limit: You can say, “Hey, don’t wear the practice uniform.”

Paul: Right.

Michelle: “Don’t wear our branded shirts when you go in and participate in your own activities,” because, Are you representing the practice or not, right? And so you can draw that line there. So that answer is yes.

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: You can say, you know, “Don’t represent us in that way, but you know, whatever you do on your own time is your own time.”

Paul: I think to just, I’ll throw this in because it’s you know, What The Hell Just Happened in HR, is we went out on a company trip and we just talked about you know, how much of their behavior you can regulate and we talked about rooming and accommodations and stuff. You could, you can though, you could regulate saying that, “When we’re in mixers and doing stuff like that, if there’s alcohol there, I would like for you to not participate in that,” if that’s what you want to do or at least put some kind of statement out there saying, “Look, you’re still representing us, we’re talking to people. I don’t want anybody out there doing crazy stuff and drinking to excess.”

Michelle: Exactly.

Paul: But again, you’re trying to regulate maybe off duty behavior. And if any of you were like, “Wait a minute, I don’t pay for any of this stuff.” You need to go search our blogs and learn that you are paying when you do a company sponsored trip to go to something where it’s associated with the work that you do, you can’t just not pay people to go. But there are lots of things you can know about that to mitigate both the amount that you have to pay and the risk.

Michelle: And everything that I’m hearing, Paul, is: Plan Ahead.

Paul: Yeah.

Michelle: Plan ahead. Go through the scenarios in your mind.

Paul: Yup.

Michelle: What’s the worst case scenario and just plan for it. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen, but that’s kind of our job. Sometimes it seems like a downer. You know, we think of all the worst case here?

Paul: Here comes HR. [sad noises]

Michelle: I know I just [laughing] So sorry, guys, but if you plan, then, hey, some things happen outside of your control, but you did your best to mitigate the opportunity for that to happen.

Paul: I can see Amanda because Amanda’s remote today. I can see her and I can see the wheels turning. She’s like, “I’m not going to any more of these stupid meetings if i can’t drink afterwards or – “

Amanda: [laughing] I’m like, conferences? What conferences? No, thank you. [laughing]

Michelle: [laughing]

Paul: All right. What The Hell Just Happened in HR?! We just kind of went over a couple of the little things that you have to think about when you’re taking employees to conferences where they’re going to have to stay overnight. And there’s much more on this subject. Go search our blog for, “Do I have to pay travel time?” and those sorts of things.

Michelle: Thank you, Paul. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on that.

Paul: That was so much fun. No. Gosh, I feel like HR right now.

Michelle: I’m ready to go to a conference.

Paul: No, you’re not.

Michelle: Get crazy.

Paul: Yeah, get crazy.

Michelle: [laughing] Just kidding.

Paul: Noted. Note.

Michelle: [laughing] Don’t send Michelle to any conferences.

Amanda: [laughing]

Paul: Michelle. Go to the HR Vault and –

Michelle: Or where any fun happens. [laughing]

Paul: And make the note.

Michelle: Thank you.

Paul: All right, everybody. Thanks for listening to this episode.

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