location of supervisor

jhtnc

We have an employee that was moved to the home office (company paid) for his new position several years ago. We have since reorganized the entire department and he now has a territory that is outside the home office and far away from the home office. He now wants to move back to his original home saying that since he has to travel anyway, why can't he do so from wherever he chooses to live. We do not intend to pay for this move, but our question is: Can we prevent him from moving? The reason being, his original home (to where he wants to return) is much, much further from his territory than the home office is from his territory. It would be more expensive to get him into his territory each week and more time consuming. We have no policy on this. The other two supervisors do live in their respective territories. The only reason he did not (and we didn't force him to) was that we'd already moved him to the home office several years earlier. Any help would be appreciated.

marc

Here is an approach to consider. Determine how much you are willing to pay for the travel and have him pick up the rest.

Usually more expensive travel translates into more time in the air and in airports. Determine if this more time will have a performance impact. Will he be spending less time with clients and therefore be less productive? Make sure he is meeting whatever performance standards you have - which might mean the "extra" time is his, not yours.

Finally, will this mean more dollars when you have general meetings in the home office? Use the same criteria above.

In other words, if this is a job that involves heavy travel, what does the travel origination point really have to do with it? I say those two things - time and money. As long as he is willing to pony up the extra time and money, why would the company care? Just make sure you have a way to measure the real performance criteria.

Don D

I think you should have a policy requiring that all field supervisors live within their area of that they live within a reasonable commute of the city where the corporate office is.

I also will suggest that all of you who have this type of situation or that interview and hire candidates whom you fly in to corporate have the requirement IN WRITING in the formal offer. I can't count the number of times I've seen this type of thing go haywire and become the point of disagreement down the road after hire, say, one year later.