Expensing unnecessary hotel and travel costs due to missed memo

Question

I work as a permanent employee for an IT outsourcing company.

I've turned up to work after the new year to find that the office is empty. It turns out that nobody can Bill the company giving us a contract until later in the month, so we weren't expected to turn up to work yet.

I found out that I was supposed to get an email about it but wasn't included in the recipient list.

The problem is that I have now paid for a train ticket and two nights of hotel costs. And my employer is hinting that they will refuse to pay for any of the travel/hotel costs. I feel hard-done by since this has happened only because I wasn't sent the memo, and I wondered if this is normal or if there is any recourse I can take.

• Will it depend on my contract with my employer?
• Is there any general employment law that can help my side?
• Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

I intend to try and insist my employer pays for my costs because I don't feel in the wrong. What do you think?

EDIT: Good news...So I was able to claim the expenses from my company, just not from the client-specific project (for obvious reasons). There was just a bit of miscommunication and confusion.

This is a benefit of being a permanent employee and no doubt if I was a contractor would be shafted. Thanks for the replies.

Answer 1

I would agree with your assessment that it would be reasonable for your employer to pay these expenses. The trickier part is how to get them to do so.

At the end of the day the only way you have to force them to pay them is to take them to court which is almost certainly not something that you want to do for the price of a train ticket and two nights in a hotel so you need to persuade them to do so.

To do this you will need to email the appropriate people with a reasoned and compelling argument for why they should pay the expenses.

The points that I think are in your favour are:

1. Your standard working routine as given and as performed for the last month would involve this trip and these expenses.
2. At no point were you told that anything had changed about these arrangements.
3. An email was sent out but you were not on the recipient list, something that should be indisputable.
4. These expenses are standard expenses that have (I presume) been approved in the past. They are not unreasonable and are required for you to do your work.

It is also important to remember that this is a genuine mistake and therefore to keep the tone civil and about how you can work together to solve this and not how "They must fix their problem". To this end you could also try to discuss ways of making sure this doesn't happen again. Being on the email list is of course an obvious one but you could also try asking something like "Was there some procedure I should have followed that could have prevented this misunderstanding" or "How can I stop this happening again in the future?". Perhaps a system is needed whereby expenses need to be pre-authorised with your manager.

Discussing this kind of thing has two benefits - firstly it looks like you are trying to use this as a learning opportunity for you and the company to make things better but will also hopefully make them think about things more clearly and realise that there was nothing you could have done by current processes to actually avoid this problem (or if there is a current process in place you will be pointed at it and will learn).

Lastly I would repeat my opening point that if they refuse to pay your expenses after discussion you are probably just going to have to suck it up. The only way left to you to get the expenses is to take them to court which is going to cost both parties far more than the money in dispute and also lose you your job with the associated losses with that. This is not a viable course of action.

In that situation you can hopefully at least have established a way to have it not happen again.

Answer 2

Mark your calendars folks.

In this case, HR IS YOUR FRIEND

This is the exact time, place, and circumstances to go to HR and have them straighten matters out.

Go to HR and plead your case.

Answer 3

Since it's really their fault you acquired said costs, I would say a formal email addressing the issue directed to all relevant people, keeping it factual and not inflammatory of course, is the correct course of action.

On your specific questions:

• Yes, indeed, reading your contract will provide you insight on how this can be handled in case relevant provisions were included, in which case you should make sure to quote that in the aforementioned email.
• That varies wildly based on the country/state your employment takes place and the contract was formed. Edit: UK offers employment rights, in contrast, to say the US with it's at-will employment model so I would also check up on that if I were you.