Bicycle purist required to travel for work

Question

There is an employee at my organization that is 100% pro bicycle and 100% anti-combustion engine. He is very vocal about it, and everyone, including myself is generally supportive of his choices and knows him as that dedicated life choice kind of guy. Most days, he bikes to work as you would expect.

The issues seem to come up when I request that he travels for work. There is another office in another city, and it requires him to bike for hours to get there. We deal with hardware equipment, so it is not something that is very easily for him to "remote" help, and he is the subject expert of this device. He pushes back very aggressively to have me find another plan, in which I genuinely cannot find one. I've offered to give him a lift on days that both he and I are going to the same field office, but he declines as it is against his personal morals, and then does indeed cycle the long distance. I get the feeling he has blamed me personally for this chore, as I often get the cold shoulder from him now. He has started to play the victim card around work and I believe people are starting to turn sour against me for making him travel.

Recently, I have informed him that he needs to travel to another State on business. He seemed angry and snarkily stated about how he has to make it a week long biking trip to get there.

How can I ease this situation? On the one hand, I don't want to be that "evil" guy forcing him to go against his beliefs, but I need him to perform his job and travel. I also don't want to lose him as an employee. Is there a compromise that can be made?

Answer 1

I think you have already been extremely accommodating to him. If the requirements of the job go against his personal morals on a (in the US at least) non-protected issue, then he needs to find another job. Either that, or take vacation days to travel by bike to the remote job.

Answer 2

His commute to work is HIS problem, not yours. If you have the authority then make that clear to him. You can try and accommodate him, but at the end of the day the work needs to be done. He's not being paid to ride a bike.

If you don't have the authority then it's not your problem, pass it on to whoever does.

Personally I'd already be looking for his replacement. Extremists of any variety are better off out of your workplace causing drama. Whether it's religious zealots or vegetarians hassling people about their lunch choices.

Answer 3

All the other answers seem to be trying to solve the bike problem (buy him carbon offsets) or tell you how to convince him to change his mind on the bike issue. I suggest you utterly ignore the bike.

Ask yourself: if this employee was parent to a small baby, and objected to going to the other office because the baby would need to have longer days in daycare, and objected to the travel because "I don't want to be away from my baby for that long", how would you react? What if this employee was caring for an aging parent or a spouse that was dying of cancer? Substitute the entirely voluntary bike thing for something that is less voluntary and that more people feel very strongly about. Something you can perhaps relate to yourself.

Some employers would say

I'm sorry, but this kind of travel is a condition of employment here. You can find a way to make the travel work, or we can change your job to one that requires no travel but [pays less, is only 30 hours a week, doesn't involve all the same duties], or you can take a few weeks to find a job somewhere else and we'll wish you good luck.

(There may not be the middle thing about changing their job to something lesser, depending on the company size and jobs that exist there.)

Others would say

In that case I will only send [your coworker] on these trips. Please don't be surprised or offended when that coworker is promoted before you or gets a larger raise from you; you're deliberately choosing not to contribute to something important to us.

What would you say? If the reason was personal, strongly held, supported by most of society, and not considered "weird" or extreme? Would you still say, in effect, "don't let the door hit you on the way out" or would you find a way to support that decision not to commute or travel more than a small distance?

If you would say it's a condition of employment, there's no-one else to send, and if I need to hire someone else who will do it, I can only do so by parting with this employee, then say that. Don't let the bike thing confuse you.

If you would find a way for a "good" reason then stop judging reasons and find a way. Not asking other people to do more work for less money, or do all the travel while being rewarded the same as the nontraveller, but a real true fair way to support this very firmly held desire. I don't think you need to involve the biker in that process much, unless someone says "I will do all the travel if the biker does all the X" and you need to see if the biker is cool with that. This could be a very powerful retention strategy for a valued employee, since the chance of finding another employer who could accommodate this belief system may be slim. And all the other staff will see that you are flexible and generous, which is generally a good thing to be seen to be.

Note: I am not suggesting that caring for a family member, whether newborn, aged, or ill, is comparable to the bike preference. If you would fire the employee even if this dispute involved a clearly "good" reason then go ahead and fire them over this. It's not about the bike, it's that travel is a condition of employment. That half of the advice is easy. The second half is harder. If you would find a way to make it work, a real true fair way, not just asking others to do the person's work for nothing, then there is a way to make it work. So even for this reason, why not do it? Why not be fair?

As for the biker giving you the cold shoulder, very shortly either the biker will be gone or you will be delivering the news that "you win, you don't have to travel far any more" and either way your cold shoulder problem should stop.

Answer 4

I'm a dedicated cyclist, having worked at the current job for 1 3/4 years biking every day, so speaking from that point-of-view.

Once you develop the healthy routine, it's very hard to break. However the worst times are just after a holiday, or returning after an illness when you don't quite feel 100% yet. Even a bout of heavy rain or winter weather can be an obstacle. At this time, you're vulnerable to losing the habit. This is perceived as a threat, or a weakness. As such, sometimes cyclists will resemble recovered alcoholics in their intense reactions.

So there are several approaches I could suggest. I'm not sure what your chap's motivations are, so test the waters.

1) Suggest that you're going that way in a car anyway, so it's still not adding one more car to the road way - if he's saving the planet this might help.

2) Tell him that you have room in the boot/trunk for a folding bike and if he has one, to bring it. If he doesn't own a folder, then it's a perfect excuse for "N+1" the required number of bikes to own, where N is the number you currently own.

3) If you drive the same path he does, look out for him on the way to/from. You might find him stranded with a mechanical fault or something else.

Finally - don't bother yourself. I assume he's riding on his own time, not company time? Then it's really not your responsibility how he gets about as long as he's there on time and ready to work.

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Out of State trip (later edit)

Google Maps suggests the biggest distance between centers of neighbouring states is New Mexico to Texas at ~850 km straight line. So we'll estimate with 500 and 1000 km. Interstate travel implies motorways/highways which are rarely suitable for cyclists, so a slightly meandering course will be required.

A good road cyclist can do 200 km in a day, but 3 to 5 days of that in a row would be hard work. Plus the same distance on the return leg.

A recumbent bike would make the distance more comfortable, but they are quite expensive. However they are faster than a diamond-frame bike generally.

For the out-of-state trip, I would fly, and pack my folding bike as luggage then ride that for the local legs, from the airport into town, to the workplace, and to the accommodation if it's a multi-day visit.

Again - if your chap wants to spend his own time riding, then that's fine. He's saving you money on taxis when he's at the remote location. And he's healthier for it, which means lower medical costs.

Answer 5

I view this sort of zealotry very dimly. The guy sounds like Milton from Office Space. I would venture he's a drag to be around. Seriously, the guy insists on cycling to another state for business??

I would change his job description to include travel, if it does not.

His cycling choice isn't protected and is indeed a few standard deviations off the mean.

I would have a boss-to-employee discussion with him where you listen to his opinion of IC engines, and then let him know you never want to hear about it again. You expect him to travel in a normal fashion that does not ultimately become a pain in your ass. You expect that he will not complain about normal travel requests in the office. Document the discussion with with HR. (EDIT - while I didn't think I'd have to say this, of course explain to the employee what the issue is - his mode of travel is impractical, untimely, and unsafe. And by publicly and repeatedly voicing his dissatisfaction about the travel situation, he is lowering office morale. These things are unacceptable.)

When it happens again, I would PIP him and let him know his passive aggressiveness, snarkiness, and complaining are not helping office morale. Any unprofessional behavior going forward will result in penalties up to and including loss of bonus, raise, and job.

In the meantime, have him start training his replacement.

EDIT - to all the people who are concerned about the employee's happiness... Let's be real here. This employee has made choices that are guaranteed to increase his dissatisfaction if he does not get his way, completely. To make matters worse, once you accommodate his eccentricities, you may become obligated to accommodate everyone else's whimsy. If you don't, what will cause issues with favoritism and possibly bias.

All we're really asking here is for the employee to conform to reasonable and accepted cultural norms, in order to perform the work he's been hired to perform.

EDIT 2 - something that occurred to me early on, but I didn't add, was the employee's safety. In the USA (the OP sounds American...) most roads are freaking deadly for cyclists. We don't have many bikes lanes in the cities, and we have none outside the cities. My first thought about the OP biking to another city was "He's gonna die." My 2nd concern is liability. If the company requires him to travel (which they are) and allows him to bicycle (which they do), then they are surely accepting liability for a dangerous mode of travel. That's probably a show-stopper. We need this guy on-site, timely, and safe. Bicycling won't cut it.

EDIT 3 - Some people have commented that there's no solution in the answer. This is not correct. The solution is for the employee to get in line. He has adopted a hard stance that leaves the OP few options. Indeed, the employee's life choices is based around his decision to not compromise. Kudos for the guy for walking the talk. But he is requiring the OP to life that life too, to an extent.

Answer 6

The issues seem to come up when I request that he travels for work.

Does that mean you're the superior of that employee?

I get the feeling he has blamed me personally for his commuting chore, as I often get the cold shoulder from him now. He has started to play the victim card around work and I believe people are starting to turn sour against me for making him travel.

This looks like the conflict between you and him is in the stage 4 of Glasl's Nine-Stage Model Of Conflict Escalation.

At this point you cannot solve the conflict by exchanging arguments. You need a conflict de-escalation talk with him.

Bad news is that you have not much time left to solve this conflict without outside help.

In fact I'd strongly suggest that you get someone who is trained in conflict mediation and you both accept as an unrelated trustworthy person to mediate this talk!

Invite him for a talk on "neutral ground", the cafeteria, hot dog stand, a pub or alike, anything except his or your office/workplace. Let him know that this invitation is for de-escalating the conflict. Schedule that invitation so that he has some time to prepare for it, like half a day or so.

In this talk:

• Make clear that you value him as a person and that you like working with him. (I suspect you do... ;o) )

• Ask him if he likes to work for the company in general and with/for you in particular. (hopefully he (still) answers 'yes'...)

• Tell him that you feel the cooling in your relationship and that you regret that.

• Ask him what he feels about being sent to that other site and how this affects his relationship to you from his perspective.

  He may answer with details (e.g.: trip is long, combustion engines destroy environment...) keep asking him for his feelings until he comes up with something that is referring to his relationship to you or your company.

• Tell him (and mean it!) that you understand and respect his feelings.
  But do not excuse yourself.

• ask him why he feels this way and what could make stop him feeling this way.

• listen carefully and try to find something in his suggestions that you can comply with.
  tell him (and mean it) which suggestions sound reasonable for you, and what you can offer to keep him from feeling bad.

Answer 7

This person has elevated their worldview to the status of a religious conviction. I don't say this pejoratively. It's a perfectly fine thing for a person to do. However, it may be useful to look at the laws in your country about religious people in the workplace for guidance on how to accommodate this person's beliefs.

For example, in the United States, employers are required to make reasonable accommodations for the religious practices of people of faith, so long as the accommodation does not constitute an "undue burden" on the employer's operations.

Applying this to your biker employee, you have done everything you can to accommodate his beliefs -- even though you're not required to (his activism would not be considered a religious belief under U.S. Law). However, even if he were protected by law, this definitely qualifies as an undue burden.

It is not reasonable for him to expect you to organize your entire department around his beliefs. This is his job. Commuting is part of that job. You need to offer an ultimatum here. Point out how supportive you've been in the past, but also how this isn't just about him anymore.

Explain what is expected of him and what a reasonable time-frame is. Ultimately, he has to decide what's more important to him; his "faith" or his job. Bona-fide religious people often have to make this decision too.

Answer 8

I know a few companies that buy carbon offsets for every mile they make their employees travel. I can't really say if this is feasible for you (I think most options are targeted at really large companies), but if this is about environmental concerns it might be a reasonable compromise.

Answer 9

There is no direct compromise that can be made. You have a rather binary situation.

You need him to travel and do his job.
He does not want to travel to do his job.

One of you has to give.

Either you accept that he is not going to travel, or he accepts that he is going to travel.

Now let me be clear. You have no right to state how he must travel (outside of some rare circumstances). That's on him. Unless your providing the vehicle, then how he gets from A to B is all on him. If he wants to make a 3 day bike trip to do it that's on him. If he wants to take a bus, that's his choice. The only time this would be an issue that you need to care about is if you are providing the vehicle or the site has some kind of unusual restriction (only reachable by helicopter for example).

You tell him "I need to you to go to office B and do foo tomorrow." That's it. If his life choices make that more of a chore then it should be then those are his life choices.

Now you might try to work with him, but in the end you need an employee that will travel to site A and Site B, not be grumpy about it, and still be able to do foo. If that employee is not meeting those expectations then it's time to look for a new employee. If he is, then don't worry about hew he got to site B. Not your problem.

Answer 10

It depends on the terms of his employment. If his job description says he's expected to travel for work, then that's how it is. Some people deliberately choose jobs that don't require travel, and plan their lives around that. Often this involves sacrificing something else: money, more interesting assignments etc., but it's a choice you can make.

If his terms of employment include having to travel for work, then his insisting on using a bicycle is probably unreasonable. If not, then he's doing you a favour by agreeing to travel at all.

That said: these days, it's often good business to enhance your remote working facilities. Maybe this is just buying people a web cam and a microphone, or perhaps you need to do more, but if you can make that part of the work a bit smoother, he won't be the only one who benefits.

Answer 11

As a long term solution, cross train another employee. You only have one person who can do the things this person has to travel for, and his traveling is making both you and him unhappy. If you keep that up, he'll either leave or be an uhappy employee, neither of which you want. If he leaves, you don't have anyone to offer this support, and if he's unhappy, it'll spread, as you've already noticed.

Cross training will be an expense, but it will let you shift this guy to a role he's happier with, which will help you keep him as an employee. And if he does leave anyway, you'll be in a better position than if you have no one to fill his shoes.

In the short term, showing him know that you are working towards a solution will probably help him reconcile to a few more trips. It's likely that some of his opposition is that he sees no end to your requests, and he doesn't want a job where he's being pushed to drive.

Answer 12

Disclaimer: This answer assumes that there are no requests made of the employee that he could not reasonably expect when he signed up for the job, without this context my answer would probably be too harsh.

If asking is not working out, consider telling him instead.

Telling people to do their job is quite a normal practice in many companies. Though do read the end of this answer for possible consequences.

If you him to do something, you basically give him a choice and force him to make it, perhaps in a way that is uncomfortable for everyone.

If you have a situation where it can be expected that an employee has to work day 1 and 3 in his home town, and day 2 somewhere that is too far to reach by bike, don't ask whether he wants to work on day 2. Just tell him that you have 3 days of work that need to be done, and that you expect him to get things done properly.

Based on the conversation examples you provided he will probably say something like 'how do you expect me to cycle X miles between workdays?', at which point I would recommend you NOT to discuss that topic at all, but just apologize and say that you need to make sure the companies work gets done.

Considerations

I already mentioned that this answer assumes that the employee could reasonably expect the requests that he is now getting. However, think about the following:

1. Perhaps he could/should have expected them, but didn't actuactually think about it or just did not expect it. If you think this might be the case, you may still want to tell him what to do, but do realize that he will think you are asking unreasonable things.
2. Perhaps he expected certain things when he signed, but now changed his mind. This is especially likely if he did not get travel requests for a while, or if you have been very accomodating in finding workarounds. The 'gift' that he got, may have been transformed into a 'right'. If you think that this has occurred, it might be a good idea to sit down with him and go over the basics of his responsibilities, before adding more emotions into the discussion.
3. As some answers point out, perhaps this is not your problem. If you are not in a position/or do not have the desire to tell him to do his job, consider escalating. Depending on the tactfullness of your superiors this may sour the relation between you and the employee, so it is not a silver bullet.
4. As other answers also pointed out: Is it really a problem? If you don't see any good scenarios play out if you take action, consider working around the problem and just burden his colleagues a bit more. Note that the further you go this way, the harder it is to go back. Basically you confirm to him that his priviliges have become rights and that you are willing to tolerate this kind of inconvenience from him.

Answer 13

As Kilsi already stated: It is their problem, not yours.

There are several options you can suggest to them with respect to their anti-combustionism.

• They can ride a bike, horse, whatever but will be paid as they are driving a car there.
• They can go there by train and commute on bike to/from a station.
• They can rent a Tesla car and get refund for a regular car.

If they refuse any given offer you can:

• Relocate them to position where they are not obliged to travel long distances.

• Show them the door and let them know they needn't to bother opening them again.

When thinking the topic thorough; If they are truly anti-combustion, anti-fossil-burning precisely, they should refuse all options but riding a bike or a horse - trains are powered by combustion engines or electricity. Resources for powerplants are Coal, oil, gas and uranium mostly.

Either way, this perticullar employee is fanatic eco-lunatic or a hypocrite; not a good employee/colleague at all.

Answer 14

Why send him at all?

There are plenty of video conferencing solutions, from skype through google hangouts or facetime. You can have two way video calls with a smarthands person on site, and work like you're there.

Most technical people have a phone or tablet capable of making video calls, or at least have access to one.

At the other end of the price scale is the fancy wearable solution that incorporates a Point-Of-Video camera and earpiece and microphone. Different styles exist, but the three main types are a head-worn unit like this

A chest-mounted one, or a separate free-standing unit that rests on a tripod or base on the ground/floor.

Your top-level subject expert can do all the work from the comfort of his desk, and he has a video link showing what the local level one technician can see.

I recall a similar system was trialled by various military. The idea was that the expensive/valuable and highly qualified tech was safely out of danger, but was able to provide guidance and support for those who were doing the work in the active zones. Their valuable time was not wasted moving between sites, because all they had to do was connect to the next set of eyes by making another call.