Non-motoring > Outsourcing Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Driver Replies: 25
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 21:47 
 Outsourcing - Driver
My employer has outsourced hotel bookings. We are no longer allowed to book our own hotels for business trips.

Instead we log on to a portal, give the post code of where we are going and the outsource company selects a hotel for us.

They booked me in at a city centre hotel some 15 miles from where I need to be. I have a look at the hotel on Trip Advisor and was disheartend.

It is part of a national chain of old hotels.

Arrived, and it was worse than could be imangined. Full of of what can only be described as doessers. Some openly taking drugs.

Room was dirty and the bathroom had not been cleaned.

They also charged £15 for overnight parking!

I refused to stay and have booked myself in to a Premier Inn about 5 miles from where I need to be in the morning! They are no longer the value for money option though!

It's going to be fun getting that on expenses!

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New Tue 21 Aug 18 21:57 
 Outsourcing - sooty123
Ours is a similar process but you are given a range of options normally about 5. You can go outside those choices but you have to justify it.

It's going to be fun getting that on expenses!

I can well imagine it'll be a battle.

Is the oursource company HRG?
Last edited by: sooty123 on Tue 21 Aug 18 at 22:00
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:00 
 Outsourcing - Haywain
" ......Some openly taking drugs.
Room was dirty and the bathroom had not been cleaned. "

This is where the camera on your smartphone comes in handy.
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:13 
 Outsourcing - Falkirk Bairn
Suffered from outsourcing the hotel choice many years ago - 15+ years.

They booked me into a super posh hotel - room was vast & very flashy.
We had an evening meal limit of £30/ £35, restaurant was closed & the room menu in the hotel was a minimum of £50 for 2 courses! - £40 for food & £10 for room service charge.

It was about 10ish as I had driven for about 4 hours after finishing work.
Couldn't go anywhere outside as they were all shutting up shop

Whole Expenses bounced as I had exceeded the evening meal rate & matter was to be resolved by manager - they bounced the whole of expenses & therefore delayed payment by at least 10 days - this was a punishment for expense errors.

Resolved eventually but a right pain at the time.
Same company - they threatened to sack me for overcharging parking receipt - it was £2.30 & I had claimed £3.20 in error - again whole £400+ delayed.
Last edited by: Falkirk Bairn on Tue 21 Aug 18 at 22:15
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:23 
 Outsourcing - Driver
>>this was a punishment for expense errors.

I wrapped a hire car around the barrier of the hire centre on the continent. Couldn't just the distance in the car.

Cost about £500.

I put it on expenses as it was company related. It took about two months to get it authorised because someone above me hadn't done his credit card expenses for about a year and they used my case to make an example of the department.

With two young kids at the time and a big mortgage I needed that £500.
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:14 
 Outsourcing - Driver
>>" ......Some openly taking drugs.

Thought about it for a moment and decided I didn't want to get beaten up!

I am even happy with most Travelodges, but you have to pick and chose them, they are usually at least clean.

Its not HRG but a similar outsourcing company.

I booked somewhere for next week as well and there were over 30 choices so I don't quite know how the algorithm works for sure but I guess if there is a preferred hotel within a set distance then that's the one that's used.

15 miles across the midlands at rush hour - no thanks!
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:17 
 Outsourcing - R.P.
Driver,

Depending on your employer I'd be looking at the health and safety angle on it, if necessary involve your Union (if you're in one) arguably there is a duty of care on your employer to make sure that you're staying somewhere safe and clean.
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 22:32 
 Outsourcing - Driver
>> Driver,
>>
>> Depending on your employer I'd be looking at the health and safety angle on it,
>> if necessary involve your Union (if you're in one) arguably there is a duty of
>> care on your employer to make sure that you're staying somewhere safe and clean.
>>

Email sent to the boss. Turns out similar happened to him yesterday and he did the same.

He will be on the phone to HR in the AM.

The outsourcer sent us all a non-personalised email the other day espousing the benefits of new hostel type hotels whilst on business - shared rooms with total strangers!

WTF! Can you imagine the risks and claims, especially personal risk and to confidential company information!

There was quite an uproar and HR said they had received dozens of calls on the matter.
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 23:18 
 Outsourcing - commerdriver
Don't automatically blame the outsourcing company, they are, or should be, doing what your employer has asked them to do. If they have chosen on the cheap and not looked at the detail of how the outsourcer is paid and motivated it's not the outsourcer's fault. The problem, and fixing it is up to your employer, the outsourcing is incidental.

As my son, an aero engineer is fond of saying, remember every part on the aircraft you are flying on was probably supplied by the lowest bidder.
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 00:58 
 Outsourcing - Kevin
What level of approval do you need for international travel now commerdriver?

Is Ginny spending all her time refusing travel requests or has she delegated that to VPs?
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 07:05 
 Outsourcing - Zero
>> What level of approval do you need for international travel now commerdriver?
>>
>> Is Ginny spending all her time refusing travel requests or has she delegated that to
>> VPs?

The Ginny wot rocked up to Hursley in the private helicopter?


Remember the days when they decided that everyone needed to pay for exe's with a diners club card?
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 07:06
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 07:40 
 Outsourcing - commerdriver
>> Remember the days when they decided that everyone needed to pay for exe's with a
>> diners club card?
>>
That definitely kept you out of cheap hotels, none of them accepted the diners card.
General expenses have got much easier to claim.

Not travelled out of UK on business for at least 10 years so don't know about foreign travel
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New Tue 21 Aug 18 23:25 
 Outsourcing - Manatee

>> The outsourcer sent us all a non-personalised email the other day espousing the benefits of
>> new hostel type hotels whilst on business - shared rooms with total strangers!

I'm boggled.

I wouldn't even know where to find one. Don't do business travel any more, but we use hotels regularly and I am a noted cheapskate. Have used a number of Travelodges, most of them are fine, some aren't but that's usually easy to read into the TA reviews.

We have one in Dover in a couple of weeks, and another in Cheltenham next month, each for a night. The Cheltenham one is £50 (on a Saturday), Dover £35 (Sunday), plus £3 for wifi.
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 08:22 
 Outsourcing - Old Navy
Maybe not in the same league as you international high flying businessmen (people?). In some jobs I did and even as a senior scabby matelot, I travelled alone a lot. Known as detached duty. In the days when budgets were more generous than now and for security reasons I, and others doing similar work did not share rooms. This meant first class rail sleepers on the rare occasions I used them and certainly decent accommodation, rental cars etc. Expenses were always paid immediately on completion of a job or journey (on return to base). I used a separate bank account for expenses, it was always in credit.:-)
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 08:38
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 08:30 
 Outsourcing - Old Navy
There are a few predictive text spelling errors in that post but I missed the edit.

Had a go at correcting them for you
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 08:38
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 08:59 
 Outsourcing - tyrednemotional
>>
>> Had a go at correcting them for you
>>


I don't think he was intending to outsource his posting....
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 12:48 
 Outsourcing - Old Navy
>> >>
>> >> Had a go at correcting them for you
>> >>
>>
>>
>> I don't think he was intending to outsource his posting....
>>

I am sure he was not. But I was making the point that a certain standards must be maintained or they all get dragged down. In my day although military flights were the prime option (the RAF ran a regular service to Washigton with VC10s) I could fly Club class whatever that was, free booze at least, for Gibraltar and other locations where you might find submarines if my travels did not fit in with RAF flights or there weren't any RAF passenger flights to that location. There was even free booze on the London /Glasgow shuttle flights in those days. Oh, how times have changed!
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 15:26 
 Outsourcing - Zero

> There was even
>> free booze on the London /Glasgow shuttle flights in those days. Oh, how times have
>> changed!

Yes the tot disappeared a while ago, as did the lash. The sodomy still goes on tho
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 12:24 
 Outsourcing - Old Navy
>> There are a few predictive text spelling errors in that post but I missed the
>> edit.
>>
>> Had a go at correcting them for you
>>

Many thanks I was being harassed by the management (Mrs ON) to get off my **** and provide her with transport!

Not that I would have known how to fix the errors anyway. :-)
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 09:29 
 Outsourcing - Mike H
>> We have one in Dover in a couple of weeks, and another in Cheltenham next
>> month, each for a night. The Cheltenham one is £50 (on a Saturday), Dover £35
>> (Sunday), plus £3 for wifi.
>>
If it's the one at Canterbury on the A2, it's reasonable enough. We've used it many times en route from Austria to the UK and vice versa.
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 09:37 
 Outsourcing - Runfer D'Hills
About 30 years ago, I had my expenses queried after a trip to Brazil where I'd put through a couple of receipts each for 60 litres of alcohol.

Took a bit of convincing the desk jockey back here that the car I used out there ran on sugar cane alcohol.

Edit - yes it did run sweetly...
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 09:41
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 11:37 
 Outsourcing - DP
Ours is outsourced to a company that's another word for agree. Slick portal and a good choice of hotels, with justification only needed if your choice exceeds the approved nightly rate. All very easy and straightforward.

They do add a hefty charge for the privilege though. As our company is run by an accountant known for his eye for detail, the maths must add up somehow.
Last edited by: DP on Wed 22 Aug 18 at 11:38
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 12:17 
 Outsourcing - commerdriver
>> Ours is outsourced to a company that's another word for agree.
>>
As are ours, you can see why they do it when you consider the number and value of expenses claims involved.

For example, my current weekly expense claim for 3 nights a week plus 120 miles in a company car, averages about 400-450 a week. If you add flights / train journeys / expensive area e.g. London hotel prices and multiply that by a few thousand people out on client sites in the UK alone you get an idea of the numbers involved.
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 12:22 
 Outsourcing - Manatee

>> If it's the one at Canterbury on the A2, We've used it many times en route from Austria

No, it the new one here goo.gl/zvxUDK that can only be a mile or so from the ferry terminal.

Might run into David Dickinson. Cheap as chips.
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New Wed 22 Aug 18 12:47 
 Outsourcing - Driver
Emails received from HR this AM apologising for all the problems caused.


Apparently the wrong user profiles had been loaded for our company - what ever that means?


We should be getting decent hotels now with the Jurys Inn being the benchmark.
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New Thu 23 Aug 18 21:40 
 Outsourcing - MD
The Jury is out on that.
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