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K1 seems like a bit of a repressed fascist, but he’s right. Nothing you can do besides not work with them again and tell other junior staff the same. They’ll find it hard to staff people eventually
An additional thought... you are not paid for your travel time. It doesn’t count towards utilization. It is basically giving up personal time to get to the client site. How does someone live their commitments, time fully outside of work if they are restricted to flying in/out of their home city. You only have a two day weekend. I think leadership could be handling this better. My outside commitments are important to me and my family doesn’t live in my home town. I would not be traveling to the client the week prior or after my weekend plans. Would also get on a different project.
Sounds like a shitty client a weak PPMD
K1, alt travel is generally perfectly reasonable and is touted as a benefit during recruiting. I don't think it's "entitlement" if there's no impact on the client or your work.
What about it is bad optics, OP? Going somewhere crazy? Getting in later or leaving earlier?
Lots of opinions from non-ACN folks. (ACN SM here). I recently looked this up because I had an analyst on my team constantly going up to NYC on Flex trips without clearing it with me first. Turns out the policy does not require project approval, it just documents how to account for it. You still need to stay under the price cap of a normal return home trip, and it's compensatory. But other than that, there is no requirement for project approval.
Entitled? We work ungodly hours and fulfill the clients every wish, the least they could do is not tell us is how to spend our free time too, especially if within the prespecified budget! Don’t tell me not to go to Vegas during the few occasions I’m able to relax in this industry.
I'm sure that policy says it's up to the project leadership to decide. Man, the entitlement with this industry...
DD1 because it's their money and they can decide they want to pay for you to go home as planned not to go to Vegas for the weekend. How hard is it to understand that the ones who pay the bills get to decide if you get an exception to what they originally agreed to, which is back and forth from your home to their office.
IBM2 The point is, it would be within the weekly flight budget. Micromanaging where we spend our weekends, at no further expense to them, is what makes a shitty client.
When you say alt travel and the flex travel policy, are you talking about flex fly-backs so the team can fly somewhere other than home on the weekend? Or something different... like only flying to the client every other week or something? If the former, why the heck would optics be any different in this project than any other project?!
Yeah it's up to project leadership. While I think the optics reasoning sucks, I don't know the client and political climate. Maybe later in the project after more trust has been established
Love you BCG1 👍
Alt travel is not a given right. If the client doesn't agree to pay for it, nothing you can really do - they aren't obligated to pay for it, even if it is cheaper than normal travel. Or it may be something where the relationship with the client is tenuous, and the PM/partner don't want to address that right now, which is also in their right. Could be a few different things in play, but the message is that it's not allowed right now, so not much you can do about it.
OW - you can go to vegas, just on your own dime. That is not unreasonable.
Can’t you just book flights back to/from your home city in your “official” corporate travel portal then just call your airline directly and make changes to your alt city?
I do understand the optics around timing so you shouldn’t leave early/get in late if that’s the issue
I can't speak for Accenture but I can tell you that at KPMG the level of detail of expenses that is shared with the client is engagement specific. Not many but some ask for full receipts, some want line items from the expense report, and in both those cases the client would see where you're traveling to. If the client is one that already thinks you're overpaid (they all do to some extent) then it can irritate them when they get the feeling that "I'm paying for him to go to Vegas??".
D1 you're wrong that your travel time isn't counted as utilization. If you're working on your flight, you're utilized and should record it that way. Most people aren't traveling out on Sundays in order to be at the client site at 9am on Monday so I don't think it's quite accurate to say you're also not paid for travel time, but either way that's a beef you have with the US Labor Dept for not requiring overtime to be paid to salaried/exempt workers, not the firm and certainly not the client.
If it saves the client money why do they care? Also are you reporting all expenses line by line or something?
May be a shitty client, but some of them are just like that, and that is not something you can change. As a project manager and owner, you have to balance these things to maintain a strong client relationship, and if this was a demand from a client, it is an easy one for me to uphold to keep the relationship in place. You have to pick and choose your battles.
SM1 does the client see where the ticket is going to or do the just see cost? Example I fly to Chicago costs $150 but I decide to fly to Detroit which costs $155. What would client see?
Fixed fee/deliverable based. Client has no visibility into our expenses.