Selling a move to your staff

Q: I am planning to relocate the office to premises 30 miles away, however some of the office-based staff say that this is too far for them to travel. What should I do?

Firstly, is it actually essential or is it simply desirable to relocate? If you have to relocate that far then which of your staff must you keep to have relocate with you?

As your question indicates that some of your staff believes it is too far for them to travel, this would indicate some existing degree of unwillingness. If these are people that are indispensable to your business then you may need to rethink your moving plans. If it is essential to move you may need to do this in stages. You could, for example, recruit people that will be willing to work at the new location and train them prior to the move, possibly using the existing site and expertise for training.

You would need to consider where your current workforce lives. Those that live between your existing premises and your new offices may not have too much further to travel, or indeed it could be closer for some. However, those that live on the other side of your site may be looking at travelling between 40 to 50 miles or more. Are you prepared to offer incentives to people to move home, for example by paying all or some of the removal costs? Is it possible to provide transport to those individuals that live furthest from the site? All these variations have been tried in the past, and while people may be willing to commute in the short-term, most will inevitably look for a more accessible job that is closer to home.

If you are ceasing to carry out work of a particular kind at your existing site and moving it elsewhere, this potentially makes it a redundancy situation. When the number is 20 or more you are bound to consult for 30 days, rising to 90 days where the staff numbers 100 or more. This means usually that no dismissal notice can be issued during that consultation period. If you have a trade union agreement then you must consult with the trade union. If you do not have a union agreement and the staff numbers more than 20, you will have to give it them an opportunity to elect representatives and then consult them on behalf of the workforce as a whole, or provide the same information to them direct rather than through the representatives. You would consult on how the jobs could be saved giving consideration to any ideas put forward in the first instance and, if none were relevant, move on to how the individuals could be retained. Clearly the offer of employment in the same role but 30 miles away would be an alternative for each individual to consider. There are further rules regarding alternative employment, trial periods and the right to a redundancy payment after a trial period.

Peter Done, Managing director, Peninsula.