My employee was upset I told him to drive, not fly, for business travel

Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues—everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.

A reader asks:

I manage a team of four. One of my staff members, Jeff, asked to go to a conference that was about a five-hour drive away. I approved the request as the conference would be good for his professional development. Three other staff members from our closely connected teams were also going.

Jeff registered for the conference. A couple of weeks later, he asked me about booking a flight to it. I was surprised by this, as the conference was a reasonable driving distance. I explained that the department would rent a van and the attendees would drive there together. (Our department wants to minimize expenses when reasonable, so this is normal unless it doesn’t make sense logistically or financially.)

He pushed back with a couple of reasons that he wanted to fly, such as it would save time and he didn’t feel comfortable driving. I said that flying wouldn’t save time since the airport is at least an hour away, you need a time buffer to go through security, etc., and the flight is two hours. I also knew the others going were comfortable being the drivers.

He then said that he didn’t want to be in a car for long periods of time since he sometimes has digestive issues. I empathized but suggested he make up a reason he might need more rest stops than usual and give the others a heads-up at the start of the trip. Something like, “Sometimes I get woozy when I’m in the car for a while, so I need to take more rest stops than usual.” This was not acceptable to Jeff, and he ultimately decided not to attend the conference. It wasn’t a huge issue, but he was salty about it for a while and complained to a few other people.

Is it reasonable to expect employees to drive to conferences? Are there situations other than distance and cost where we should make an exception to our norm?

Green responds:

I think a five-hour drive one-way is a really long drive, and I’m not surprised he expected to fly.

Some businesses, especially those with more limited resources, do use a five-hour rule on business trips—where if the drive is less than five hours, people drive instead of fly. Personally, it strikes me as too long. Yes, flying can take nearly as long when you account for security, delays, etc., but you can work on planes and in airports; it’s much harder to work in a car.

But this also varies by field and, in some cases, by professional level. I did five-hour drives without blinking as a 20-something working at a nonprofit. I would not do it now.

But even if this is the norm in your field, I’d still make an exception for Jeff because of his digestive issues. Telling him to make up a story about why he’d need frequent stops wasn’t reasonable. Bathroom issues are private ones, and asking him to come up with a cover story while inconveniencing and possibly annoying his colleagues—and thus making that trip a lot longer than five hours—wasn’t fair to him. Plus, digestive issues can be urgent in a way that doesn’t always leave time to wait for a highway exit, pull off the interstate, find a place with a bathroom, park, etc. It’s very possible Jeff can only travel confidently if he stays within a few minutes of a bathroom.

Personally, I’d be pretty unhappy if I told a manager I had a medical condition that made long car trips prohibitive and was told, essentially, “too bad.”

I’m wondering if, at some level, you didn’t fully believe Jeff and thought he was exaggerating to avoid having to do the drive. As a manager, you really need to default to believing people about their own health unless you have a specific reason not to. Otherwise, you can end up doing things that are really, really problematic—like denying people accommodations they actually need, or making them feel they need to disclose details that they should be able to keep private, or making them feel discriminated against. That’s not to say you can’t ever ask for more info or propose a different accommodation (you can, and there are ways to do that legally), but in general, your default should be to believe and try to accommodate a good employee with a health issue.

Want to submit a question of your own? Send it to alison@askamanager.org.

—By Alison Green

This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister site, Inc.com.

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