Back to Dear Lucy homepageI am the chairman of a UK company arranging a board visit to our operations in the US. Three of the non-executives are insisting on travelling club class, claiming that they will not be able to work otherwise. Ours is a strongly egalitarian company and it is our policy for all flights to be in economy. When the US team visits us, this is how they travel; I fear that if they discover different rules apply to the board they will be disillusioned. But if I force the non-execs into steerage I will be losing their goodwill. What should I do?
Chairman, male, 54
Lucy’s answer
The trouble is that you didn’t communicate your hair-shirt policy well enough to the board members when you hired them. Unless told otherwise, most non-execs of large companies expect to fly club class on long flights as a matter of course.
You should have said at the outset: if you think you’ll be swanking about on expenses at this company, forget it. It would have been up to them to decide whether they wanted to join the board under those conditions.
Now your communications job is going to be tricky whatever you do. You have a choice between making the rest of your staff angry when they discover the company is not quite as egalitarian as it pretends to be and making the non-execs feel cheated out of what they see as their due. The second is clearly the lesser of two evils. You aren’t trying to motivate the non-execs in the same way you are trying to motivate your managers. They are most unlikely to quit and are unlikely to sulk by failing to read their board papers properly, as the penalty for negligence is jail.
Alternatively, you could sidestep the issue by asking if it’s really necessary to cart the whole board across the Atlantic. I’m assuming it is, given that yours doesn’t sound the kind of outfit to tolerate waste. In which case, why not buy the board economy and let them pay for their own upgrades if they see fit. You could, if your budget stretches to it, buy them economy plus, which will save face and buy some leg room.
And if I were you, I’d make some political capital from the refusal to buy club for the board. Sir Richard Branson, a world leader when it comes to PR stunts, usually flies economy just to make a point. I don’t see why you shouldn’t get similar mileage out of the same stunt.
