Compensation for Mandatory Quarantine before Startup in Foreign Country

[disgruntled]

For privacy, I am posting under a name I don't normally use. It is a name I actually created several years ago when I was pretty frustrated with my employer. Fortunately, this query comes from a much better place.

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I am on the road in another country. I recently finished a mandatory 2 week quarantine and am now on site doing a startup. Today, my supervisor told me that he was wanting to push the company owners for extra compensation (similar to "hazard duty" pay) for employees who are required to quarantine in other countries prior to doing a startup.

This is the first anybody from our company has had to quarantine out of the country... but we have several more startups scheduled for later this year where this will be required again.

He wanted me to think about what I would consider to be fair. How would you respond if your supervisor asked you this question?

More info: I am on salary with no overtime or other travel perks or even comp time. I do know our customer is paying for the days in quarantine at 1/2 the daily rate the company normally charges. During quarantine, I stayed caught up on work-related questions and emails. I also worked on the drawings for my next project.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

My opinion is that standard pay should be adequate for the quarantine time. This assumes that living expenses are company paid as well.

I don't consider cabin fever and boredom particularly hazardous.

 

[mk42]

If the company offered something extra I certainly wouldn't argue, but I'd agree with Tom. If you're getting your salary, and travel is generally considered part of the job, I'd just be thankful for the light duty.

Possibly I could see some compensation for the lost weekend time, if working weekends isn't typically something that you'd be doing as part of your standard salary. Different situations handle weekends very differently.

I could see this differently if OT was a significant part of your pay (a different situation). Asking someone to miss out on the opportunity to earn significant overtime pay while sitting "idle" at the company's request seems like a jerk move. Unless they give the opportunity to work overtime on office work or something that could be done from the hotel, I think some kind of bonus to balance that out would be fair.

 

[disgruntled]

Correct, it's not hazardous. He was using "hazard duty" as an analogy for a bit of extra compensation. Keep in mind that I didn't instigate the conversation with him.



Part of the thought process was that while several of us employees hired on with the understanding that startups were required, none of us agreed up front to sacrifice two full weeks of our time on the front end of each required startup.



I think the intent was more to do something nice for those that sacrifice 14 days of their life in a hotel room eating bad takeout.


Personally, I appreciate the gesture. Now whether or not this actually goes anywhere remains to be seen.

 

[geniusintraining]

I do know our customer is paying for the days in quarantine at 1/2 the daily rate the company normally charges.

Boy if I owned the company you worked for I would fight that one... they are still pulling a man away and he is not able to work at another company, unless this was my biggest customer and doing warranty/emergency work I would tell them they need to find another service company

 

[JLand]

I think the extra money for hazard pay during quarantine is a bit of a non-starter, because I feel like quarantine is generally less hazardous (from an infectious disease standpoint) than actually working and interacting with people.

I have a few different thoughts to your question depending on your existing situation:

If you have work for another customer that can fill 2 weeks of full days, I'd say 1/2 day from the foreign customer and a full day from the other customer (just like a usual day in the office) is fair. This makes everyone (including your boss) happy. I'd request some money from the foreign customer to buy an extra monitor or two and a mouse if you could use them. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of your time.

If you don't have work that can fill 2 full weeks, I think the customer should be paying for a full day every day of quarantine. You are a valuable resource and you can't be taken out of commission for 2 weeks at the behest of someone else without just compensation.

If you have work for the foreign customer that you can do from your quarantine, that sounds like just a regular full day of work.

If you land somewhere in-between, I'd imagine an appropriately middle ground approach is fair (e.g. if you have 1 week of work that you can do, charge the 1/2 rate for that week and a full day for the second week).

Last thing I would suggest is getting comp time for Saturday and Sunday. You shouldn't be locked up in a hotel room (or wherever) during what would normally be free time without being fairly compensated. You wouldn't be in quarantine if it wasn't for work so time spent in quarantine that is normally allocated for personal life should be addressed. Controls and automation engineers are in high demand right now and I would imagine that a reasonable employer would listen to your modest requests.

Of course, all this is predicated on an ambiguous contract or one that does not address these topics.

 

[saultgeorge]

Boy if I owned the company you worked for I would fight that one... they are still pulling a man away and he is not able to work at another company, unless this was my biggest customer and doing warranty/emergency work I would tell them they need to find another service company

+1 on that. And this is why I don't travel. I'd rather work in a plant than be quarantined.

 

[MorphuisOGrady]

I travel internationally too and subject to quarantines. My agreement is 250EUR extra a day "hardship" on top of normal pay.

Travel is also on a voluntarily basis nowadays with Covid and as these quarantines mean confinement to a hotel room the company must offer some incentive. Engineers simply won't go otherwise.

 

[Steve Bailey]

If you'll be expected to do the same number of startups per year but now each startup is two weeks longer you should expect extra pay or time off to compensate for the extra time away from your family.
If the fact that startups are two weeks longer means you'll have to do fewer of them, count that as a bonus.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Last thing I would suggest is getting comp time for Saturday and Sunday. You shouldn't be locked up in a hotel room (or wherever) during what would normally be free time without being fairly compensated. You wouldn't be in quarantine if it wasn't for work so time spent in quarantine that is normally allocated for personal life should be addressed. Controls and automation engineers are in high demand right now and I would imagine that a reasonable employer would listen to your modest requests.

I always let my engineers take comp time, including a bit extra to compensate for those days where they were 10 to 12 hours on site. My guys worked hard, and I tried to let them know it was appreciated.

 

[disgruntled]

Lots to unpack here and I appreciate all the comments. Obviously every company, situation, and end-user is different so I am not going to respond to every comment.

MorpheusOGrady - Thanks for your real-life example from Sweden. Also, "hardship" pay/bonus is better terminology than "hazard" pay.

After thinking about it, I am going to suggest that my employer pass through the daily rate on the weekends as compensation to me. It could be structured in that fashion or even as a daily amount equal to about 2/7 the amount they are collecting.

This gives me some justification for the number I present instead of just pulling a number out of thin air.

 

[NetNathan]

Our "perk" was getting paid meal subsistence ($50 a day when overseas), even though we were given food during quarantine. Could also order room service, if supplied meal was boring. I also ordered food delivered from grocery stores.
Did lots of binging on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Plus (I take my firestick when I travel) and reading, plus did some remote access work.
Essentially... you ARE getting paid to do nothing, not that terrible.

 

[Phrog30]

boy if i owned the company you worked for i would fight that one

+1

 

[keshik]

I did this earlier this year. In my case I rented a house on AirBnb for the 14 day quarantine so that I could at least go outside (though I wasn't allowed off the property). I had food and groceries delivered.

I ended up working normally on other projects for those two weeks. I got a higher per diem and my boss ended up giving my wife a stipend to get delivery and such since I was gone for a month straight.

 

[bb76]

For me there's two parts to this.

The company should have an agreement with staff as to what they get paid when travel is necessary. In my opinion it should be an additional payment that covers all expenses plus compensation for your time away from home.

The company then factors those costs into the contract with the customer who must ultimately pay for it. Those costs are always there but quarantine situations will be extra on top and the customer should expect to have to pay for it.