AIBU to question conference/ business trips/ luxuries of business spending during a serious financial crisis?

[CoffeeMumForever]

I am confused how businesses and also areas of the public sector still spend so much money on conferences/ business trips with all the perks, staff privileges, parties. If this crisis is as bad as the powers make it out to be, how is this happening?

You're totally right, it is defined contribution however you have to put a value on it at some point as you say.

£2.5k a month is about right via salary sacrifice

That doesn’t sound right. On the CS alpha scheme you’d be building up roughly £2k a year of pension for each year on £90k, so after 8 years that’s around £16k a year, before revaluation. They must have other pension years included somewhere, or there’s been a misunderstanding.

In any case most civil servants are not on £90k, that's unusual!

This is the problem, people hear something and run with it. Only the most senior civil servants even get close to that kind of salary.

Well that's not public service pension but personal choice regarding pension contribution.... Anyone who can spare should be able to do that?

Yeah right

With academics doing research, presenting and publishing that research is as major a part of their work as teaching. In some roles more. International recognition, being part of ref exercises beyond their own uni is part and parcel of conference season.

Depends what kind of civil servant we are talking about. It's the same with academia. The salaries start really low but 100k for a professorship is far from unusual

Business trips are to do business - sell, buy, network, develop ideas. The novelty of staying in a bland corporate hotel, room service, and eating out wears off very quickly. They’re exhausting, highly pressurised as you need to fit in as many meetings as possible in the time available, and quite lonely. It’s fine to have a bit of fun but most of the time you’re too tired or have too much to do for the next day.You fly business class as you need to work and/or sleep on the plane because you’re expected to hit the ground running - prepared and not jet lagged. You get private healthcare because the company can’t afford to have you off sick for six months waiting on surgery for your heart problem. They’re not really ‘perks’; they’re strategies to keep you working.

In my experience, young people tend to find business trips exciting and older people tend to dislike them (except for those trying to escape family life). They rarely have much in the way of perks for older people as food and rooms in most business hotels tend to be less nice than a home once you've hit your 30s and have a bit of financial stability. Also don't have the conveniences you're used to. Can be quite lonely and get in the way of hobbies and regular social life.

Yes I think this is probably true. If I had had the chance when I was young (I didn't) I think I might have enjoyed it. Now they are a major inconvenience. Shit food, budget hotels, early starts. Very little to recommend them.

I travel on business. Thinking about this summer, I flew out to Shanghai one Saturday night (economy), arrived Sunday afternoon. Got as much sleep as possible, had a day of meetings in Shanghai, then got on a bullet train to Beijing. Two days of meetings, then a 2am flight back to London (economy again), arriving at 6am. Saw my husband and children, did my washing, and was out on a flight to Poland the next day. Rinse and repeat.

The longest I was home over the whole summer holidays was less than 48 hours. By the time the kids went back to school, I couldn't tell you what day it was, I was so tired. On one flight, I was sat for 11 hours next to a man who just happened to keep invading my space and stroking my arm "in his sleep". I had to socialise all day, from breakfast to dinner. The only time I got to myself was when I went to the loo. The back home office work didn't stop, so I had to answer emails, get on calls and coordinate my team from whatever timezone I happened to be in at the time.

Like heck would I be doing that for fun, or would my company be paying for a jolly. In China, I learned some key information that completely changed our business strategy and saved the company millions. Face to face communication is really important in Chinese culture. You don't get nuggets like that from a Teams call, or at least not until you've invested a significant amount of time in building real-life relationships first. In Poland, I used my experience and expertise to walk a new manager through an upcoming external audit, pre-empting findings that could otherwise cause weeks in paperwork or, at worst, suspension of our business in Europe. Again, that's not something you get from a call.

This.

Im on a trip right now and wont be home til Tuesday. So basically working 12 days in a row.

Although sadly not business class and not even that can make the passport queues disappear

TBF that’s spectacularly bad for your health and family life. Is it long term plan or can you fix the timescales?

Short-term only, thankfully! I'm back to travelling about once a month now. I don't know how our sales teams do that kind of schedule all the time.

They aren't paying 2.5k a month. On 90K they contribute 7.35% and the employer contributed around 28% on the alpha scheme, but it's not as easy as saying 30% and getting a certain pot. Plus it's mostly considered as the reason the actual wage is often lower ( whilst 90K sounds high to a lot of people, it will be director level and there will be no bonus)

In many private sector companies you will see them match your 5% or the better ones will do 10.

If anyone wants to join the public sector, it is a choice that you can make 😅 Majority of people are not on 90K 🤣