Flightless employee benefits package

The elimination of high-carbon benefits in favour of low-carbon alternatives must be part of an overall approach by the organisation to reduce its carbon footprint. This approach should be based on a variety of coherent and complementary measures. The climate should not be used as a pretext for an organisation that only wishes to restrict the working and living conditions of its employees without making any efforts to improve its own professional practices.

These evolutions should be explained, understood, and accepted by the personnel of an organisation. Any change tends to arouse fears, reticence, and blockages. To avoid these, it is imperative to communicate to the staff the overall climate objective of the organisation, measures considered, processes that will be put in place to define these changes, including the benefits included in employment contracts, and to remove any concerns from the start. It is important to be understanding and patient, especially with long-term employees who were used to previous arrangements. It is best not to force this through. Perhaps one of the biggest staff concerns will be that alternatives offered will be significantly less attractive financially than airfare. Staff and their representatives should not feel they are losing out.

Any such contractual change requires support from social partners.  It is critical to inform, consult, and include employee representatives in decision-making processes from the outset and at all stages, including in the identification of alternatives. The organisation can also rely on employee representatives to disseminate information and create broader acceptance of the measure.

The estimated value of the proposed alternatives should be equivalent to the airfare benefit, which is generally considered very attractive. Employees need to feel comfortable with this. This is an issue both for retaining current employees and for attracting new ones. This is about financial but also moral value. A personal airplane ticket is often associated with vacations or family reunions, in other words, with leisure and fun. The alternative(s) chosen by the organisation must be attractive, interesting and create an equivalent positive feeling. In addition, as with airline tickets, family situations can be considered when offering alternatives.

It is possible that the implementation of alternatives, especially if they are multiple and varied, may be more complex or time-consuming than booking and reimbursing airline tickets. It is important to be both creative and innovative in the choice of alternatives, but also pragmatic for the sake of administrative simplicity. These difficulties can be easily anticipated and avoided.

It is crucial that the change be the same for all, to make it fair and to ensure that it is widely accepted by staff. Airline tickets must eventually be withdrawn from all employment contracts. The measure should not discriminate based on age, seniority, geographical location (headquarters/field), status (permanent, consultant) or hierarchical level (management, supervisors, operators). As far as alternatives are concerned, even though they may differ slightly depending on the context (headquarters/field, value based on cost of living), they should be as non-discriminatory as possible.

Labour law must be respected in the process of changing these contractual benefits. It may be easier to apply this measure to new employment contracts than to existing ones. Once the decision to change has been approved by the competent bodies, in accordance with the law and the organisation’s collective agreements, it will be applied as is in new employment contracts (renewals or new entrants) without the possibility of negotiation. In existing contracts, the wording of the relevant clauses may sometimes allow for a modification of the benefits without prior agreement of the contracting employee. If this is not the case, a change of benefits should be explained and proposed to the contracting employee, effective only if agreed with him/her.