Is a company required to pay travel expenses for an employee's guest if both are invited to a dinner party?!
Answers:
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
If they are required to go to the dinner party, yes.
If it is optional, no.
Did the employee choose the guest, or did the company state who the guest was to be?
If the employee chose the guest, then it is not the company's responsibility for the expenses - expenses would fall to either the employee or the guest.
If the company chose the guest, then the guest should be an attendee, not a guest, and receive their own invitation. Even so, expenses are the responsibility of the attendee.
A guest is a Guest, not a required attendee.
Hope this helps!
Common sense and years of expense reporting.
I do a lot of planning for corporate events for my company and usually it works like this:
Normally a company invites employees only to a party - it is up to the company to allow the employees to bring a guest if they wish to.
If they said you may invite a guest - this means that you can bring a guest, and their meal is paid for - however it doesn't mean that the company will pay for the travel expenses of the guest.
I am assuming that most of the other employees are in town....they sent out just one invitation type to all employees assuming they are all in town, instead of giving you a separate one.
They probably don't realize that your guest will be from out of town. They are not obligated at all to pay for your guest's travel expenses - you invited them to come, they are your guest, so you pay for their travel.
However, I would speak to your boss about it; maybe because you are in the situation that you do not live in that town and all your family and friends are from out of town as well and would have to fly in, maybe they can make some kind of arrangement for you - maybe pay for part of the expenses, etc.
It doesn't hurt to ask, the worst that can happen is they say no, and you either go alone to the dinner or you and your guest pay the travel expenses.
Not required but most do. I know my company does.