When is travel time work time?

Gilly

Gilly

Gilly

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Scenario:

  • Person A is officially based in office X - their permanent place of work
  • Person A is given a temporary assignment working in office Y - a customer site
  • Office Y is 200 miles from home
  • Time of travel from home to office X is deducted from time spent traveling to office Y
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Is the time that is left, in this scenario, classed as working time?

I'm being told that it is not working time, and therefore does not accrue towards the working week for the 48 hours maximum working week for the working time directive that I would otherwise be falling foul of. I'm not entirely sure that is true but wanted to be sure before pushing on it.

In essence, if I'm not working at my base location I understood everything past the time I spend traveling to my base location to be working time. My HR dept. is telling me different.

Thanks :)
 
From ACAS:
Working Time Directive - Mobile workers - September 2015
The European Court of Justice, in a recent case gave the judgement that mobile workers who have no fixed place of work, and spend time travelling from home to the first and last customer should have this time considered as working time. The Court added that because the workers are at the employer's disposal for the time of the journeys, they act under their employer's instructions and cannot use that time freely to pursue their own interest.
Acas is assessing the impact of this judgement on workers and employers in Great Britain and will provide more detailed guidance when it is available.
Employers and employees should be aware that this may have an impact on breaks if the working day is extended as a result of travelling time. It is also worth checking employment contracts to see what they say about travelling time.
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it's not necessarily law, as such, though.
 
Even if they're right in legal terms, doesn't mean you have to do it. Clearly if it was their time they would be better off paying living expenses for you to live near Office Y, whereas if it's your time then the job isn't worth doing. I guess there are people who do jobs that aren't worth doing, but I wouldn't be one of them.
 
Not sure if that is directly applicable, as I believe in this scenario the person does have an official fixed place of work rather than being contracted as a mobile worker, but I might be wrong.

When I've travelled for work in the past generally I've just sucked it up as part of the job, even if it has meant hours of additional travel as it was usually only a couple of days at a time (in my old job, I had a 25min walk to the head office but a 4hr journey to a satellite office / 2hr journey to customer site).
 
Yeah. For me it's currently averaging out at 12-15 hours per week. It's a lot of time to just write off when the job itself isn't particularly appealing and I'm losing money due to my OOH payments having ceased...
 
I'm frequently in similar positions, and its always billed as non-chargeable travel time, which sees my work weeks easily top 60 hours.

I opted out of the WTD, so I'm not 100% sure about this, but if it is a regular commute then it is not working time. If you have to make a 1 hour each way trip to office Z for an occasional meeting, then that travel can be classed as working time though.
 
See, this is where it starts getting a bit murky. Is it classed as a commute still if it isn't to my normal place of work? I thought not, but I don't know (hence this thread :))

From some random law site:

Working hours include any time when the worker is at the employer’s disposal and is expected to carry out activities for the employer.


Travel time to and from work is not usually counted as working hours. However, travel as part of the employee’s duties is. Travel to and from clients at the start and finish of a day is now classed as working time where mobile workers have no fixed place of work (for example, care workers and installers of services in client’s homes).

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I do have a fixed place of work, but I'm being sent elsewhere by my employer. This means that during travel to somewhere that isn't my normal place of work means that I am, by definition, carrying out activities for my employer?
 
Gilly said:
See, this is where it starts getting a bit murky. Is it classed as a commute still if it isn't to my normal place of work? I thought not, but I don't know (hence this thread :))

From some random law site:



I do have a fixed place of work, but I'm being sent elsewhere by my employer. This means that during travel to somewhere that isn't my normal place of work means that I am, by definition, carrying out activities for my employer?
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I always worked on the assumption that if the commute a regular thing, then its your normal place of work - even if its not your home office.

However if anyone with experience in this area of employment law could post, I too would appreciate the clarification.


If it does mean that you are exceeding the WTD limits, are you complain to HR to reduce hours or compensate with increased pay?
 
I would be telling my management that they will need to deal with the fact that I won't be working 37 hours plus travel time, and will be deducting the travel from the time that I am available to them, resulting in an actual working week of 37-n (based on the previous week or an average time taken, I'm not sure yet).

I feel like I'm being walked all over, and I don't like that. I don't want to be here doing the work I'm doing because I'm not doing the job I was recruited for and therefore not developing in the way that I had planned, and the fact that it's a 400mile round trip is an additional load I do not wish to bear to do a job I'm not inclined to do :)
 
I do not commute, I stay over (away from my family :(). This is funded by work, as is my fuel, lending credence IMO to the fact that this is not my usual place of work!

I wish I could average 60 mph all the way! It took me nearly 10 hours to arrive last week.

You're right, I wouldn't be doing anything other than traveling if I was commuting every day, that's why I wouldn't class it as a commute.
 
yeah tricky one, depends on your industry... in some places someone complaining about working more than 48 hours(including travel in the figure) would not be getting any pay rises or bonuses any time soon

generally people who had to commute elsewhere in my old place would have a half day on Monday morning and a half day Friday afternoon... usually because they're flying to some city in Europe and are back with their family on the weekends... however they'd usually work pretty late at the client site Monday - Thursday night and probably would break 48 hours if flights/airport time was included

I'd maybe push for something like that - tell them not to expect you till Monday lunchtime and take Friday afternoons off but work later on the other days
 
I'm pushing for re-assignment to be honest :D

I'm not arsed about the amount of time I work, so long as I'm not away too much. I'm not ending up with a broken home and missing out on my kids' formative years for an assignment I don't want and didn't choose :)
 
Surely if its a temporary assignment then it should classify as work time as your commute time is only what you'd normally to to get to your ordinary office.

I'd be charging them time and fuel minus whatever my ordinary commute would be.

Guess i'm lucky our other sites are all pretty much the same commute distance/time
 
adolf hamster said:
Surely if its a temporary assignment then it should classify as work time as your commute time is only what you'd normally to to get to your ordinary office.

I'd be charging them time and fuel minus whatever my ordinary commute would be.

Guess i'm lucky our other sites are all pretty much the same commute distance/time
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Yeah, that aligns with my thinking.

I have a fuel card and company car (as part of my remuneration package, not business needs) so that's taken care of already, but working over 50 hours a week every week and only putting 37 through the books is really starting to grate.
 
When I work at one of our other sites (home site is A, but occasionally I'm needed at B and C) I typically include the travel time in my working day. Our management agrees with me, so I always assumed this was normal practice.
 
Mr-White said:
My old job didn't pay for travel time, so I would get to my normal office for 8am and then travel to site. So if they weren't going to pay extra for travel I took it out of my standard working hours.
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Yep. I would turn up at my normal place of work at the alloted time, and then travel in their time.
 
Uther said:
Yep. I would turn up at my normal place of work at the alloted time, and then travel in their time.
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If it is nearby this.

If you have to get up outwith normal commute times to make trains/flights etc. I've always had this as work time. If your are contracted to site A and they want B or C, the travel time either needs to be considered or remunerated.
 
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