[WORK] What travel is acceptable when travelling to different locations?

awinchurch

awinchurch

awinchurch

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Wolverhampton
A mate of mine has had a lot of hassle at work lately and asked me if I knew of anywhere to get advise.

His employer provides him with a company vehicle and pays for the fuel. His hours are Monday to Friday 8 hours a day. He doesn't have a set start time of finish time either.

The work he does is all over the country and he finds himself driving 3-4 hours each day to and from site but his employer will only pay him for hours on site.

They seem to think this is acceptable and they have also increased the workload for each day.

There is nothing written in the contract about travel and the only thing it really says that may cover the travel is that a reasonable amount of overtime may be expected to meet the needs of the company or some generic **** like that. But it doesn't say unpaid overtime.

He has asked for advise but got told it is up to him to come to an arrangement with his employer who just says its tough luck. He said he would offer them some travel time lets say for argument sake 1 hour and if he had to do 3 hours driving he would leave site 2 hours early but his employer just said they would dock it from his wage.

Is there anything he can do?

I have told him to start looking for a new job because I would not stand for it but does anyone have any other advise?
 
I too have this problem with my employer here's the rules i have been given
I work from 9:00 to 17:30 with an hour off for lunch & breaks.
I have a company car and travel to and from customers site's doing my JOB most of the jobs i go too the first one is booked to start at 9:00 the which is the time i get paid from.

Now it does not matter where in the country this customers site is we are expected to be onsite at 9:00 no matter what (excluding exceptions of unexpected traffic or emergencies)

I do not get paid for the travel time to and from customers site until an hour has past so if i set off at 8:00 i dont get no overime but if i set off at 7:00 and arive at 9:00 i will get one hour overtime (as long as it's been pre approved) same goes for after work if it finish at 17:30 set off home and get there before 18:30 or before i dont get paid any extra, if i get home after 18:30 i get paid from then until i get home.

my works backs this up with trackers in my car to the overtimes forms i fill in.
now get this - this is not written in my contract but it is writtern in the company handbook that we have to sign and adere to.

I also pay personal mileage on my car too at £0.14 per personal mile
I'd tell your mate to get his employer to set it in stone what the T's & C's are.

when all this came into effect me and my works mates kicked off about it but they came back with "if you were office based you would not get paid for travel time to work and when you leave work" the Hour came about by taking in account where everyone lives in relation to the office and worked out the average travel time to the office it was about 52mins so it was rounded up to 1 hour.

it annyos me as it take me about 6 mins to get to my office from home so i lose out really.
 
We either travel in work time or claim travel time. I'd hate to be in position where neither was acceptable (while permanently employed).
 
Morba said:
We either travel in work time or claim travel time. I'd hate to be in position where neither was acceptable (while permanently employed).
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Our operators are permantly employed, company car and are only paid on site.
Glad I'm not, can spend more time traveling than on site. Home start do paid when I step out Tge front door.
 
I travel a fair bit for work, and my commute can be anything from 30mins to over 2hs each way. I just do what I need to do on site and leave. Fortunately for me I can do that, but I personally feel that I don't want my personal life affected by my commuting. I end up only doing about 10hrs a day on average if you include my commute averaging it to 1hr. Though some weeks I'll hit over 60hrs and sometimes even more. It's just part and parcel of some of the work I do. Ideally I'd love to have a 30 min commute - but I'd just end up doing even more work as I wouldn't have to worry about commuting.

If he's a contractor being billed out to a customer, then think of it from the customer's view point, if you need that person for 8hrs - would you want to pay if he's only been on site for 6? It's not the company employing the contracting firm's issue that the contractor has to commute far - as a customer you expect a service.

some contracting companies tie in travel time to their billing. Seems as though your friend's company doesn't.
 
I had a similar issue.

It was a tough one to deal with but I was really losing out because of it so I just played the system and clocked into the office at my start time (just to check emails or pick up a file any excuse really) before travelling to whichever site they needed me at.

They didn't like it but they were trying to get round things without a contract so I just did the same back and neither of us (legally) had a leg to stand on. Ended up with half my travel time taken into account which was a fair compromise to me.
 
I am in a position at work where I have to travel to customers etc but my first appointment is booked for 8am and I'm not expected to leave home before 7:30 regardless of how far it is. I usually have a massive drive home though.

But surely they cant expect someone to give them x amount of hours of their own time for free since the commute would be the same each day if he worked in an office.
 
awinchurch said:
But surely they cant expect someone to give them x amount of hours of their own time for free since the commute would be the same each day if he worked in an office.
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Of course they can, all though they still have a duty of care. So if you're traveling to much and have an accident your manager and the company can also be prosocuted.
It could be a way to force the issue if you want to go the hard route and lodge a safety issue, but doing such things turns it into a war most of the time and very few people are squeaky clean.
 
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Edward01 said:
What do you do Freefaller, if you don't mind me asking?
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Internal management consultancy and process improvement consultancy. Basically LEAN 6 sigma project management. And as most project management and problem solving methods you cant do it remotely. You have to go and see the process, talk to the people that work there and understand the problem. My role is less strategic than I'd like and more hands on, but it's ok for the moment, not ideal but it's alright.
 
The policy where i work is 45mins travel time unpaid (morn and night so 1.30 per day), then you claim overtime if needed, that was negotiated between company and union as reasonable.

In theory we can either stop work early or claim the overtime if we finish the job and arrive home late, although they don't like people to finish early, but on the flip side they don't mind paying the overtime.
 
Freefaller said:
Internal management consultancy and process improvement consultancy. Basically LEAN 6 sigma project management. And as most project management and problem solving methods you cant do it remotely. You have to go and see the process, talk to the people that work there and understand the problem. My role is less strategic than I'd like and more hands on, but it's ok for the moment, not ideal but it's alright.
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Can you come visit us.
 
I frequently have travelling of 4+ (sometimes 6) hours a day.

I am not hourly paid and dont get overtime.

Its just part of the job. But then this was made clear to me before I took my job, so its not an issue.

Sometimes I can build it into the normal working day. Sometimes I cant and end up with a 5am start and 10pm arrival home.

If its an akward location they put me up in a hotel the night before.
 
I do a fair bit of UK travel with work (I'm a trainer)
Some of my travel is done during the working day, sometimes I am expected to travel on, for instance, a Sunday afternoon.
It generally balances out that I don't suffer, and at the moment my worry is more me taking the **** with work than work taking the **** with me.
 
Basher said:
Your two statements contradict each other completely, surely :confused:
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How so? If all companies were legally obliged to count travel time as work time you'd soon see companies favouring workers who lived closer to where the place of employment is.

In my experience companies don't like out for more than they have to.
 
I get paid as soon as I start the engine in the morning till it turns off at home.

But my contract also states that my finish time is dependent on how far I am from home, so if I am an hour and a half from home, I finish up at 15:15.

However its swings and roundabouts, if an emergency call out comes in we are "ASKED" (yes asked) if we would like the overtime and we then book from 16:45 till we get home at Time and three-quarters. Best company I've ever worked for tbh (Big company based in Dorset).
Previous small company I worked for were a bunch of tight gits. I will never work for a small company again as they tarred the brush.
 
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