Determining when and how much to pay employees for their travel and commuting time is a complex subject, governed by Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations.
Employers need to know what is considered working time when employees are traveling; how to deal with weekend time that may combine business and personal travel; and how to handle requests for travel reimbursements when company vehicles are used for "commuting."
1. If an employee travels on company business outside of his/her regular work hours, is that time considered "working" time?Depending on the circumstances, employees may, indeed, be entitled to compensation for that time. Whether employees' travel time must be counted as hours worked hinges on the kind of travel involved:
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Commuting: Employees who travel to and from their homes to work are commuting, which isn't working time. The same rule applies even if the worksite changes every day.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I drive a company car. My office is my home. i am a filed auto adjuster and travel to locations to insepct vehicles. Is the time from my home office to my first assignment considered commute time? Are the miles considered commute time? I may travel 2 hours or 30 minutes to the first claim.
Can an employer make you take a company truck home so they don’t have to pay drive time to first job and back after last job. I also haveto log in on a laptop to dispatch myself on job tickets in the morning and get job locations and details. I only live 15 min from office.
If I’m an hourly employee driving a company truck to the plant where I load for the day, do I get paid from my house to the plant? If not what would happen if I got into an accident in a company truck? Southern California is where I’m located.
I am a painting contractor in Auberry Ca. and some of my employees drive to the shop and catch a ride in one of the work trucks so they dont have to drive there own vehicle to the job site. Am i required to pay them travel time?Also I have two emplyees that drive work trucks from the shop to the job site and back. They dont load anything they just drive my trucks. Do I have to pay then travel time ? Our job site locations change daily or weekly. Most job sites are within half an hour.
Thank you Pd
This article is very informational, but what about the circumstance where an employee meets at an ‘agreeable’ location (that is not the office) and gets a ride in the company truck to the jobsite? Our jobsites change weekly and sometimes are 2 hours away from the office. If an employee’s home is ‘on the way’, we offer to pick them up at an accessible location (ie park-and-ride) so they don’t have to pay for the extra gas/car maintenance to get to that jobsite. In which category would that fall? Thank you.