More potential costs for some employers if you have commuters….
To date if you have a mobile work force, it is accepted practice that their working time, and therefore their paid working hours, don’t begin until they arrive at the first job of the day and end when they leave the last job of the day.
In other words – travel time to and from the first and last jobs of the day are not considered to be working time. But this may not be the case for much longer apparently.
We do work with some businesses who pay employees if the travel time is greater than the time it would take the employee to get to the company HQ, but this is not a widespread practice in our experience. We also work with employers whose engineers are required to attend company premises at the start and end of each day to collect or return tools and materials – in which case the working day starts on arrival at and ends on return to HQ.
However for those employers who currently don’t start to count working time until an employee arrives on site at their first client of the day – things may be about to change.
Whilst not yet legally binding on businesses in the UK, there has been a European case recently where the Advocate General as ruled that this travel time should be considered as working time.
The reason being is that this travel is integral to the job role, and in many cases people are traveling much further than they would if they had a regular commute to the company’s premises.
We’ll keep an eye for more information as it become available but in the meantime if this might affect your business you may want to start considering what changes you’ll need to implement if this becomes a legal requirement.
Thank you to JFH Law for bringing this to our attention.
http://www.jfhlaw.co.uk/working-time-regulations-travel-work/