When Traveling Employees Are Due Compensation (Or Not)

Welcome to Part 2 of our series on the Department of Labor’s three new opinion letters. Last week, we looked at the new opinion letter on FMLA intermittent breaks. If you missed that post, you can catch up here. Next up is the travel time letter.

The Facts

A crane repair company asked the DOL to clarify when it must pay its technicians for their travel time and asked for guidance on three scenarios. The letter examines all three scenarios and explains why the company must pay the technicians for that time (or not).

Scenario 1

An hourly technician travels on a Sunday by plane to an out-of-town training class and attends the class from Monday to Friday. The technician then flies back home on Friday or, if a Friday flight is unavailable, on Saturday.

The DOL explains that travel time is compensable work time when it cuts across the employee’s regular workday. Travel on public transportation outside of regular work hours, however, does not constitute worktime and thus does not require compensation. (The same goes for an employee who turns down a plane ticket and opts to drive instead.)

The letter also addresses what to do if the employee does not have a “recognized workday.” If the employee has an inconsistent schedule, the employer should try to ascertain the employee’s average work hours to determine if and when travel time must be compensated. The DOL recommends reviewing employee time records for average start and end times and paying the employee for travel time within that window.

Lastly, the DOL clarifies that the traveling employee is not due compensation for his commute between the training site and the hotel in which he stays during his trip. As far as the FLSA is concerned, this is no different from an employee commuting between work and home during a regular day.

Scenarios 2 & 3

In the second and third scenarios, an hourly technician travels in a company-owned vehicle from home either to the office to pick up an itinerary (Scenario 2) or to multiple customer locations (Scenario 3), after which he travels to and from other customer locations throughout the day. Depending on where the technician lives, the home-to-office commute can range from 15 minutes to one hour or more.

The DOL notes that the same principles apply to Scenarios 2 & 3 that applied in Scenario 1. A technician’s travel time from his home to his first stop of the day, whether it’s the office or a customer location, is generally not compensable other than in extraordinary circumstances (i.e., a customer site several hours away). Once the technician arrives at the first stop, however, he or she is on the clock and must be compensated for travel between stops throughout the workday.

If you have employees who travel during the workday or are sending an employee out of town for business and have questions, ask your lawyer for clarification on the front end about whether they are due compensation. Tune in next week for the third and final opinion letter.