Query re: Travelling Time

liam8282

My query is:

Can an employer expect an employee to travel in their own time to a temporary place of work?

As far as I was aware, work related travel time was classed as work.

For example if a person lives in Leeds, but has to go to a London office for the day. Say 4-5 hours travel.

Can the employer dismiss the travelling time, therefore the employee would have to be at the London office at 9am, leave at 5pm, and suffer the travelling time themselves?

This has not been agreed as yet, but a friends employer is trying to force this onto the office.

Could anybody post any links up about this may have, I have tried to google it but can't find anything.

Andy_L

liam8282 wrote: »

My query is:

Can an employer expect an employee to travel in their own time to a temporary place of work?

Yes, unless your contract says otherwise.

woody01

liam8282 wrote: »

My query is:

Can an employer expect an employee to travel in their own time to a temporary place of work?

As far as I was aware, work related travel time was classed as work.

For example if a person lives in Leeds, but has to go to a London office for the day. Say 4-5 hours travel.

Can the employer dismiss the travelling time, therefore the employee would have to be at the London office at 9am, leave at 5pm, and suffer the travelling time themselves?

This has not been agreed as yet, but a friends employer is trying to force this onto the office.

Could anybody post any links up about this may have, I have tried to google it but can't find anything.

Of course they can dismiss it.
How many people are lucky enough to live across the road from their workplace?

I travel into London each day for work (just under an hour), then 20 minutes on the tube.
I'm not in work, therefore not working hours.

Googlewhacker

liam8282 wrote: »

My query is:

Can an employer expect an employee to travel in their own time to a temporary place of work?

As far as I was aware, work related travel time was classed as work.

For example if a person lives in Leeds, but has to go to a London office for the day. Say 4-5 hours travel.

Can the employer dismiss the travelling time, therefore the employee would have to be at the London office at 9am, leave at 5pm, and suffer the travelling time themselves?

This has not been agreed as yet, but a friends employer is trying to force this onto the office.

Could anybody post any links up about this may have, I have tried to google it but can't find anything.

Ultimately yes they can but they would have to go through the correct procedure as this is a fundemental change to the contract if they have been working in the same office for a prolonged period of time.

They would expect the employee to work the correct hours and travelling time would be down to them, however it would be reasonable to expect that the extra cost involved would be compensated by the employer (they should do this to show a more fairer change to the contract).

zfrl

I don't think the OP means travelling from home to normal place of work. I think they mean if you have to go to a different location.
Where I work they will give time off in lieu for any additional travelling time.

lucylucky

I would expect you to be paid for any extra travel time incurred.

If your normal commute was 1 hour and a journey needed to be made to a temporary place of work that was 2 hours then you should be paid that extra hour.

This would mean that you would have to start and finish later or have a shorter working day "in the office"

jimbms

No, an employee can only be expected to travel in their own time to the full time place of work and can only be expected to do the same if the temporary place of work is within a certain travel radius from the full time place. All travel times above this has to be paid for in addition to normal working hours but can be paid at normal time rate as opposed to overtime rate, the exception to this being travel to and from a course where accomodation is paid for by the employer. I say this from an employers point of view.

liam8282

Why? Is it not classed as work related travel?

I can understand if it was to a clients in the same city at least, but this is a 5 hour round trip.

I presume it is classed as work related travel, as it is only travel to and from meetings to see clients, or travel to other offices as requested by the employer.

When they took on employment it will have been under the impression of Leeds based, with some business travel to meetings etc, but surely not 5 hour trips to London in their own time.

It is recruitment type employment, so a certain level of local travel is involved to go out and see candidates etc.

I don't think the contract said anything specifically about this. They are just adding this in now, after quite a few years of the travel being classed as work related travel time.

It seems very harsh to me that an employer could suddenly do this.

I am sure I have seen something about this before, but can't find out when or where I saw it.

liam8282

Sorry, a few more posts popped up while I was replying.

lucylucky

It is work related travel and therefore should be paid.

And the travel expenses will have to be paid as well. Has that been mentioned?

liam8282

lucylucky wrote: »

It is work related travel and therefore should be paid.

And the travel expenses will have to be paid as well. Has that been mentioned?

I am not sure what they were trying to do with travel expenses, but I think they were trying to cut them too.

I would need to find out.