We hear an awful lot of questions about paying workers for their travel. So we thought that addressing the questions in a blog with some practical examples would be useful to our readers.
In general, employees must be compensated for their time spent traveling between job sites during the workday so long as the travel is both necessary and integral to the employee’s principal activity. Time spent either before or after the workday begins or ends will not be discussed in this post and generally isn’t subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
What does this mean? Let’s look at the definitions in order to understand when an employer is responsible for paying an employee for travel time.
The Workday
Federal law defines a workday as the period between the beginning and end of an employee’s principal activity or activities. Essentially, from the time the employee begins their day of work until the end of that day’s work is the workday.
Similarly, New York Labor Law defines working time as the time an employee is required to be available for work at a place prescribed by the employer such that the employee is unable to use the time productively for her or her own purpose.
Principal Activity
It’s pretty logical to say that a principal activity is an activity the employee is employed to perform. It’s also an activity that’s integral or indispensable to a work duty.
On Duty vs. Off Duty
An employee is on duty so long as she’s unable to use her time effectively for her own purposes.
An employee is off duty when she’s completely relieved from duty for a period long enough that she can use the time effectively for her own purposes.
As a rule of thumb, brief rest periods ranging from 5-20 minutes are not considered time off duty and must be counted as hours worked.
When an employee is on duty and traveling, she must be compensated for her travel time.
An employer must compensate the travel time an employee spent after an off-duty period but only for the necessary time between job sites.
For example: If your employee takes a lunch break in between two jobsites and stops for lunch in the opposite direction from the next jobsite, the employee is entitled to compensation for only the time it would have taken to get from the first job site to the next job site – not the time it takes to drive to the jobsite from his in-the-other-direction lunch destination.
When travel is necessary (or, stated differently, is integral and indispensable) to an employee’s principal activity, the employee must be compensated for the travel time.
Department of Labor Test
The Department of Labor provides a travel rule test for employers:
“when an employee is entering or exiting an off-duty period, travel time is compensable if it is part of the employee’s principal activity.”
Let’s apply these rules to some common scenarios.
Scenario 1:
An employee for a construction company drives from the company’s office in Buffalo to a worksite in Jamestown, NY.
- If the employee is required to report to the company’s office first before going to the worksite in Jamestown to receive instructions, perform work, or pick up tools for the job, then the employee must be compensated for the time spent travelling to Jamestown. However, if the worker doesn’t have to report to the company’s office, or does so for some other non-essential reason, then the employee doesn’t need to be compensated for the travel time from the company’s office to Jamestown – this would be considered home-to-work travel. This is also known as travel that is all in the day’s work.
Scenario 2:
A retail employee drives from the shop to multiple customers’ homes to deliver goods.
- Travel time must be compensated throughout the entirety of the deliveries – including time traveling from the store to the deliveries and from the last delivery back to the store. The deliveries are part of the principal activity of a retail store that are necessary, integral, and indispensable to the employee’s job duties. The employee is on duty the entire time because he isn’t able to use this time effectively for his own purposes because he must complete multiple deliveries for his job.
If the employee were to stop somewhere else during the course of the deliveries, he’s not required to be compensated for the extra time added during the stop or the extra travel time required if he makes a stop anywhere that is not on the way to his next delivery.
If an employee is making a few deliveries, taking a lunch break, then finishing the rest of the deliveries, he doesn’t need to be compensated for the time spent on his lunch break. The worker can choose to eat in his car or go somewhere to eat, but if he travels to a destination for lunch, he’s required to only be compensated for the time it would take to travel from the site of the last delivery to the site of the after-lunch delivery.
Scenario 3:
An employee at an accounting firm drives to the US Post Office on her way home to drop tax returns in the mail.
- The employee should be compensated up until the point where the tax returns are dropped off because she’s on duty. That is, she’s unable to use her time effectively for her own purposes up until that point. Additionally, the travel to the post office is necessary to the employee’s principal activities since she had to visit the post office in order to meet a mailing deadline.
Practice Pointer
Although these situations can get complicated, there are some useful resources available online. The United States Department of Labor has a fact sheet to help with travel questions that’s easily accessible.
If you have questions about paying workers for travel, feel free to reach out. We’re always here to help.
