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Travelling time is working time!

by | May 25, 2016 | News

It was recently held by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that travel to and from a temporary workplace from home is to be classed as Working time for the purposes of the Working Time Directive.

The case of Federacion de Servicios Privados del sindicato Comisiones Obreras v Tyco Integrated Security SL and another held that workers who have no fixed or habitual workplace should be able to count the time spent travelling from home to the first customer and from the last customer back to their homes as ‘working time’.

Background

The case involved security technicians who used a company vehicle to travel from home to a location where they would carry out installation or maintenance of security systems and once the job was complete to then return home.  They were paid from the time they started their first job and finished their last, but not for the travel time they incurred in travelling to and from those jobs to their homes.   This is common practice for most employers in the UK to not pay employees for travel time if they are working at different site locations.

Working time

In light of the above case, its important that you are aware that travel time for mobile workers will now count towards the 48 hour limit on the working week. This can have an impact on rota’s, shift patterns and your wage bill. You should therefore review the working hours of your mobile workers, monitor the hours, working time opt outs and consider the impact of any changes you may on productivity and employee morale.

If you feel this affects your workforce, please don’t hesitate to give us a call to discuss further.

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AGP have used Spire HR Solutions Limited for numerous matters relating to HR issues for both ourselves and clients of the practice. I have always found them to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful and to be very responsive to our needs.

Spire is now the practice’s first point of contact for any HR issues we encounter and I would certainly recommend them to anyone in need of assistance with any HR matters.

 

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I have been pleased with work Ellen has done for us and would not hesitate to recommend her to others. She provides a high quality, professional service and is very responsive to the needs of a small, growing organisation.

 
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