Travel Pay - Does Anyone Do This? Plz Help

GabPHR

I'd like to pose a question regarding Travel pay for hourly employees and appreciate your assistance.

Does anyone out there go beyond the DOL reg's regarding Travel Pay for Hourly EEs? If you do, what made you decide to do so? What have been the consequences? Could we get in trouble if we went beyond what the reg's say and pay for all travel time over 8 hours in a M-F 9-5 workday?

moneyman

We have always worked under the premise that it is okay to go beyond the rules to give the employee more benefit. The problem is to make sure that you apply the rule consistently and treat all employees equally. You set a precedence that employees will rely on if you being paying additional time. Perhaps you may be able to find a guideline to separate types of employees that will allow some to be paid and not other (I can't think of any off hand, but perhaps your industry might lend itself to distinctions), but if I decided to pay the additional, I would do it across the board.

Lori B

I agree with Moneyman. You can always do more, just do it consistently.

Put some serious thought into this one before you open the checkbook. You need guidelines in place to prevent abuse. It doesn't take ees long to figure out that if they take the later flight and sleep, they get lots of cash.

moneyman

We generally don't have a lot of hourly employees making overnight trips, but in the event we do, we have administrative personnel "assist" with the travel arrangements. What this means is that we basically tell them what options they have on flights in/out. We book the reservations also, it is easier on the employee than expecting them to out-of-pocket and get reimbursed. When we book, we have more control over when/how they travel. It doesn't always works because there are some who always have some kind of problem with what you offer, but we feel that we are pretty generous. If a seminar starts early morning, they go out the night before. If a seminar continues a full day, they do not have to return until the next morning.

Pork

Make sure when the ee is driver, service person pumping the gas, cleaning the windshield, emptying the ashtray, map reader etc., then these employees are allowed to work while travelling and they must be paid for the time in which they spend during the travel time involved in the conduct of travel. An ee must be nothing more than a person occupying a seat in the vehicle going to a place of work. The worker/driver must be paid for every hour that he is driving. the other postings were oriented on travel by commerical carrier and my type is the most likely event for ee travel and travel pay. Pork

wiremanufacturer

We are fairly generous with our travel pay. If you are traveling out of town we start pay from the time you leave the plant to the time you reach the destination. We only pay for time that you attend seminar/training, etc and then pay for time to drive home. This is on overtnight trips. If it is a day trip we pay from time you leave to time you return.
This is more than you are required. You do not have to pay ee for travel time outside of their normal working hours.