That replying to work emails on the train IS working?

[managedmis]

Jury seems to be out on this one at work so thought I'd ask on her.

I commute 2 hours per day to get to work, an hour there and back. I have my work email on my phone and reply /send emails when I'm on the train. Note that my role is admin based, so always loads of emails to respond to etc.

I consider that this is work.

What do you think?

The YABU argument here that bothered me most was "commuting can't count as work time" even if you spent all the commuting time doing work things.

If commuting can't count as work time then there is no such thing as working at home, too. I'm not sure that "being out of the office" isn't equally exempt from being counted as 'work' under that logic, even if you're doing work things the whole time (like meetings that are 100% part of your work duties).

You're not seriously suggesting that a few emails on a train on a commute you chose to do is at all comparable to someone with a work from home agreed pattern?

I loved working flexible hours in an old job. I loved having some of my time at home. This thread shows that some people are piss takers who'll do anything to justify cutting their working week on the sly.

The dictionary definition of few = 2 or 3.
Did OP say she only answered 2 or 3 emails.

I understood OP to mean that she spent the entire commuting time answering work emails. That might be only 2 or 3 email, I suppose. I can spend 40 minutes composing a single email & assembling the parts & info to answer effectively and choose the right phrasing coz professional speak doesn't come easily to me. I guess OP needs to clarify.

It's whether it's your choice to email then or not. If you have to be on email, then tou're working. If you're choosing to do it and then trying to claim back those hours then YABU.

I used to have a collegue who had a work phone and would reply to emails and texts from school parents during evenings, early mornings and weekends, then moan about it. She could have just turned it off.

Can you really work properly on a train? Surely by the time you have found a seat and set up the lap top, at least 10 mins of your hour has gone. Then the time you have to get up to let someone past you at each stop, the distraction of a toddler kicking your seat, a group of teenagers shouting to each other, the inspector asking for your ticket, the person next to you also trying to make work phone calls just inches from your ear, all add to the lack of efficiency.
It hardly compared to an hour at your desk(in the office or working from home), head down, getting work done.
As a manager i might allow it occasionally for employees who I also see working late sometimes, but not as a regular part of the contracted hours.

Most of my job involves answering emails. They require complicated legal analysis and judgment calls. Sometimes I'm amending document that have arrived by email and sending them back by email. Privacy aside, for which there is a policy that sets out what is and isn't permitted, I can do this just as easily on a train as I'm the office or at home. In fact there are fewer distractions on a train. I don't generally travel by train so it doesn't arise but when I'm working out whether I can commit time to something happening in our Leeds office, for example, u don't consider the 2 hour, comfortable train journey with wifi connection as dead time, from a work perspective as I can get loads done on the train. I'm not saying I never need to go into the office, but my work trusts me to manage flexible working responsibly, and it's give and take. People need to move into the 21st century.

It can depend who you are as well, my previous line manager works from home a couple of days a week and a lot of that is spent forwarding global emails to their team with the line please read added. That person is also allowed to arrive after rush as is "working off site" ie forwarding global emails.
Funnily enough if I (and some others) am seen reading work emails at work I get told "you don't have time for that as you have xxxxxx to be done by a certain time."

It's quite disappointing that a forum full of working parents (often female) are do steadfastly in favour of a bums on seats culture. This is how men get ahead in the workplace, guys and why jobs that for around children are hard to come by. It's not hard to work around children. It's hard to work around outdated attitudes of what work is.

YeOldeTrout that's not accurate though.

For example, you can not undertake all your worn duties on a train. Because of privacy for a start. You should teleconference or even take certain calls which you could at home or in the office.

It's not exactly like working at home or at the office.

And again, it depends on the employer. Wether this can be counted.

Some will say 'no, we need you to be in the office 8-4 or if working from home 8-4 because you need to ab available between those times, excluding breaks to be able to take any call or work on anything even if sensitive'

Some employers are fine with it.

longestlurkerever
I'd say that's different as work as sending you to a different office to the travel is work time and if you've got appropriate work to do then that's reasonable (I did the same when I got the train to London sometimes).

In the OP situation she's trying to argue a reduction in her working week for doing some emails on a normal commute that she's chosen to undertake.

I used to have a collegue who had a work phone and would reply to emails and texts from school parents during evenings, early mornings and weekends, then moan about it. She could have just turned it off.
I've known a few of those people.
They choose to make themselves available out of the working day, but then complain about it endlessly or try to argue they should have shorter working days than others because they do all this emailing and admin out of work.
Funnily enough, almost everyone else in similar positions with similar workload manages just fine without emailing out of the day, but out of hours emailer seems to think they work longer hours than everyone and needs a gold star or a free pass.

It's quite disappointing that a forum full of working parents (often female) are do steadfastly in favour of a bums on seats culture. This is how men get ahead in the workplace, guys and why jobs that for around children are hard to come by. It's not hard to work around children. It's hard to work around outdated attitudes of what work is.

I think that is fundamentally incorrect. Of course female parents can compete in offices where bums on seats is important. Just as much as Male parents in that environment can.

The problem is the attitude that alot of couples have that the mans career is more important and the woman takes the hit.

You see it here, on one thread a female poster siad their husband was a gp so had no flexibility, so had made career sacrifices. A few posts before a women posted saying she was a gp and so did have flexibility and was her husband and they shared responsibility.

I competed with men in my work places. Some had kids some didnt. I succeed because neither me or exh felt that childcare was my, sole, responsibility and his career was more important.

I do think employers should be more flexible. But also understand their concerns. But the larger issue for women is working on the basis that the woman is the default childcare.

Yes exactly. You can't do everything, but you can do useful work. So it depends on your role whether it's something that can be compartmentalised in that way. But if your commute is eg 7am-9am and people don't arrange work calls before 9am and you in theory have flexible working hours, then there's no particular reason why 7am -9am on the train would be less productive than 7am-9am in the office or at home. Whether you can actually count hours between 7am and 9am as working hours at all depends on whether your work requires (formally or informally) a certain amount of "contact time". But that should be for good reason - eg you are in a customer facing role or to attend meetings or whatever- not just "I don't trust you to be working unless I can keep an eye on you".

It's quite disappointing that a forum full of working parents (often female) are do steadfastly in favour of a bums on seats culture
It has nothing to do with bums on seats culture or women in the workplace.
The question (once we finally got clarification) was about whether someone can justify seeking a reduction to their working day due to emailing on the commute they chose to do.

Not about a proper flexible working pattern with work, not about agreeing a set off site working policy, not about working from home, not about compressed hours to have a day off.

To suggest women don't get as far because some people think it's cheeky to class some out of work emails on a train as reason to reduce your working day is a bit much

For me working on train is just about as efficient as working at home. Same dodgy VPN. Only one small screen rather than the 2-3 screens I get at work. Same inability to undertake truly productive meetings with colleagues (telecons are tolerable, but face to face meetings achieve hugely more). Same laptop that can't view all documents (some documents are authorised to be viewed ONLY on work desktop) & is underpowered to handle large documents especially on iffy network connection. Laptop also may not have all the software I use at work. I don't use scanner/printer at home coz I don't want to pay for staples, paper & ink. So basically only available in office.

wants to reduce their working day because they've tapped on their phone a bit on the train

Wow, so "tapping on the phone a bit" counts as work if done in the office and not if on the train?

I have worked in jobs where I had flexibility to work from home, sometimes go into the office in the evening or at weekends to hit project deadlines. But I did that willingly because I could then take a long lunch/leave early when I wanted to. And I was paid a good salary for it.

I wouldn't do fixed hours and then work in my own time too.

Well I agree with that too tilltheend and both DH and I work part time and from home equally. But they're not mutually exclusive statements. Women being the default part time/flexible worker and part time/flexible working being undervalued in the work place are both contributers to the pay gap.

I said right at the beginning that it's not black and white and will depend on your role but my point is that in a negotiation with an employer about flexible working you're not coming from s position if seri strength. Yes you've "chosen" to do the commute but equally the company wants to attract the broadest possible talent and particularly in my job we are looking to increase diversity by recruiting people from further afield and trying to sell the job to them as something we can make work, together. As I said, one of my team lives three hours away and often works on his commute. I leave it more or less up to him to manage his time and he's one of my most prolific and high performing members of staff.

Position of zero strength. Obviously I wouldn't personally do train working from a smart phone as I have fat fingers! But I have a work laptop

Yes you are working
It that’s your choice. You don’t have to look at the emails. Read a book instead. If you can’t manage your workload during office hours then you should be more organised or speak to your manager and you certainly shouldn’t be paid for it

I depend what your working arrangements are? I have quite a bit of fluidity and flexibility in my work, count travelling time going to places as working time because I really work, write emails, reposts, etc. I do not count travelling back as I am really tired and zonk out reading the papers/online etc. But then, I work from home quite a bit and, although pay is fairly rubbish, I have the freedom of arranging my working hours as I see fit, and that includes working in travelling time.

Obviously we will have to agree to disagree but if you go into business class on a long distance train it is full of people heads down with files and laptops. I am sure they consider themselves working. The argument that it's different if work "sends" you there assumes you are in a role where people"send" you places, rather than you making your own decisions about how best to achieve your work objectives. If people in senior positions can work effectively in trains then I don't see it's particularly relevant that the OP's train happens to be one that is taking her home. The bigger question is how flexible her role is -is it one where you can legitimately do all your email admin at the ends of the day or is it one where really you need to be available to do whatever is the priority at the time, which could require being available for calls etc? It's one for negotiation.

testing
A train at commuter time is not the same as an office.

When I went to London on the train, work would book me in first class, it was quiet and because the journey was a work journey then it was on work time and I would do work My own personal commute isn't work time.

As I've said, I loved working flexible hours and I loved the ability to work from home. It's not that I'm against flexible working, far from it. I'm just suitably skeptical about the way some people try to argue their working patterns as being so much more than anyone else's to argue a reduction in working hours (which it is if they want their commnite to count in their working hours).

The OP was most reluctant to give people the answers required to say about it counting as work or not, only to finally confirm what we'd all worked out: they're arguing that their commute comes out of their working day (usually agreed flexible working patterns are agreed in advance with managers and remote drawn up etc, not someone choosing to work extra hours in their own time and then arguing they should have their hours cut because of it).
Then (quite conveniently if I remember correctly) hasn't come back to explain the nature of their post, the company, other similar positions etc. They've not said whether their job has a reasonable expectation of some contact out if hours. They've not specified whether work have told them they should be working on their commute. In other words they've done all they can to get people riled up about how people can work anywhere not just the office and so on whilst conveniently ignoring multiple posters who are, quite correctly, saying that it almost entirely depends on the nature of their post, what their contract is, salaried Vs hourly paid, whether their job is one with a reasonable amount of contact out of working hours and so on.

In my experience people who do that in the workplace are, more often than not, trying to find an easy ride.

What does your employment contract say? Has your employer agreed to it?

If commuting can't count as work time then there is no such thing as working at home

they are 2 completely different things!

If I ask someone: have you send that report/ finish the budget and the answer is: yes, here it is. That's fine. I don't care where it has been done (not going into the confidentiality issues...)
If I ask someone: you have done your required 9 to 5 today? I will not accept a "I was in the train from 9 to 10, and left my desk at 4 but was "working" in the train again.

2 different kind of roles, 2 completely different issues.

BUT, sadly, for SOME people working from home means not needing childcare, doing chores, helping your partner with chores and kids...
and these people really hurt the position of others! I work from home a lot.

It depends on your role and the culture more generally. If it's a clock-in clock-out culture where you are expected to be at your desk for a certain hours each day then no, it probably wouldn't count. But if you're measured on output, then working on the train will be increasing your output and that's what matters.

I suspect, given the question is being asked, it's probably the former. In which case you should stop using that time for work and get yourself some good books or podcasts to pass the journey instead.

I suspect it depends entirely on your work and seniority. An office based admin assistant/receptionist who answers a few emails on the train is less likely to be allowed to reduce to a nine day fortnight than Director of HR who works well over their contracted hours anyway.

It is likely to build goodwill so when the person asks to leave a couple of hours early occasionally the answer is more likely to be yes, isn’t it? A huge difference between building goodwill and insisting that you do ten hours less a week because of a two hour commute when you answer emails - unless you are a designated home worker.