To start counting my commuting time into my weekly hours at work?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

Hear me out before you vote I know on paper it's probably YABU but I have my reasons.

My department has been 100% home based since 20 March 2020 due to covid. As of April this year, my employer has formally introduced a "work when, where and how you like" policy. Basically, as long as you do your work, great. Directors are leaving it to Department Managers to work out how that looks/works for their individual teams.

My work and that of everyone on my team, can and is being done 100% remotely. Any face to face / office based working is done on a want rather than need basis.

I currently split my 37.5 hours as:- Mon-Fri I work 8.15-2.45, then I do the school run. I then have 5 hours still to do, and I do these split across Mon-Fri any days/times after the school run that works for me and my family. I take into account all meetings and have never declined one due to the way I work my hours. My manager is completely happy with how I work.

If and when I choose to go into the office I count my commute within that. So I still work on the hours above. Obviously if anything pressing is needed, I dont think "well I have done my 37.5 so I'm not doing any more" I just work til the task is done.

Management are now introducing a fortnightly face to face meeting (still tbc due to outbreaks).

AIBU to keep counting my commuting time as work? Especially on days where I am asked to travel into the office at a random time (say 11am) for 1.5hrs?

Oh yes.
She manages to clean everything you ask her of

It’s shit like this hats going to put an end to flexibility.

@copperpotsalot

YABU very unfair on those who live closer to work and would therefore be putting in a longer day of work

Lol

Because now we are also supposed to take into account where people live to be sure ‘we are fair’.
Other people have the opportunity to move further away if they want

@Sometimesfraught82

Oh yes. She manages to clean everything you ask her of

don't be silly, it's not the same. In your scenario, it's the OP who would be paying, of course commuting would not be acceptable work time then 😂

@OffRampHilton

It’s shit like this hats going to put an end to flexibility.

Could you explain why @OffRampHilton

By your logic shops hould start unlocking at 10am as although staff all started at 9 they would still be commuting ...

If you're working on your commute then yes, they should be included, if your not working no they shouldn't be. Its literally as simple as that.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz I think you are confused (and confusing others) with your defining the travel as ‘commuting’. To be clear - you cannot include ‘commuting’ in your working hours - but I don’t think the travel you describe is a commute.. The answer to your question depends on where your defined place of work is situated and exactly what your contract says.

Back in the old days (long before COVID), I worked in a job where my ‘office’ was my home, although I was mostly visiting clients at their offices. All of my travel including travel to the offices of my employer was counted as working hours and not commuting - my commute was the walk from my bedroom to my kitchen table. But this was in my contract. This is common for mobile workers.

You cannot unilaterally decide this - you need to talk to HR about your contract. There are also legal and tax implications to being permanently based at home. This must be formalised.

Also your pattern of working is irrelevant to your question (and is adding to the confusion).

@khakiandcoral

How do you not see that the OP’s employer is also paying her for the commuting time?!

I think this is yet another illustration of the fact that, if working from home is your new normal, you need a new contract. I imagine pre Covid that someone with an 11am meeting in their office would commute in their own time, to arrive at their normal time, and commence work. The meeting would then take place during the day.
I don’t see how it can be justified that Commuting time is counted as work time. What about colleagues who have taken on a larger mortgage so as not to have a long commute? How are they to be recompensed? I think it’s taking the piss myself!

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz
What if someone chose to live far enough that getting to the office and back took a whole working day - does that mean that every time you have a team meeting they get a holiday?

If you know that your job requires you to be in the office and choose to live far away - then the fact that you take ages to get there is your problem, not the employer’s.

the cleaner scenario

If my whole job each day was to attend X place of work for every contracted hour (as per cleaner) then of course communting is not included. I've said that upthread.

If an employee of mine was working 100% from their home (eg if I had a PA), and now I have decided that they have to come to my home 1 hour a fortnight in the middle of their working day then of course I would include them travelling within their work hours. Because I have asked them to do 1 hours work in another location which takes X amount of time off them in traveltime.

It's completely different to me booking someone self employed for 2 hours whose whole 2 hours is based at my home.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

the cleaner scenario

If my whole job each day was to attend X place of work for every contracted hour (as per cleaner) then of course communting is not included. I've said that upthread.

If an employee of mine was working 100% from their home (eg if I had a PA), and now I have decided that they have to come to my home 1 hour a fortnight in the middle of their working day then of course I would include them travelling within their work hours. Because I have asked them to do 1 hours work in another location which takes X amount of time off them in traveltime.

It's completely different to me booking someone self employed for 2 hours whose whole 2 hours is based at my home.

How did you feel about commuting and hours pre lockdown?

Has your commuting now increased or reduced from when everything was “normal”?

@MaMaD1990

If you're working on your commute then yes, they should be included, if your not working no they shouldn't be. Its literally as simple as that.

How would this work, unless every moment is logged? The OP can’t work while walking to the station. What happens when the train is packed and standing room only? Or the train is cancelled and she has to schlep across town? Travelling to a meeting with a client is a different matter entirely.

Presumably because it’s a standard employment contract. I suspect in a few years time hours will only be specified for jobs that demand attendance in a specific workplace like retail or hospitality. Lots of tech companies, particularly new start ups no longer specify hours in their contracts
This is a dangerous area because you then associate a salary to what is for many professions intangible, both in defining the role and monitoring that it is being carried out to expectation.

A good employer should identify tasks that are reasonable to be carried out in a good manner within the hours stated in the contract. If people are able to carry it all out in less hours, then the job description is not fit for purpose.

[quote NameChange2PostThis]**@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz I think you are confused (and confusing others) with your defining the travel as ‘commuting’. To be clear - you cannot include ‘commuting’ in your working hours - but I don’t think the travel you describe is a commute.. The answer to your question depends on where your defined place of work is situated and exactly what your contract says.

Back in the old days (long before COVID), I worked in a job where my ‘office’ was my home, although I was mostly visiting clients at their offices. All of my travel including travel to the offices of my employer was counted as working hours and not commuting - my commute was the walk from my bedroom to my kitchen table. But this was in my contract. This is common for mobile workers.

You cannot unilaterally decide this - you need to talk to HR about your contract. There are also legal and tax implications to being permanently based at home. This must be formalised.

Also your pattern of working is irrelevant to your question (and is adding to the confusion).[/quote]
@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz Also pp are wrong about what you do on ‘your commute’ being relevant- if your designated place of work is your home but you are required to travel, the travel is part of your working day and you are only required to work during the travel if feasible eg in a taxi taking calls. If you eg drive you are not required to complete any work during the travel, but are still at work.

Depends on your contract. Getting to your work base is in your own time. However, if they’ve altered your contract to say your base is home then fair enough travel time should be in work time. Businesses can’t have it both ways if they are expecting you to use your own private house for the purposes of their business activities!

I seriously think some of these people replying have never ever EVER worked as part of a business 'wfh' or 'fieldforce' staff.

My dads job involved working from home.. it also involved driving the length and breadth of the country, and sometimes to europe to deal with clients, entertaining foreign clients visiting the country and frequent nights away from home in hotels, on planes/ferrys.

He was paid to do a job, if he deducted those hundreds of hours a month spent driving to visit clients from those working hours, and made them up with his wfh 'office' hours he'd have never had time to sleep.

OP.. i think you have your answer, and should ignore the peanut gallery of stupid responses.

IF your job is currently 100% WFH, and you're being requested to go to another site for a meeting, then count the travel time to said meeting as part of your work day.

Yabu

Commuting to the office is a necessary evil when the job can only be done from inside the office.

We have, for the past year, done all our work from home. The employer is bringing in official changes which will mean this is now the norm. Thus, commuting to the office will be drastically reduced, but is likely to have to happen at their request in the middle of the working day. They are telling us to

1. Stay home/away from the office as much as possible
2. Attend these short middle of the day fortnightly face to face meetings.

They dont want us in the office full days/weeks. They want us there the bear minimum if at all.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Someone who comes in at 9, works at their desk with no distraction until 5pm, with 1/2 h lunch

How many 100% office based staff can genuinely say that they are 100% efficient during these set hours? No non work conversations with a colleague? No stopping to look at someone's baby pics or take part in some sweepstake that's taking place that week?

someone who works from 8:15 to 2:45, probably takes lunch during that time

I grab an apple and a cereal bar from the kitchen around noon and eat them at my desk. I even make a hot flask of tea before I log on at 8.15 which lasts me all day (mainly because I never finish a cup before it goes cold).

Spends time browsing sites

I post on Mumsnet as and when I have chance or reach a point where I can pause, if I feel I want to.

has to interrupt whatever they are doing to pick up their kids

Incorrect. I take my allocated 30 mins lunch break to do the school run.

And work afterwards, with the distraction of kids in the background

Lots of people work into the evening to pick up flexible working. My kids do not distract me - I have an office I sit in at home to work. We spend a little time together after the school run, then they know I go back to work. As I said upthread I only have to complete 5 hours of work per week while they are home (though I do more as needed). My husband is home 45mins after we get in from school. My children do not interfere with the hours I work from home.

I havnt read your other posts on other threads op so am taking you at face value and I am broadly supportive of you. tje kind of questions which are asking you to justify your work tome like this are U imo. an employer/employee relationship is a 2 way street. I personally would play this one by ear.

@NameChange2PostThis I have seen contracts like yours. The difference is that as the job itself involved travel (e.g you visiting clients at offices) you are compensated for that, with your employer’s office counted as similar (because you met clients there too I presume?)
I have also seen similar for people who work across several sites on a regular basis.
Normally it’s because the amount of travel is outside of the employee’s control. And for fully remote workers with remote contracts it makes sense.

However OP isn’t a remote worker and management has ‘left it up’ to team discretion. Therefore she’s being U.
Now if she wants to negotiate a new contract as a remote worker then she Isn’t.
In the end though it all depends on output. If OP is quietly counting her commute time as ‘work’ and there’s no drop in productivity who cares? I’m just coming at it from the principle of the situation.

What in the world OP....... YABVU do they know you do that 😂😂😂😂 madness

Well I would count my hours commuting, because I'd be on calls, writing emails and reports etc on the way to and from work, so for me those 4 hours each week were working. My manager was fine with it because I would send him a message when I left to say I was online and available. If I were sat on the train watching Netflix and doing nothing, then no, those hours do not count as 'working time', because I wouldn't be working...