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?

Commutes are obviously not work time
People who drive from client to client obviously should include this in their working hours though

I'm actually really enjoying the varying opinions on this.

Sorry @Pottedpalm - I did quote your message but it didn't work!

Also @BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz if the team meeting is in the middle of the day - why can’t you go in as normal and then leave as though you were a full day in the office?
The way you’re putting it is that management wants you to come in ‘only’ for a meeting in the middle of the day when in actual fact most people would go in, work the whole day and then leave. They’re not expecting people to go in for 2 hours and then rush home. Of course you’d need childcare in place etc but as it’s planned...

@Excilente

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.

What you have described is not "commuting" in the generally accepted sense. Peanut gallery 🤣

You are not working while commuting to work, I cannot see how you logically think your commenting time is “working”

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

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.

So basically they are working on redoing all the contracts? And maybe have different contracts depending on the department/job?

I think you will have to wait and see what they are coming up with.
If your contract says your are wfh from now on with the occasional meeting the. You might have a point.

However, I suspect they will do their outmost to avoid that. And also to avoid the issue of people moving away (because they are wfh) and then being unable to come to the office.

@vivainsomnia

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.

I don’t understand your first paragraph at all.

Only people working at a very low level are assessed on tasks. Most JDs for middle/high level roles these days are quite non specific and wide ranging. Objectives are agreed with KPIs and regular reviews are held to assess performance. None of this is dependent on presenteeism.

I don’t think you understand the kind of role or business OP works in at all.

I run a small charity which has always been home based. This was made very clear in people’s contracts. Prior to COVID any travel to meet clients, attend training etc was considered work time Obviously costs were reimbursed. . If someone logged in at 9 ( for example) then travelled to a meeting we would consider this to be at work. If people could work on the train that was a bonus but not expected.
All our risk assessments / insurances and policies reflected this.

@LateAtTate

Also *@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz* if the team meeting is in the middle of the day - why can’t you go in as normal and then leave as though you were a full day in the office? The way you’re putting it is that management wants you to come in ‘only’ for a meeting in the middle of the day when in actual fact most people would go in, work the whole day and then leave. They’re not expecting people to go in for 2 hours and then rush home. Of course you’d need childcare in place etc but as it’s planned...

Because in the same breath they are telling us not to be at the office unless necessary.

I can see what you're saying. In my workplace we often have to go to training/meetings in the afternoon in another venue. We work in the morning, then travel to the other venue, then return to the workplace after. It's all counted as within the working day. However, if the meeting is when you normally start work, then your worktime starts from when the meeting/training starts.

@GreyhoundG1rl and nor is what the OP is describing.. she's not 'commuting to work' she works from home. She's being called into another site for a meeting.

No different to if my Dad was called to head office (Which happened to be 3hrs drive away) for meetings.. i can assure you, he didnt add those 6hrs spent driving there back onto his work day.

I have to say the number if people who are astonished you would see that as working time without actually thinking first is astonishing.

Maybe many people have no experience of travel being part of work. But it’s funny to see how many posters have explained WHY it is considered work in some cases and they are just ignored.

I have to say the number if people who are astonished you would see that as working time without actually thinking first is astonishing

I know. And I did put a disclaimer to hold off before deciding until after I had properly explained the scenario.

Because in the same breath they are telling us not to be at the office unless necessary.

but being called for a meeting makes it "necessary".

Good grief, being a manager is painful.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz but in your OP you put 'if and when I choose to go into the office?' Meaning that if you suddenly decided on a whim to go in you'd count it as working?
In your case the AIBU is a rhetorical question because your team has a culture of 'working till the work gets done'. So while 'in principle' counting your commute as U - the colleague who commuted 5 hours (and gets the whole day of) will produce the same output as the one who commuted an hour because of your team culture. Therefore while I may think on principle it's U in practice it doesn't matter at all.
My team does this to an extreme. I have left work at random times, worked until 2 a.m. depending on my mood and turned up at 2p.m. the next day :D manager doesn't give a fig as long as output is there.

This new world of highly individualised work patterns is a skill of management ability. Good managers will be able to spot a pisstaker on the quality of their work alone, not what time they come in. Of course dependent on the type of work the team does

*A TEST of management ability good lord

Assuming your employment contract still says your place of work is the office, you would be unreasonable to count the commuting time as work done.

It's not that your employer is expecting you to spend extra time commuting on the day they want you in, they're expecting you to spend less time commuting on the days they don't want you in. You're still winning by a long margin overall.

My choosing to go in on the odd ocassion is to use a particular item which is better than what I have at home. Eg a monthly report which is massive - doing that at the office I can put it on the big screen which makes it easier to report on as I can see everything I need rather than scrolling/tabbing through the document.

Just an example. I dont have to be at the office to do it but it's much more efficient. I have to pre book a timed slot as, like I said, they dont want us there. So I go, do this piece of work in half the time it would take on my small home device. Then I go back home to do the rest of my work

I work from home 100% of the time. The office is about 5 hours away on the train. I go there once a year. I do count that as work time but it's not a commute, it's a special journey.

Eh no. What matters to your employers (very reasonably) will be how long you are actually working for. They are being extremely reasonable in flexibility on how this can be done.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz in that case you can't be counted as a fully remote worker.
You can't have it both ways.
Either you can do your job completely remotely, are classified as a remote worker and are in the office rarely for a team meeting (in which case you are justified in counting it as part of work)
If you have the flexibility to go into the office when you need to (decided by you) then it's unreasonable to count the commute time as work time. Because somebody else could then decide to go into the office more often than necessary, coming from as far away as possible and then claim they were doing lots of work.
Again we're discussing the principle and not the practice.

This is definitely an interesting discussion though !

you can only count travel time as work hours in certain circumstances - one of which is if your contract says home based and doesn't include any face to face meeting.

The working time directive also has some specifics about commute hours and when they count as work etc.

If its two meetings a month I would probably say fair enough for having he benefit of working from home the rest of the time

It is perhaps something that will need addressing going forward as one of the consequences of what we have been through

You are not commuting to meetings you are travelling to a meeting from your normal place of work ( or your home)

When your normal place of work was your office, did you have to work. extra hours to make up for the travelling time to meetings? If not then travelling into that office for a meeting is not commuting. However if you are going to be based In the office all day then it commuting and the travel time does not count as work . It does get a bit difficult if you commute in for a morning and then travel home to work for the afternoon ( or vice versa). In that instance I might split the afternoon travel and count half of it as work but others may have a different view