Time in lieu for travelling to work

[Snyder86]

Maybe someone can provide with some help or guidance.

I work for an online company where everyone works from home. Every couple of months the company does a company wide "get together" where they rent out a large accommodation and we are all expected to travel to this location and work together usually for 2/3 days.

The travel itself is reimbursed for mileage and any expenses. However travel time is not. We have a work meeting coming up in a couple of weeks and the location has been set at a whopping 6 hour drive from my home. After alot of persuasion the company has agreed to pay for 1 nights accommodation on the Sunday night so I can travel down on the Sunday afternoon. Instead of having to wake up at 2am to travel 6 hours in order to be onsite to work at 8am. However when we finish work on Wednesday 5pm. I'm expected to drive home for 6 hours after a full day work then be available to start the next day at 8am.

In my work contract it does state something along the lines of "you must be flexible as from time to time, you may be required to work reasonable additional hours for the proper and effective performance of your duties."

I think it is under this clause that they are saying that travel time is not reimbursable. However something about this seems inaccurate. All employees work from home, this isn't a choice. It's how the company runs, we don't have a work office as everything is based online. So my home is my fixed place of work. Surely travel to a compulsory meeting, if the mileage and expenses are covered than the travel time to and from the location should also be covered? I appreciate that in some contracts it says something along the lines of "additional work is not paid" when you are a salaried employee. However you can't be expected to work for free so in these instances you are given time back in lieu which is what I would have thought to be appropriate in my circumstances however I am unable to find any information to either support or dispute this.
It's a shot in the dark but maybe someone here has more of an idea as to whether I am out of line to ask for the 12 hours in total I will be driving to be given back in lieu.
Thanks in advance

I don’t think the travel time is reimbursed or given back as time in lieu, many jobs expect you to travel for meetings or conferences now and then. I’d only expect reimbursement if you have to stay in a hotel or travel abroad.

@TheSmallAssassin

I am a salaried manager (but my contract specifies a certain number of hours per week, don't most?) If I have to travel further than my daily journey to work, then the extra time is generally counted as TOIL. Seems the fairest way to do it, to me, but there are always a few on here who want a race to the bottom.

For those trying to argue about the evening time, you are free to spend that as you please, as you normally do, so that's no different than your usual working day.

Exactly the same for me. For those who don't have a fixed office base - so contracted homeworkers, or those who split their time between two or more sites - we have a 'reasonable travel time expectation' of 90 minutes, and anything beyond that would be TOIL.

The "I don't get that so nobody else should either / consider yourself lucky your employer hasn't chopped your legs off without anaesthetic and made you walk there on the stumps OP" posters are so predictable but so tedious.

Not sure you’ll have much luck asking to be paid for travel time, but I thought under working time regulations you had to have 11 hours rest time between shifts.
Does the working time directive apply after Brexit?

I had a job involving a lot of travel, occasional overnights etc. Food, accommodation and travel costs were on expenses, travel time wasn't. I was deemed at a grade where I wouldn't be paid overtime etc, though I was fairly junior in reality.

@VeryLongBeeeeep Why is it tedious? People are just sharing their own experiences in the workplaces - and it seems that many don't get time in lieu for long travel.

Why is factual information tedious? The OP can certainly ask for time in lieu, but should have realistic expectations about getting it, IYSWIM.

I think it depends on the grade you work at. In my previous role in banking, I regularly (sometimes weekly) had to travel to London from the north of the country. Although expenses were paod, I never once got my travel time back as time in lieu. It was just an expectation that I did it (salary in £40k’s so not a exceptionally highly paid role)

My DH used to have a job requiring similar journey times to exhibitions every couple of months and travel time did count as working hours (not his daily commute but the travel time from the office to the exhibitions). He always booked his hours (company policy) despite being salaried so effectively got time in lieu. However he was on a German contract not a UK one, which probably makes all the difference!

I had a salaried job in the UK which I had to do some international travel for back in the mists of time and there was no official time in lieu but very much the unofficial expectation someone who'd got back from New York on the red-eye would go home for a shower and a nap and come in after lunch and that would be completely appropriate. Coming back from Frankfurt late the night before and it'd be fine to come in a couple of hours later than usual. Nothing like all your door to door travel time back but perhaps half or a third, unofficially.

We sometimes travel for work in my current job and travelling is 100% working hours but we actually are working while travelling - we get 16 hours logged per day while away which we get back in lieu, essentially an extra week off - but its very different non office job, German contract.

Christ, I'm glad I didnt work for most of you, and I'm glad DH doesnt either.
I would have got back TOIL for this, ideally taken by working slightly shorter days, still within core hours, over the next few weeks. The people who worked for me would have got travel time over 40 hrs paid at flat rate. Work over 40 hrs whilst away paid at the relevant OT rate (flat rate til 8, time and a half after that or weekends, iirc). Given I used to rack up 70 /80 hrs weeks quite often when away, those that got OT loved those trips!
DH would be expected to travel in working hours, so no TOIL as such, but meetings like yours are usually held from Lunchtime to lunchtime a few days later.

I have done lots of travel for work, including at the weekends. Never have been reimbursed for the time, it is expected in many jobs and I think the clause in your contract about additional hours easily covers this off.

I work for an institution with several sites. We do take time off in lieu for travel to the place that isn't our normal site, it's done on a more unofficial basis though and time for further away like a conference etc would definitely be done properly and yes we should get it back.

It's a shot in the dark but maybe someone here has more of an idea as to whether I am out of line to ask for the 12 hours in total I will be driving to be given back in lieu.

Think this really depends on the company, answers so far have covered the full spectrum. If they weren't great about getting a hotel room chances are they're not going to go for it.

I think at a minimum you should be allowed to start after lunch on the Thursday.

It’s not unreasonable to expect compensation in line with TOIL for travel time
No difference between salaried and hourly paid staff - for salaried staff you should have a contract as to what your working hours are - eg £x per annum working 42 hours per week including 5 x 1 hour unpaid lunch breaks. The hourly rate would be £x / (42 x 52) …. And that must result in more than the minimum wage
Add 6 hours each way and that’s 12 hours additional ‘work’ for free

If there was a normal workplace then HMRC would see any travel expenses as needing the standard home to work commute deducted, and usually that would also apply to travel time
With home based working (as permanent home working as opposed to Covid home working) then the full journey would be valid for reimbursement or TOIL

The relevance of the company being willing to pay for a hotel is that the trip is recognised as work
On another recent thread there was a member of staff being offered a lift by senior management, and in that it is normal that the journey was claimable by the manager - if it had been a lift to work as part of the commute then it’s reasonable for the passenger to contribute to fuel, but as a working journey it’s a business expense

I would get TOIL for 6 hours - probably not for an hour or so, but that's almost a full working day and I wouldn't expect to do that in my own time, nor would I expect my team to do it.

I really pity some of you - some employers really like to squeeze every drop of blood from their employees.

My employer would generally expect that travel like this is done in work time and where this isn't possible we'd be given back the hours in unofficial ways.

I've never been able to claim this type of travel back, no. I'm also full time wfh, if I'm required to travel, then it's at their expense, but my time.

I don’t think I would be able to claim it back, but rather than talk about time in lieu etc can you not keep it relatively informal?

I.e, block out the morning in your calendar, or the few couple of hours and just say, obviously I’ll be logging in late as I won’t get home til midnight?

I don’t think anyone could consider that unreasonable?

I see this in the context of my work as attending an annual/twice yearly conference type thing in a different part of the country to where I live.

I would expect to travel the evening before (so either a Sunday evening or outside business hours on a weekday), attend the conference (working day) and then travel back afterwards (that evening).

If I’d got in late, I would just go into work an hour or so late or work from home the next day. This element would be under the radar but a discrete and mutual understanding between me and my employer.

Travel time wouldn’t be given as toil but travel expenses would be payable.

Just thinking out loud. Is there a contractual requirement for you to be a driver/have a car for business use? Just thinking if not and you say you’ll get train it might not be feasible to travel back Tuesday night depending on train times and course location. Then you’d be travelling back on their clock day after (could work on train) Obviously another night away. Many reasons why you might prefer to use public transport including not feeling safe to drive 6 hours at night after full days work.

I think it depends on the level of seniority tbh.

Contractually, neither I, nor my staff would be entitled to pay or lieu time.

I wouldn’t expect to get any pay / time in lieu but I would offer it to someone in your situation if they were quite junior and I felt they were going above and beyond what I reasonably would expect from someone of that pay grade.

I’m ordinarily home based too but my organisation just wouldn’t have me driving six hours after a full day’s work. It would probably be another night in a hotel then travel home during work hours the next day. It would be the train there and back though and I’d be working on it. I’d take some time in lieu too - not the exact number of hours, probably, especially if that was 12 hours because that’s nearly two days and I struggle to take all my AL as it is, but I’d certainly get a day’s TOIL out of it if I wanted. I’d probably take that on the Friday if I could rather than banking it for later. When I was more junior this would all have been a more formal arrangement and someone would have ensured I took all the hours I was owed and documented it properly, now I’m relatively senior it’s more flex on both sides and me being responsible for managing my own workload and hours.

I wouldn't get paid for this, but equally if I was getting home that late I'd be going in at 10 the next day and nobody would mind.

I think it's just part and parcel of the role, I'm afraid. I'd schedule an email to go at about 1am the night you get home saying "Traffic on the way home, just got back from [location] - will be in at 10 tomorrow!" and then at least you'll get a reasonable amount of sleep (assuming you'll get home around midnight with faffing/saying goodbye/a stop to stretch your legs).

I've often travelled several hours away the day before an exhibition, travelled back late and on some occasions worked an exhibition on a Sunday. I've generally been paid extra for working the Sunday, but not for travel time.

A lot of what you're complaining about is part of being salaried - travel costs, but not travel time.

However, I really do think that they need to cough up for another night's accommodation if you have a particularly stressful or onerous job.

But I also think suddenly coming down with Covid suddenly (as mentioned up thread by a pp) would be really poor form, especially as you've already high-lighted that you have an issue.

I used to travel a fair bit for work, travelling on a Sunday afternoon wasn't unusual, I wouldn't get TOIL but I didn't mind that. If I was working somewhere 6 hours away from home though and travelling back the same day afterwards, it was absolutely expected that I'd leave a bit early, somewhere between 3pm-4pm, so I'd be back home before 10pm. I'd expect the same from colleagues travelling from their homes in the North, to attend London based meetings.

In my work - granted in the not for profit sector - you absolutely do get time off in lieu for travel time. It would be very difficult to get people to travel to things like conferences or meetings at a distance otherwise! I would not want to regularly put in 12 hour days on my salary unless I could get at least some of that time back. If what you are describing was once or twice a year I would suck it up as you have no commuting time normally, but if you were expected to clock up an extra 12 hours every two months or so, that might be a bit much. Does sort of depend on the salary level too though, if very well paid you probably won't get much satisfaction from raising it.

Is it likely to be a regular thing? If all meetings are likely to be you traveling the furthest I would be having a discussion about that. If not I think for a one off I would just put up with it, and ask your boss for the relevant rest time (as mentioned by a pp - 11 hours) between arriving home and your start time the next day.