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

@Everydayzero

I think you legally entitled to 11 hours between work, at the firm I work for sometimes you might skip that if work was really busy but would be expected to take extra break after that. I remember having to fly to another office on a Sunday and got my overtime rate for travelling.

But driving to and from work never counts as actual work, regardless of if you're going to your office or a different office/whatever.

It would be lovely if more employers did offer time back but that's not usually how things tend to work.

My DH is home based and is reimbursed for all travel time.

I don't get travel time however a 6 hour drive is dangerous after a full day. Can't you take the train?

My contract states I can work anywhere in the world. In reality I am based in the same local office most of the time. If I am asked to work at head office for the day about 250 miles away I would be given time in lieu for the flight time or train time but not travelling to the station. If I had to go the day before and overnight due timings I wouldn't get the time back but they would pay for my hotel. I am on a low salary, I expect it's different for those higher up the tree.

I would certainly not want to spend 6 hours driving home after a full day of work!

That is absolutely shite. I would drive part of the way and then expect them to pay a night in a hotel . I would then get up very early to drive home the rest of the way but would expect a bit of leeway on my start time. Otherwise I'd expect them to pay for a flight or something if that was practical . both ways . Alternatively I expect them to let me leave early say at lunchtime or very shortly after of the last day but I'd make up the work time later .

It is a matter of health and safety to me to have to drive that length of time home. A 6 hour drive is likely to be 7 hours or more of travel with breaks . Alternatively I'd take a day if leave, not ideal but absolutely no way would I do that drive.

Previous job travelled all over uk.
Always got petrol /mileage money but never travel time which would sometimes be 2-3 hours each way even in bad weather.

I used to get up at 5am to fly to meetings in Amsterdam, fly home the same day and be expected in work the next day normal time. If your work place is home then you'll probably not get sympathy about starting later. I would request that you have an 11 hour gap from when you get home so you don't start work until ten the next day.

I've travelled all over the world with work and never had travel time compensated except for when I was I'm a (quite junior) field role which specifically covered travel time to clients. Unless its in your contract you need to make a decision about whether the mostly home working (and no travel time or expense) is enough of a benefit to compensate for the occasional trips...

No travel time is not included.

However it’s not unreasonable to have to split the travel time between work and personal and what most companies do.

I would never leave an office in Boriminham at 5pm and drive to london all on my own time. Assume 4 hour journey time, leave at 3pm, arrive home at 7pm.

Similarly, if they want you there at 9am, then you can’t commute for 6 hours prior. Hence the prior nights stay.

Your solution is tell them if you don’t get an extra nights stay, you will leave at 2pm to get home by 8pm. That’s a fair compromise whether they like it or not. It’s also quite defensible in a tribunal and would show them to be unreasonable. Additionally, if you had an accident on the way home, they would be negligent as it’s unreasonable to expect to plan for a 6 hour journey after a full days work.

@nothingcanhurtmewithmyeyesshut

I'd just smile and agree to whatever and then unfortunately test positive for covid.

Selfish, it's colleagues who pick up the slack.

Wherever I've worked travel to somewhere that is not your normal place of work comes out of work time (minus any normal commute time). Expecting someone to travel 6 hours is massively unreasonable.

It probably depends how much you are paid though. My DH is paid a lot and doesn't get time back for travel. Which is probably fair at his level.

In my last academic job there was some international travel involved and my immediate line manager scheduled a meeting the afternoon before I had an early next day flight. I simply sent an email saying I had forgotten the 6am start for the conference journey so we would have to re-schedule the meeting for after my return.

There were also evenings once a month where there was a business function in the city center, usually in a pub or club. There would be business games and drinking. I dont particularly enjoy such things but I went because it was part of the job. That made it a very long working day. I never came in before mid day the following day.

No one ever said anything about my taking TOIL informally this way. I have always proceeded on the basis that its better to ask forgiveness than permission.

As to the argument that if you are away from home the evening is yours to enjoy just as it would be when you are at home. That is not necessarily the case. If you are stuck in a hotel in a boring city where you may not choose to be (rather than somewhere like London or New York) then you may not be able to spend the time as you would at home.

Some of these responses are appalling.

1. It's not her commute, if you've elected to take up a job with 4 hours commuting each day then you cannot go making snarky remarks at someone who is being asked to do a very long journey out of the ordinary and far from their usual place of work.

1. If you aren't being reimbursed for travel expenses to meetings etc away from your ordinary place of work then you should be. Request them.

1. This is a big journey with a lot of travelling. I'd be expecting some leeway in terms of hours. The sensible response would be to send the OP to someone who can actually advise on the legal position.
2. There's a health and safety angle here too and we'll as Working Ptime Directive issues which mean that the business should be thinking beyond a right out no.

If your contract is to work from home then yes, I'd expect reimbursement of time and monetary for travelling elsewhere.

I wouldn’t expect to be paid but it’s a very long drive after a full days work and before another.

If you’ve moved further away from the main location since being WFH or took the remote job knowing you’d occasionally need to travel and the main location, you might need to take it on the chin and take the next day off and pay for an extra nights stay yourself if you don’t think you can drive home safely or work the next day.

If this is a completely remote job with no mention of travel and/or the main location I’d expect some accommodation to be made but would leave it up to them to suggest rather demand compensation

ie. leave early, nearer to you next time, time in liue or an extra night