Travel time pay represents a significant risk for wage and hour claims in California. The reason is two-fold: first, California laws differ from federal laws. Second, travel is an integral part of most everyone's work day.
Unless your workforce is home-based, your employees are commuting to and from the workplace, to and from job sites, and to and from hotels, airports, and conferences when they're on business trips. The trick is to know what type of travel is compensable and when that compensable time starts ticking. There are 5 core concepts that California employers need to remember to get travel time pay right.
5 core concepts of travel time pay in California
"The key issue in many instances is whether an employee is engaged in travel as part of the employer's principal activity or for the convenience of the employer. If so, then that time is probably compensable in most cases." Marc Jacuzzi told us in a recent CER webinar. Here are the 5 core concepts:
- The time the employees spend commuting to and from their regular place of work each day is not work time, so employers do not have to pay employees for this type of travel time. This commuting time is not compensable under either state or federal law. There are exceptions*, but this is the rule.
- Work time includes time spent traveling to another location for a special assignment, travel time for a call back or an emergency outside the normal working hours, and time spent traveling during regular work hours as part of the employee's principal job duties.
- If an employee reports to a central location to pick up equipment before proceeding to his or her assigned worksite, the time spent traveling to the central location is not work time. The time spent traveling to the assigned worksite, however, is work time. This is true regardless of the length of the stop at the central location.
- "Overnight travel or travel away from home is always work time under California law. It is work time under federal law only when it cuts across the employee's normal workday and/or requires the employee to work on weekends or days when he or she would not otherwise be required to work." Jacuzzi noted.
- Regular meal periods and time spent sleeping or in other leisure activities while traveling is not work time, and the employer does not have to pay the employee for this time.
When figuring out compensable time, it's also important to remember that California laws require overtime to be paid for time worked in excess of 8 hours in a day. If any of the above scenarios result in the employee working more than 8 hours in a day, those hours will need to be overtime pay.
The above information is excerpted from the webinar "Employee Travel Pay Explained: California HR's Wage & Hour Road Rules." To register for a future webinar, visit CER webinars.
Marc L. Jacuzzi, Esq., is a shareholder in the law firm of Simpson, Garrity, Innes & Jacuzzi. He advises clients regarding all aspects of the employer/employee relationship including hiring and termination, wage and hour requirements, employee classification, civil rights and discrimination issues, employee investigations, commission plans, employment contracts, employee handbooks and policies, confidential information agreements, reductions in force, leaves of absence, employment audits, M&A employment issues, violence in the workplace, and international employment issues.