Whether travel time is considered as hours worked depends on the circumstances and should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Home-to-Work
An employee who travels from home before the workday and returns home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home-to-work travel and falls under normal work conditions. This is true whether the employee works at a fixed location or at different job sites. Normal travel from home to work is not work time and therefore, not compensable.
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Home to Work on Special One-Day Assignments in Another City
When an employee who regularly works at a fixed location in one city is given a special one-day assignment in another city, such travel cannot be regarded as home-to-work travel and may be compensable in some cases. For example, an employee who works in Raleigh with regular working hours from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, may be given a special assignment in another city, with instructions to leave Raleigh at 7:00 am. The employee arrives at 12 noon, ready for work. The special assignment is completed at 4:00 pm, and the employee arrives back in Raleigh at 8:00 pm. Such travel cannot be regarded as ordinary home-to-work travel. It was performed for NC State’s benefit and would, therefore, qualify as an integral part of the “principal” activity that the employee was hired to perform on that particular workday. All of the time involved, however, need not be counted as work time. The travel between home and the airport, or the usual time required to travel from home to work may be deducted, such time being in the “home-to-work” category. Also, the usual mealtime would be deductible.
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Passenger = straight time
Driver = counts toward “hours worked” for overtime calculation
Travel That Is During the Day’s Work
Time spent by an employee in travel, as part of the employee’s principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked. When an employee is required to report at the employer’s premises, or at a meeting place, to receive instructions or to perform other work there, the travel time for this designated place to the workplace is part of the day’s work and must be counted as hours worked.
If an employee normally finished work at a particular job site at 5:00 pm, and is required to go to another job that is finished at 8:00 pm, and is required to return to the employer’s premises arriving at 9:00 pm, all of the time is work time. However, if the employee goes home instead of returning to the employer’s premises, the travel after 8:00 pm, is home-to-work travel and is not considered hours worked.
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Travel Away from Home Community
Travel that keeps an employee away from home overnight is travel away from the home community. Travel time away from home community is work time when it cuts across the employee’s regular scheduled workdays. The time is not only hours worked on regular working days during normal working hours, but also during the corresponding hours on nonworking days such as Saturday and Sunday for many employees. Therefore, if an employee regularly works from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, from Monday through Friday, the travel time during these hours is work time on Saturday and Sunday as well as the other days. Regular meal period time is not counted. That time spent in travel away from home outside of regular working hours (8:00 am – 5:00 pm) as a passenger on airplane, train, bus, or automobile is not considered as hours worked for determining overtime, but is paid at straight time. The example below will help explain the accountability for travel time away from the home community.
Example: A non-exempt employee who has headquarters in Raleigh leaves for Asheville on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm, and arrives in Asheville at 8:00 pm:
- The two hours traveled between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm, are hours worked and must be included in the total hours worked within the workweek. If the total hours worked exceeds 40 per week, the employee is to be compensated in accordance with the State’s overtime time-off policy.
- The three hours traveled between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm are not considered as time worked for the purpose of determining total hours worked. However, it shall be considered as time earned and may be given as time off on straight-time basis if the employee is driving during that time.
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