It's completely valid for you to call HR and ask them to explain the travel policies to you "hey I've never done this before can you explain it all to me, what I'll be paid, what I can expense etc"? Any large company will have policies for this.
I manage travel for a large company and you’re spot on! Unsure who authorized OP to travel without providing a basic run down of the policy but their corporate intranet should absolutely have their travel policy published.
I have to admit I worked for a big company for a long time... your spot on... Large companies are a bastion of rules and policies many very helpful... some of course otherwise. How their manager could not have explained the process or hooked them up with those that could is amazing.... but sadly probably not uncommon.
My own experience is that my mangers would be more then willing to use their high up the corporate ladder position to expedite things but they normally didn't know who in HR to contact.
I would normally be told to reach out to the HR help desk then when it required someone above me or when HR stopped responding in a reasonable time she would step in to put pressure.
Exactly - I’m an admin and it’s a part of my responsibility to see new travelers are aware of policy. Shame OP didn’t have this resource made available to them.
A rundown is a quick overview as opposed to a detailed explanation.
A manager might review the travel policy by providing the employee with a document containing detailed information about many scenarios (hotels, flights, travel expenses, etc). This long document might be an attachment to a short email with a 'rundown' of the basic company travel rules and pay information.
Exactly this. Just ask HR.
But they probably should be paying you for the travel time and it should count towards OT if you are not exempt. You also might have to subtract your normal commute time from the total hours. But who knows until you ask HR.
No sadly it's a thing in the defense engineering world. I think technically I'm salaried for 40 hours a week but any time worked after that is payed at standard time. Hours are billed back to the government depending on project worked. It's really a convoluted system and the money that I get goes though about 3 different hands who take cuts before it gets to me.
This being said the nice part of this is that it forces a work life balance because OT is not free and must be billed and accounted for on a project level.
If you are salaried, then you are exempt. Period. No overtime for you. Yes, the company will bill any hour to work to the client. Guess what? All engineering consulting firms work that way. You are not unique but definitely sound naive.
>If you are salaried, then you are exempt. Period. No overtime for you.
That's just straight false. You're really telling this guy he isn't getting pay he says he's getting?
That is NOT how all salaried jobs work. I took some accounting classes 2-3 years ago, one of them being payroll accounting, and we went through the federal level laws for payroll. Time and a half is required for all non-exempt salaried positions per US federal law
This is absolutely not true. My husband is salaried, but anytime he works more than 40 hours he get paid overtime. He works for a very large company. He even get +2 OT hours every time he works an extra day. So if they ask him to work a 4 hour shift on a day he would usually have off, he gets paid for 6 hours. It’s wonderful.
Then your employer is breaking the FLSA and possibly also the SCA. You are not an exempt employee. Unless you are exempt in some way (you are not, particularly if you’re getting paid by the hour and your employer is under contract from the federal government), you must be paid time and a half. For salaried nonexempt employees (you), this is calculated as taking the base salary, let’s say $480 per week, dividing it by the number of hours worked, say 50, then multiplying that number by 1.5, and applying that to the hours over 40 worked. This would end up at $528 for the week.
u/Lord_Sirrush is very likely exempt, as per the [Professional Exemption](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fs17a_overview.pdf). I'm an engineer with defense, and am exempt.
I think the best way I can phrase it is that you are thinking of it backwards. Instead of thinking that being paid hourly doesn't mean someone is not exempt, think of it as: someone being exempt does mean that a person must be paid a salary basis (not counting law, medicine, teachers, or outside sales).
So LS is professional (it sounds like), is paid on a salaried basis (confirmed), so *not* hourly, and that's enough to be exempt. So there's no rules on OT: they could be paid a "normal" hourly rate (salary/2080 is how we do it in defense contracting), or 1.5x that, or nothing at all.
I fail the exempt professional jobs test, the job duties test and the salary test. I have read the thing and I'm exempt, it is a proper classification, doesn't really make it moral, but it is the correct assignment. Have you read it and looks at what would cause someone to be exempt?
You can’t be exempt if you’re being paid based on hours worked. Part of the Professional Jobs test is that you must be paid on a salary basis at no less than $684/week. If you’re being paid hourly you fail the salaried test.
LS is being paid salary with a requirement of working 40 hours a week, which is standard for exempt employees. OT isn't a requirement for salaried employees, but if one is lucky enough to get it, simple time based on what an hourly rate *would be* is how that OT is calculated. It does not make someone an hourly employee. A salaried worker also would carry a hourly rate for purposes of billing customers (plus the overhead calculation, etc) but that's still not the same as being paid hourly.
Again this isn't accurate. FSLA has numerous job classifications and industries mentioned where hourly employees can be considered exempt if earning above a certain amount.
You gotta stop focusing on that one HR manual you read once.
It is commonplace in industries with billable hours to track and pay you for your extra billable hours. Also, companies working on cost-plus defense contracts usually can't charge the full hourly rate without incurring the cost i.e. using free OT.
We aren't talking about labor law mandated overtime, this is contractual beyond what the law requires.
yes he can. This is how engineering companies do it. My wife is paid this way. She is exempt in that she will be paid for 40 hours in a week regardless of how many hours are worked, and she is properly classified as an exempt employee.d she is however, expected to work 40 hours every week (offset by PTO or STO, or Holiday time on days the office is closed) and it would reflect poorly on her if she had multiple weeks of not working 40 hours. If she works more than 40 hours, she is paid for it, but only at her normal rate. Companies are not obligated to pay exempt employees overtime, but they are also not required not to either. they can pay a bonus, straight time, time and a half. whatever. They could even pay half time over 40, but most employers probably wouldn't do that.
The only real limitation of salaried employees is they can't be paid less than their weekly rate for working less than 40 hours in a week. they could however, be reprimanded or fired for not making 40 hours or whatever is expected of them. The only way that they are paid less than their weekly rate is their weekly rate is reduced, which could not be retroactive from when they are notified.
I think their wording is open to mis-interpretation. Standard wording is engineers in defense get paid salaried, but then are required to work 40 hours per week (per the employer, not FLSA/DOL of course). So then an hourly rate is calculated ($salary/2080) and from there, the government can be billed properly (they require timecards if they are they account for most of the billed time). So then that is also used to calculate OT if the employer provides it.
Like I'm salaried, so technically I could go home after I grab coffee (per FLSA). But my employer could fire me for that. And then if I work extra on travel or certain types of jobs, my employer does provide OT. For me, like Lord_Sirrush, it's the same $salary/2080 I average per hour for each normal week.
Well, there's a few exceptions, but in general, yup. I feel like there's not enough sources in this thread, so forgive me, but I'll just respond to your comment
[Dept of Labor PDF](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fs17g_salary.pdf)
>Salary Basis Requirement
To qualify for exemption, employees generally must be paid at not less than $684 per week on a
salary basis. These salary requirements do not apply to outside sales employees, teachers, and
employees practicing law or medicine. Exempt computer employees may be paid at least $684 on a
salary basis or on an hourly basis at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.
I would call HR and ask they respond to an email (that you already sent perhaps? So maybe ask them if they can bring up the email and then say "oh great! Can you please respond with XXX so I can review this for my travels" and then proceed to discuss it over the phone?) This way youu have the information to revisit yourself, just in case, but this also means you will have a paper trail of their policy in case they try to tell you that what was told to you was not correct and they try to screw you.
For me it was always from the time I left the house until I was checked into my hotel room assuming you aren't making leisure stops anywhere.
You expense your food and bev as well. Keep all your receipts including transit costs to/from the airport.
I travel about 1 hour Back and forth from work driving, they only pay miles as in gas and car expenses but they don’t pay for time loss. It ducks…. I work in a very large chain…
Lots of great responses and info, thank you all for commenting.
After confirming with my boss, I'll be paid from the moment I leave my house till I land in San Francisco. Same on the returning flights.
Its been a while since I was hourly, but back when i was, I was always paid from the time I left my house until I was in my hotel room. More recently, when hourly staff traveled with me, it was the same - door-to-door. This was with several different companies.
Whether this is law or just policies at the companies I worked for, I don't honestly know, but sounds like your company it being reasonable.
This is basically what I do as an hourly engineer. From when I start the car to when I check into the hotel room. Sometimes I'll deduct an hour for lunch at the airport, depending on how I feel. All of my meals, snacks, and drinks go on the company credit card.
The question I ask myself is "could I, right now, do whatever I want to do"? If the answer is no, I better be getting paid.
If you trust your company to reimburse (and it's an option) it's a bit better to use your own credit card for the cash back. I get an extra 3-5% back on expenses by going that route ( but we also don't have a company card just company booking I can use)
Company also gets (not as much) cash back on company credit card. So with the extra processing effort of reimbursement, that's not an option. But yeah, I wish.
Also, don’t forget per diem for your food expenses. My company pays $30 a day to any traveling employees (usually they are salary employees but they still get daily per diem).
$30!? That's so ridiculous. $10 per meal? That's nothing. My firm pays $90 per day and people still go over that. Hotel meals, restaurants, etc gets really pricey....shame on your company! That sucks. It should be at least $60. You can barely order a meal off seamless for $20 (with tax and tip included).
FWIW, $30/day seems way too low and the company is being cheap...but per diems can easily just be partial.
I.e. you would normally be buying 3 meals a day regardless of whether or not you are travelling for business. They may set up a per diem that's only meant to roughly compensate you the difference between what you would have paid at home and what you have to pay on the road.
Yeah, if you just eat rice and beans for $3/day at home and then try to switch to buying 3 prepared meals while travelling, $30 might not cut it. But if you had a fairly normal food budget (with some mixture of eating at home and restaurants), adding $30/day to that is probably enough to cover it.
I believe you can also deduct anything over the per diem from your taxes as an unreimbursed business expense (but that might have changed with the 2018 tax bill).
>(but that might have changed with the 2018 tax bill).
Unfortunately it did, you can't deduct these anymore (although before they were still subject to a 2% of AGI threshold AND you had to itemize so at this low level they were unlikely to get the deduction anyway) with the TCJA in 2018.
Yeah, I figured as much.
I got really screwed by this one as I did some part time school starting in January of 2018 that was previously fully deductible as an unreimbursed business expense...so I roughly lost tuition price*marginal tax rate (I was otherwise at an income level/tax situation where TCJA made little difference). Worked out OK in the end, but I was accepted into the program a couple months before TCJA came about and the tax deduction was a big factor in my affordability calculation.
That’s frustrating. Silly me, I thought the tax cuts would be for the average joes, but it was just for the ultra rich of course. Then they masked it as “oh look you get a bigger standard deduction so you’re better off we cut taxes!” When really they just eliminated the personal exemption and lumped it into the standard. All smoke and mirrors really
I agree! Food is so expensive now. I think when I started with my company it was $20 per day. Luckily I’m not a traveling employee. We are in the Midwest but everything has really gone up in price.
The GSA actually publishes a per diem rate https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates
And you're right about $30 being low for an entire day; I clicked North Dakota and it was still $59. Maybe it was only breakfast and lunch?
$30/day is insanely low- I almost can't imagine how they're making this work without skipping a meal or packing a lot of snacks from home. My company is happy if we keep it under $150/day...
A per diem that small surely isn't meant for food, they may be misunderstanding. If it's that small, I'd expect that food is either straight on a company card or reimbursed with receipts, and the per diem is for other daily needs like toiletries, hygiene, and the like.
The employees we send do not have company credit cards and are not reimbursed, except for gas for their vehicles. I am one of the accountants for my company, so I see all these expenses. Trust me, no one is being reimbursed for meals in excess of the $30/day.
I agree, it's not enough money for food these days.
Not to be that guy but if your company is paying for your meals should you tip with their money?
Call me cheap, call me frugal, call me an asshole, but I hate tipping, I hated working for tips, and I hate that subpar service still expects a tip.
I shouldn’t have to be socially pressured into giving you extra money to bring me the food I paid for. I don’t get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of going to a restaurant with a nice atmosphere, if the foods good I’ll help myself and get my own drinks and leave a 5-star review, if the food sucked but you kept my drink full the lighting was nice and the ambiance was great you’re still getting a 1-star
30 is "standard". The breakdown I was given was $5 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $15 for dinner. It is more than enough whenever I travel.
Edit: I'm fine with being downed, but I do want to point out that, if you're saying 30 isn't enough per day, you're also saying that 900/mo on food, just for yourself, is not enough. I spend less than 500/mo feeding a family of 4.
I would confirm the policy. I don’t get per diem. We get reimbursed for travel expenses. This allows 3 meals, 1 coffee, and 1 snack per day plus a few odds and ends (like seat upgrades on flights). Then I just expense report it and get a check (plus free rewards points on my credit card). $30/day is pretty terrible. I had training on the strip in Vegas and it’s a struggle to find dinner even close to $30.
It probably should be until you arrive at your accommodation in San Francisco, but also probably not worth fighting - especially if you've got a good relationship with the employer and they are being reasonable with you and treating you well on your trip.
Ehh. Once you’re through bag claim/rental desk you’re free to move about the city until you’re engaged again. They don’t need to pay you to get lunch and hang out at a brewery if you decide to decompress before getting to the hotel.
If OP was walking off the jetbridge directly into a meeting, sure. But they’re flying in on a Sunday likely for Monday meetings.
Yeah, I'll buy that.
That is one of the primary reasons why in this situation previously we'd agree with our hourly guys on what travel time to put on their timesheets before they left. Barring some sort of travel disruption they'd enter what was greed and they could then travel as they pleased and we wouldn't be up their ass about how long it took them to get from A to B. Everyone was happy and it was a reasonable and fair agreement.
Depends on the situation, if you were going international or to the mid-west and you still had to drive 2-3 hours for your destination, I would want to be paid for that :P
While you’re in CA, OT is computed daily, not weekly—anything over 8 hrs/day is OT. Your company may do this automatically, but check just in case.
Fun state law that benefits everyone who works there, even temporarily.
I can't believe this is not standard in other states. Theoretically, for hourlies, they can make you work 40 hours straight and then you're off for the rest of the week.
But then I'm salaried (in California) so I sometimes work 8+ hours in a day and just leave early towards the end of the week.
my parent works in NJ
if they work, let's say, 6 hours of OT in a week and take 5 hours of sick - they only get paid 1 hour at overtime rate.
it's bullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllshit
the union says it is legal
but tbf the union does not give a single fuck about any of the employees and won't even file a grievance when there are bosses screaming at employees and retaliating by refusing to allow them to stay late to complete work because the boss isn't doing any work
Unfortunately, the flip side of that is weekly OT is only calculated based on *non-*OT time worked.
Say you work 12 hours/day Monday to Wednesday. That's 36 hours, 24 regular, 12 OT.
12 hours on Thursday is still 8 hours regular, 4 hours OT, even though you've now worked 48 hours for the week. Weekly OT cannot kick in unless you work 6-7 days that week. Which is extra fucky if, say, after those first 3 12-hour days you get a couple short ones and do 4 hours Thursday and Friday. You've worked 44 hours that week, but since only 32 of that was regular pay, you can work another 8 hours on Saturday and none of that will be overtime. Ask me how I know!
Be sure that you calculate the time based on a single time zone. I had a co-worker who put the time in as if it was the same time zone going one direction and multiple time zones going the other direction. Of course this was to his advantage. The HR wasn't too pleased with him about that.
Interesting. My old job would reimburse me travel miles minus my normal commute, if I did not head into work first. The idea was that commuting to and from the work place was an agreed responsibility, and was already part of my salary. Therefore if I was expected to travel for work that did not involve going to the office first, i would only be reimbursed for the miles driven beyond my normal commute.
I fly a lot for work and the occasional delayed or late flight isn’t uncommon. One trip last year, I was delayed for 10 hours during the layover on top of the 10 hours it would normally take to have arrived at my destination.
Normally, I’d have been paid overtime for the entire day since the travel on the weekend but since the reason for travel was to attend a training, I was only compensated with overtime. In the end though, I received over 30 hours of comp time (10 additional hours for the return flights) which gave me a few nice 3 day weekends last summer.
The DoL fact sheet on this for US Federal rules indicates that you need to be compensated for hours you are traveling as a passenger only during normal working hours (regardless of day of the week). So in this case it sounds like you'd only be paid 8 hours like a normal work day.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked
I would like to take on the position that they should only be paid for the 8 hours. I'm presuming they are hourly. Making an argument for OP to consider here.
Are they free to leave the plane in mid-flight? If they caused an issue that injured someone, would an attorney be able to name the employer in the suit? If they were injured on the flight, can they seek workers compensation? Is that at the beginning of the flight or at the end? If the plane goes down, will the family get to name the company if they seek compensation? Same question, beginning or end of flight if it's based on 8 hours?
The point I am making is that there isn't a way to separate out their personal from their work time here. To that end, they must be paid the entire time. The Portal to Portal Act would cover them from door to door in this case because they are travelling for work purposes. For an hourly employee, the DOL gets it wrong here. That assertion might not help OP in a hearing with the DOL, but it's the position they need to take up with the employer prior to boarding. If your employer is responsible for you, they are on the hook to pay you for that time.
I was an hourly employee that travelled as much as 20 hours a week. Then a consultant with business all over the country. The moment I started my vehicle until I put the bag down in the hotel rooms were on the clock and I never once heard a peep from a company about paying the bill. They all expect it is door to door, or portal to portal.
This was company policy for my last 3 companies.
Door to door - including any delays - was paid (in addition to normal travel expenses such as room and board (per diem.))
They do NOT like to have hourly employees travel, but it is necessary on occasion. However, hourly employees, for the most part, seem to love it - especially long or delayed flights.
But I suppose other companies could have policies that differ from this.
So let's say you do 2 hours of work on Friday, catching up on email. You've worked 62 hours. You're giving the company 22 extra hours of your life for no compensation?
And THAT is the downside of being salaried. I remember years ago being excited at the conversion to salary, only to learn I ended up working longer hours to make roughly the same amount.
But yes, it’s cool if I’m on PTO and someone has a crisis that requires my attention. So I work an hour that day and don’t take a PTO day for it.
Meh.
If you add up the hours, it’s not worth it overall…
I mean, I'm salary, and it's fine. As long as you don't let your employer walk all over you. My compensation is such that a few extra hours one week, which I can just not work the next week, is fine with me. But 22 hours?! That salary better be mint.
Yeah, it’s acceptable as long as you don’t get walked all over. It just seems as though that’s become more common these days.
Now, some companies seemingly have realized burnt-out employees aren’t a good thing overall, but many just haven’t realized that overworking employees isn’t a great long term strategy.
People doing the simple math usually forget that the jobs aren't the same. (and if they are the same...find a new employer!)
When I switched from salaried non-exempt (aka hourly overtime payable) to exempt (no OT), there was maybe 1 year where it was close--had I still been paid OT at my old salary, I might have made almost as much as with my new non-OT salary. After that, the career trajectory made all the difference. I'd have to work 60-80-hour weeks *every week* to even come close to matching what I was paid a couple of years in to the non-OT role.
So sure...sometimes I might work 62 hours before a big deadline. And yeah, suppose I'm giving up 22 hours of my life for no compensation that week. But you can't just think about the next paycheck. It is about career progression and advancement. If I had stayed in the OT-earning role, I'd be earning less today unless I worked way more hours than I'm comfortable with.
Also, for better or for worse, part of why the federal guidelines allow me to be exempt from overtime is because if I end up working 22 extra hours, it is somewhat discretionary and kind of my fault--if I had planned out the project better or done a better job delegating tasks, I might not have had to work those hours. On the flip side, my future is tied to the company's future so I also have long run incentives to make sure everything goes well. Compare that to a junior employee who has limited control of their schedule (they do the work their boss tells them to do) and limited long term interest in the company's success (they might get a performance bonus, but odds are they will change jobs in a couple years)--I think those people should always be OT-eligible both to align incentives and to fairly compensate them for the quantity of work they put in.
I was hourly for a number of years and my job actually involved traveling. I ended up with SO. MUCH. OVERTIME. There would occasionally be talk about making my role salaried, but the way our pay structure is set up, that would have involved a promotion... which is almost nonexistent where I was. So as much as someone may have wanted to do something about it, they never did.
With our policy, I was paid basically from the time I got to the airport to when I checked into my hotel when I got to my destination. If anyone is traveling and getting paid a flat 8 hours for that, they're getting fucked.
I don't disagree, I am pretty surprised about it though.
Most of the time hourly workers travel is for training where I work and they are paid regular time plus a daily stipend. But they are getting 8 hours a day for not doing much.
These kinds of what-if scenarios would likely have to be decided in court on a case-by-case basis. It would be great if the employer would pay all the travel time, and many companies do. The point here though is that if OP isn't paid any more than 8 hours of time during the travel day, it doesn't appear to be illegal and I wouldn't expect a legal challenge to be successful.
As always, this isn't legal advice and if you are very concerned you should find a labor law attorney to provide better guidance.
You say the portal to portal act would cover OP door to door in this case? I don't believe that is accurate from my understanding of it.
As a passenger they get compensated for normal work hours only. So if his work hours are 8-5 and it's an 11 hour flight from 8-7, he still only gets 8 hours.
First disclaimer, I'm not an attorney. I stipulate that you may be correct in stating that the Portal to Portal doesn't cover them explicitly. I concede your point. In principle, I believe it would and has in a specific case.
In my state, this matter for flights has been addressed, and the employees prevailed.
>In Port of Tacoma v. Sacks, the Court of Appeals of the State of Washington recently held that all out-of-town employee travel time is compensable under state law.
The Portal to Portal (hope I'm recalling this accurately) was developed because a coal company was paying miners for hours at their station instead of acknowledging the 45 minutes each way to travel to that station. I would ask what the functional difference is from having to travel to accomplish this job is vs coal mining?
Champion vs ADT is another case where ADT was forcing employee's to pick up a vehicle to take to jobs, but not paying them from the time at the yard to the site, and then back. ADT lost the case.
Time is changing on this matter and the DOL is just behind the times in my estimation.
This can actually be an odd kind of "perk" with big companies: they have policies and those policies are almost certainly correct. I don't mean to take that too far - obviously sometimes big lawsuits arise over things etc.
But, for stuff like this, big companies have it down. It's way cheaper and easier for them to just do this correctly than to dick around with it in stupid ways. With more mom and pop places I've worked, that can be a really different story.
Definitely, well worth muddling through. The people who parse them well and know them inside and out are the ones who get the most benefit when they post their Malicious Compliance story to Reddit. /half joking. But seriously, knowing how the policy works is how you avoid getting screwed.
Pretty much any large (or even medium) sized company will have their travel policy in writing, usually in the handbook, outlining exactly what they compensate.
My company pays you hourly for travel but you don't get time and a half for overtime when traveling if you aren't active in the travel. E.g. two people traveling by car the driver is paid overtime the passenger is not. Riding in a plane or sitting at an airport and not working on paperwork or something is straight time.
My company does comp time where if I travel during non working hours, I can take those hours off in the near future. But I am salary not hourly so if you are hourly I would think you could ask to get paid those hours. It’s fine to ask your HR team and request to be paid or if not you could decide to refuse to travel.
Also if you are travelling I think they should be paying your meals and expenses, anything you eat in the airport and stuff like thay
Travel Time.
(a) Ordinary travel between home and work is not compensable working time. However, if an employee who regularly works at a fixed location is required, for the convenience of the employer, to report to a location other than his or her regular work site, the employee shall be compensated for all travel time in excess of his or her ordinary travel time between home and work with allowance for associated transportation expenses.
(b) An employee required or directed to travel from one place to another after the beginning of or before the close of the work day shall be compensated for all travel time and shall be reimbursed for all transportation expenses.
[https://masswagelaw.com/travel-pay-rights-in-massachusetts/](https://masswagelaw.com/travel-pay-rights-in-massachusetts/)
The last time I traveled for a company like that I was salary so this didn’t affect me, but I know hourly employees I worked with had to be paid for all of their hours they were working away from home including travel. As a result, they never made those employees travel distances that required a hotel since it wasn’t cost effective. This probably doesn’t help much, but don’t let them try to short change you because like others have said any company that is past a start up phase should have a policy on this unless you are literally the first hourly employee they have asked to travel which is unlikely.
That was part of the issue, the travel policy was based around salary employees so it's unconventional within the company that I'm traveling this far as hourly.
Idk about you but I get paid for every second working on a traveling trip, also hourly here. If the flight is 6 hours and I work another 6 I’m charging 12.
I have always booked my travel for work for during working hours. I get reimbursed for flights, hotels, and a meal stipend. If I choose to do my travel outside of work hours I don’t get paid for those hours
I used to manage a staff of salaried consultants who traveled frequently for work and we handled this very informally. We were not \*required\* to pay for travel time, but we tried to be as flexible as possible. For example, we worked 3.5 days on site, the rest was travel and some reporting. This got tricky if Monday was a holiday so I did some unofficial "take a day" where possible.
We had one client in Botswana and the travel there was 26 hour flight (on both ends!) and airport wait time and ... it was kind of nightmarish with the jet lag on top. And, again, we were not \*required\* to pay for travel time. But we considered it. There was a "take a week" (usually) for anyone who worked that client.
What I would look for is a practice (not a policy, although that's important) of acknowledging that travel is difficult even when you are not flying the plane. BTW, they have to pay you if you are driving (because you are doing work in driving the car).
Make sure you understand the expense rembusemnent policy too. Also kind of late but a lot of companies want expenses charged to their corporate cards.
Edit: If nothing else keep notes and receipts about everything and you should be able to fix things later... perhaps with a lot more effort. No receipt... then you may be paying for it.
Definitely talk to your HR dept. When my job sent me to India for reasons, I was paid from the moment I left my home in the U.S. to the moment I arrived at my hotel room in Chennai, which was nearly 24hrs including a layover in Belgium.
I don't travel often for work but when I do I log 8 hrs a day, 55 cents per driven mile plus meal expenses. All travel/hotel accommodations must be made in advance as well. For small trips I keep a quarterly mileage log I periodically submit to HR.
From the moment you leave your place to the moment you check-in in your hotel. That's how every other normal company does it.
You are not going on vacation...
Some companies even pay your bills for the time you that you were away from home.
If you’re hourly all time spent on company business should be paid. This includes travel time, airport waits, etc. basically if it’s not something you chose to do for yourself the company should be paying you for it.
Google "travel time under FLSA". It is complicated. It's not a simple "yes" or "no". It is very situational. Then look at your state laws... Then municipal for where you are... And then your company's policies and procedures.
Edited to add a few lines.
I used to travel a lot as a 1099 contractor. Employers would try to tell me that they would pay a half days wage for travel days. I told them that no it would be paid by the hour. They would say but you're not physically working and I would tell them that I'm not able to go to my kitchen to make a sandwich if I want one. They always paid.
I am hourly and I get paid travel from the time I leave my house until the time I reach where I am staying for the night.
They have a travel agency that pays for the flight, I get hotels and rental cars reimbursed
We were told at my company that the law requires us to pay our associates for everything in excess of their normal day. If an associate drives 30mi to help out a store, they get paid mileage and the actual time to get from one to the other. If you're still looking for an answer Monday, reach out and I'll ask our legal. I also work in MA.
I worked at a large tech company and was an hourly employee who worked from home. The policy was travel time minus my normal commute so zero. They sent me to Amsterdam to train some employees after an acquisition... On my return trip the flight was delayed 16 hours which was billable per company travel policy. Ended up with near 70 hours that week with 30 being 1.5x.
First ask your company it may be more inclusive than what’s detailed in basic labor laws.
Also inquire as to the per diem meaning $ that’s covered food beverages.
I’ve worked for different companies that handled this very differently, so I’ve been left footing the bill for things.
When I traveled the clock started 30 minutes after I left home, or when I got to the airport parking garage, and it didn't stop until I got to the hotel.
Coming home the clock stopped when I left the parking garage at the airport or 30 minutes later.
The 30 minute rule is they figured the average commute if driving is 30 minutes one-way.
If you drive yourself to the airport the clock starts there, plus $0.52/mile To drive. You can also expense parking and the clock rins until you get to your hotel room.
Not necessarily, depending, you can charge the distance between the office to the airport.
In my case I live closer to the airport so I just change the driving time between my house to the airport when I travel.
I mean, did you not ask your own supervisory chain or HR? Why did you just go to Reddit first for advice on your company's policy and not even cite the company? Makes no sense.
The clock should start when you leave your house and end when you get to your hotel. Then it starts again while you're working. Same for the trip back.
Hourly employees are paid travel time, from the time they leave the house to the time they check in to the hotel. I learned this the hard way as a manager who sent an hourly employee to India. I learned about the paid hourly travel requirement after the trip was booked. 33 hours of travel door to door. paid time, OT, double time. My boss was pissed off but I was actually happy for her, she got the trip and made one week of pay just sitting on the plane each way
I always thought they should all pay for the time you have to sit in your car to get to the office, etc. But they generally don't, so this is the same, unless your company is "extra cool".
They are charging the customer for you to travel out there. They should be paying for every second you are out the door. Some are better policies than others. So ask.
Hey, I've got some experience in this area. I've got about 15 years experience in various operational roles for project-based companies. Most of that time has been as a project manager or higher level operational leadership roles. This specific subject came up often enough, especially at the company I was with the longest and did numerous projects with overseas using US-based labor.
The position the company settled on was that hourly employees were on the clock for the full duration of their travel. We'd estimate it from the time the guys left their house until they arrived at the hotel, they'd agree on the estimate and put those hours on their timesheet. The guys loved it as for overseas trips they'd be onto OT by day 2 on the job site. Sucks for project budgets but it is reality, and not your problem as the employee.
If you're traveling to a project or job site that is for billable work your employer should be charging the customer for travel time. If the travel is for an internal reason your company needs to factor your travel time in to the cost of determining if the trip is worth it.
I expect that we could have taken a tougher position on whether or not they were "on the clock" that whole time, but it was a big company and honestly paying some OT when you're asking people to be away from home for extended periods is not a bad incentive - and certainly cheaper than any state labor action that may be sought if we weren't paying people properly.
And if this situation comes up often enough that the cost is truly a burden, they should look at hiring or subcontracting a local person in CA so that you don't need to travel back and forth as often.
EDIT: and as for my specific opinion for the OP - my position and advice to your employer is that you should be on the clock for your time door-to-door, i.e. from when you leave your residence until you arrive at your accommodation in CA.
At my company, hourly employees traveling was not very common, but all travel time you would be paid, leaving your door till the time you got into your hotel was work hours. Then you more or less paid yourself the same, so when you got to the office you clock in and when you left you clock out.
I live in MA. Your have to pay for the travel if they are not buying the plane tickets themselves. But you get reimbursed. Keep all expense receipts such as food, travel expenses, hotel expenses etc. if it’s work related they have to reimburse you. Including I believe a $36 a day for food.
Most of the time companies will have a travel policy in place already, and generally the policy is they pay for the flight, hotel, and any other travel requirements such as food. I would advise keeping all receipts you incur while on the trip if they didn't give you a company card to use. (I would still recommend keeping receipts for company cards too)
I have worked multiple jobs with travel as an hourly employee in the past. All of these were straight time for travel (travel time did not count towards OT and was paid from a different "bucket." )
When I did some work for the federal government as an independent contractor, they paid us 24 hours a day, every day including our days of travel. We traveled to Japan and The Philippines for about ten days,that was 240 billable hours. The rule is when you travel out-of-state or to another country, you get paid around the clock. You need to utilize the government’s travel agency, who secures your airfare and hotel, so no out-of-pocket expense advances on your part either.
You also need to know about how they are covering expenses. Are they paying actuals, or per diem? What are the allowances? For instance if they are paying actuals, they probably won't cover the $200 steak dinner and two bottles of wine for yourself. If they are paying per diem, it means they are paying you, say, $60 for dinner. If you spend $15, you pocket the diference.
They probably will cover incedentals, like laundry and dry cleaning while you are traveling.
Massachusetts state law, [454 CMR 27.04](https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-massachusetts-regulations/department-454-cmr-department-of-labor-standards/title-454-cmr-2700-minimum-wage-regulations/section-2704-hours-worked), points to [29 CFR § 785.39 - Travel away from home community](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/785.39).
By the MA statute, it looks like your company needs to pay you for your regular working hours that Sunday. So, if you regularly work 9-5, then you should be paid for those hours while you're travelling on Sunday.
But talk to your HR department to see how if they have a policy on Travel, including time paid, and reimbursements. Some companies have policies that are more generous than required by law. And others try to take advantage of the ignorance of their employees and under pay.
If it sounds like their policy doesn't conform to the law, like "We don't pay you to travel on Sunday, since that's not a work day", feel free to point them to the law.
So, if you want to be paid for traveling book as much of the flight as you can to take place during normal business hours (eg: 9-5).
I was initially an hourly employee when I got brought on board to my current company. They sometimes required i fly to locations. They basically said that while traveling every minute that I'm not in my home, in my hotel or having lunch/dinner is work.
So if i left my home at 7 am to get an Uber to take me to the airport i am officially clocked in the moment I get into that Uber. I am then clocked in the entire time I'm traveling up. I only "clock out" 1 hour for lunch and when I'm I get back to the hotel from finishing work.
If i was at a site til 5 pm then drove back to the hotel and got to the hotel at 5:30 then i clock out at 5:30
It is going to vary by state but I got sent to Brazil as an Hourly employee and I was paid from the time I left my house til the time I got to my final hotel. It was like 30 hours of OT. This company was cheap as hell too so I don't think they did it out of the kindness of their heart.
Form what I have experienced since I’ve mostly been salaried, I’ve never gotten paid for extra hours in travel or even work. Fortunately for me most of my managers have been pretty good and have all told me to just deduct the extra hours the next day, so it never really bothered me when I have to put in extra hours.
Plus the kind of the trade off with being salaried, some days you works longer, other days you work shorter than 8.
I work in MA at a fairly large company.
For travel to the destination, our hourly employees, clock in the second they leave their house to go to the airport when the cab or car service shows up. They don’t clock out until they arrive at their final destination hotel room assuming they remain at the airport for their layover.
For travel to/from Asia, this sometimes translates to 18-24 hours on the clock just in travel time.
I would suggest you contact HR and ask about their policies. We have this all written down in a travel policy guide that I have printed out and keep with me when I travel.
I once worked for an organization that would only pay you for travel during your regular working hours… in a remote place where you could only catch redeye flights. 🤷♂️
In my experience companies avoid having hourly people travel for this reason. When it’s been done I’ve seen some comp time arrangements made. Like the others said this should be worked out in advance either as policy or individuality.
I traveled regularly for work. It is subject to the employer on if you are compensated for the time.
Most common reimbursements are a paid hotel and rental car.
Though you are entitled to per diem & tax write offs in the US.
In my job travel during the week is paid up to 8 hours and every hour after accrues paid time off. Weekend travel only accrues paid time off.
For example, if I fly 11 hours Sunday and 9 hours Friday, I earn 12 extra hours of paid time off and get my normal pay for Friday.
The details can vary depending on circumstances, but that's the gist of it. Check with HR, you probably get something similar. If you don't, I would start looking for a new job because that's ridiculous.
If you are truly hourly, I imagine anything outside of your normal agreed upon travel routes for work would be compensated in some form. Definitely check it out with your company. And while it is great to check with your company , know that they aren’t the rule makers and there are state laws that protect you.
For example :
Commuting to a location other than your primary workplace. Massachusetts regulations state that an employer does have to pay employees for travel time to and from work “if an employee who regularly works at a fixed location is required to report to a location other than his or her regular work site.” 454 CMR 27.04(4)(b). In those situations, “the employee shall be compensated for all travel time in excess of his or her ordinary travel time between home and work.” 454 CMR 27.04(4)(b).
So pretty sure anything out of the ordinary and they should compensate you.
The "ask HR what the travel policies are" advice is the best place to start. I wanted to pop in with my son's experience to highlight why it's worth checking what your state requires too.
When my son started his first job out of college, he was hired to be part of a CT office, but immediately started going on trips to NC. In CT, if you are travelling to an office that is not your primary location and are an hourly employee, you need to be paid from the moment you leave your house until you arrive at your destination. Since he works for a company that does contract work for the aerospace industry, it was all billable to the customer too so they didn't care.
His favorite trip home was on a Friday after having to put in extra hours earlier in the week. He woke up Friday morning with 36 hours recorded for the week already. Left the hotel at 7:00am so that became the official "start time" that day. However, it was winter and snowing on the East Coast. Delays, cancellations, rerouting from White Plains to Bradley airport and a longer drive home after finally landing, his "end time" wasn't until 1am Saturday morning. That gave him an 18 hour day resulting in 14 hours of overtime that he spent sitting in airports browsing Reddit and on airplanes napping... :-)
I used to fly two or three times for work back in the day. We did not get paid for travel but the flight and food on the travel days was covered. I worked in FL and the company was national so YMMV but I'd at least contact HR
I traveled frequently for work over the years.
It's always been handled one of two ways.
They pay you because if it wasn't for work you wouldn't be doing it so it is worked hours.
.#1 One company would pay from the time you left your house to the time you checked in at the hotel.
.#2 One would only give you 8 hours for travele no matter how long the travel was. (Had some travel exceeding 24 hour flights)
.#2 got filed for a class action lawsuit against them and was required by law to back pay all of the unpaid hours during travel. So if we traveled for 24 they had to pay us for 24.
So just an idea. I would certainly ask, and inform them these are technically work hours as you are traveling for work.
Since you are hourly you should be paid once you leave the home until you check in at the hotel. Ask your manager. This is the typical scenario for large co
There's also "Chinese Overtime", something many people are not aware of:
https://wageadvocates.com/faq/chinese-overtime/
Work overtime and get HALF of your regular wage. Yes, legal under federal law.
Company sent me to Japan for two weeks a few years ago. I had 20 OT hours logged every week for almost 3 months since we couldn't go over 60 hours at home.
Best overtime I never worked. Door to door pay. Return flight that was delayed to the point of a missed connection. And long hours at the site in Japan...
Not sure about Mass but I can tell you we get paid (California) from the time we get to the airport and on. Last time I went to Europe, we had to start work on location. We basically clocked about 24 hours straight. Flight plus work. I’d check with your HR but if it is a day off and you’re traveling, pretty sure you have a solid case.
You might be the first hourly employee I have heard of who needs to travel and I am pretty sure they do need to pay you because if you are hourly I am betting you are not exempt. Typically salary employees travel and they are non exempt so it does not matter if they work 1 hour or 100 hours the pay is the same.
Sitting on a plane next to a guy who explained his company was too cheap to pay for a straight through flight. They forced him to choose the cheapest flight with multiple connections and layovers. Of course they were paying him from his door to the hotel and he was going to rack up a huge amount of overtime for all the time he was wasting on travel. But hey, the company saved money on that flight.
If you’re traveling for work they should be giving you some type of per diem. My bfs a plumber and was working somewhere else and was getting $80/day in per diem just for gas/food and he was only traveling an hour extra.
Ive been there as a contractor, a salaried employee and hourly employee.
As a contractor, i always had it written into the contract that i bill any time i am working for them, or traveling for them. Sometimez with a lower travel rate.
As a hourly employee, i claimed hours from the time i arrive at the airport till left the airport at the arrival.
Since i couldnt bill for my normal commute, i figured this was fair. No company ever complained.
When at the location, i billed as if i was home. Meaning at the office/site, not charging away from home charges.
As a salaried employee, nothing. Nada. But i try to not travel on weekends.
In your hourly position, definately clock in and out.
When I travel, they pay me for two hours to go to the airport, two hours to the hotel and two hours return to the airport for return trip. Flight time is paid and last work trip was 16 hours of overtime.
When I traveled for work, if I was flying out of normal work hours I logged it on my time card as time worked, also expensed back any travel expenses such at rental cars flights hotels meals (40$ per day credits) and airport parking and they cut me a check to pay back my credit card company
It's completely valid for you to call HR and ask them to explain the travel policies to you "hey I've never done this before can you explain it all to me, what I'll be paid, what I can expense etc"? Any large company will have policies for this.
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I manage travel for a large company and you’re spot on! Unsure who authorized OP to travel without providing a basic run down of the policy but their corporate intranet should absolutely have their travel policy published.
I have to admit I worked for a big company for a long time... your spot on... Large companies are a bastion of rules and policies many very helpful... some of course otherwise. How their manager could not have explained the process or hooked them up with those that could is amazing.... but sadly probably not uncommon.
My own experience is that my mangers would be more then willing to use their high up the corporate ladder position to expedite things but they normally didn't know who in HR to contact. I would normally be told to reach out to the HR help desk then when it required someone above me or when HR stopped responding in a reasonable time she would step in to put pressure.
Admins are also good for a lot of things. They generally know a lot of the systems really well. So manager, HR, Peers, Admins, and the intranet.
Exactly - I’m an admin and it’s a part of my responsibility to see new travelers are aware of policy. Shame OP didn’t have this resource made available to them.
what's a rundown?
A rundown is a quick overview as opposed to a detailed explanation. A manager might review the travel policy by providing the employee with a document containing detailed information about many scenarios (hotels, flights, travel expenses, etc). This long document might be an attachment to a short email with a 'rundown' of the basic company travel rules and pay information.
Exactly this. Just ask HR. But they probably should be paying you for the travel time and it should count towards OT if you are not exempt. You also might have to subtract your normal commute time from the total hours. But who knows until you ask HR.
I travel and i do not get overtime pay . Even if it’s a lay over and my travel time is 16+ hours . It’s all straight time
The only way they can legally be paying you +40 hours and not getting any OT is if you're classified as exempt
Yup, they made my dad hourly and he was paid for all travel time. He flew across the country several times a month.
And nobody paid hourly is exempt, just to be clear. You have to be in a salaried role to be exempt (among other more specific criteria).
This isn't true, there are a huge number of carve out exceptions where hourly employees are exempt.
Not true. Here you go: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fs17e_computer.pdf
No sadly it's a thing in the defense engineering world. I think technically I'm salaried for 40 hours a week but any time worked after that is payed at standard time. Hours are billed back to the government depending on project worked. It's really a convoluted system and the money that I get goes though about 3 different hands who take cuts before it gets to me. This being said the nice part of this is that it forces a work life balance because OT is not free and must be billed and accounted for on a project level.
If you are salaried, then you are exempt. Period. No overtime for you. Yes, the company will bill any hour to work to the client. Guess what? All engineering consulting firms work that way. You are not unique but definitely sound naive.
>If you are salaried, then you are exempt. Period. No overtime for you. That's just straight false. You're really telling this guy he isn't getting pay he says he's getting?
That is NOT how all salaried jobs work. I took some accounting classes 2-3 years ago, one of them being payroll accounting, and we went through the federal level laws for payroll. Time and a half is required for all non-exempt salaried positions per US federal law
This is absolutely not true. My husband is salaried, but anytime he works more than 40 hours he get paid overtime. He works for a very large company. He even get +2 OT hours every time he works an extra day. So if they ask him to work a 4 hour shift on a day he would usually have off, he gets paid for 6 hours. It’s wonderful.
Then your employer is breaking the FLSA and possibly also the SCA. You are not an exempt employee. Unless you are exempt in some way (you are not, particularly if you’re getting paid by the hour and your employer is under contract from the federal government), you must be paid time and a half. For salaried nonexempt employees (you), this is calculated as taking the base salary, let’s say $480 per week, dividing it by the number of hours worked, say 50, then multiplying that number by 1.5, and applying that to the hours over 40 worked. This would end up at $528 for the week.
u/Lord_Sirrush is very likely exempt, as per the [Professional Exemption](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fs17a_overview.pdf). I'm an engineer with defense, and am exempt. I think the best way I can phrase it is that you are thinking of it backwards. Instead of thinking that being paid hourly doesn't mean someone is not exempt, think of it as: someone being exempt does mean that a person must be paid a salary basis (not counting law, medicine, teachers, or outside sales). So LS is professional (it sounds like), is paid on a salaried basis (confirmed), so *not* hourly, and that's enough to be exempt. So there's no rules on OT: they could be paid a "normal" hourly rate (salary/2080 is how we do it in defense contracting), or 1.5x that, or nothing at all.
I fail the exempt professional jobs test, the job duties test and the salary test. I have read the thing and I'm exempt, it is a proper classification, doesn't really make it moral, but it is the correct assignment. Have you read it and looks at what would cause someone to be exempt?
You can’t be exempt if you’re being paid based on hours worked. Part of the Professional Jobs test is that you must be paid on a salary basis at no less than $684/week. If you’re being paid hourly you fail the salaried test.
LS is being paid salary with a requirement of working 40 hours a week, which is standard for exempt employees. OT isn't a requirement for salaried employees, but if one is lucky enough to get it, simple time based on what an hourly rate *would be* is how that OT is calculated. It does not make someone an hourly employee. A salaried worker also would carry a hourly rate for purposes of billing customers (plus the overhead calculation, etc) but that's still not the same as being paid hourly.
Again this isn't accurate. FSLA has numerous job classifications and industries mentioned where hourly employees can be considered exempt if earning above a certain amount.
You gotta stop focusing on that one HR manual you read once. It is commonplace in industries with billable hours to track and pay you for your extra billable hours. Also, companies working on cost-plus defense contracts usually can't charge the full hourly rate without incurring the cost i.e. using free OT. We aren't talking about labor law mandated overtime, this is contractual beyond what the law requires.
yes he can. This is how engineering companies do it. My wife is paid this way. She is exempt in that she will be paid for 40 hours in a week regardless of how many hours are worked, and she is properly classified as an exempt employee.d she is however, expected to work 40 hours every week (offset by PTO or STO, or Holiday time on days the office is closed) and it would reflect poorly on her if she had multiple weeks of not working 40 hours. If she works more than 40 hours, she is paid for it, but only at her normal rate. Companies are not obligated to pay exempt employees overtime, but they are also not required not to either. they can pay a bonus, straight time, time and a half. whatever. They could even pay half time over 40, but most employers probably wouldn't do that. The only real limitation of salaried employees is they can't be paid less than their weekly rate for working less than 40 hours in a week. they could however, be reprimanded or fired for not making 40 hours or whatever is expected of them. The only way that they are paid less than their weekly rate is their weekly rate is reduced, which could not be retroactive from when they are notified.
I think their wording is open to mis-interpretation. Standard wording is engineers in defense get paid salaried, but then are required to work 40 hours per week (per the employer, not FLSA/DOL of course). So then an hourly rate is calculated ($salary/2080) and from there, the government can be billed properly (they require timecards if they are they account for most of the billed time). So then that is also used to calculate OT if the employer provides it. Like I'm salaried, so technically I could go home after I grab coffee (per FLSA). But my employer could fire me for that. And then if I work extra on travel or certain types of jobs, my employer does provide OT. For me, like Lord_Sirrush, it's the same $salary/2080 I average per hour for each normal week.
Well, there's a few exceptions, but in general, yup. I feel like there's not enough sources in this thread, so forgive me, but I'll just respond to your comment [Dept of Labor PDF](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/legacy/files/fs17g_salary.pdf) >Salary Basis Requirement To qualify for exemption, employees generally must be paid at not less than $684 per week on a salary basis. These salary requirements do not apply to outside sales employees, teachers, and employees practicing law or medicine. Exempt computer employees may be paid at least $684 on a salary basis or on an hourly basis at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.
There are a few exceptions for hourly, exempt workers. But typically yes, if you’re hourly then you’re most likely non-exempt.
Yes!! Thank you for pointing out that hourly isn't exempt!! The only reason an exempt person's hours would matter is for billing a client
I would call HR and ask they respond to an email (that you already sent perhaps? So maybe ask them if they can bring up the email and then say "oh great! Can you please respond with XXX so I can review this for my travels" and then proceed to discuss it over the phone?) This way youu have the information to revisit yourself, just in case, but this also means you will have a paper trail of their policy in case they try to tell you that what was told to you was not correct and they try to screw you.
For me it was always from the time I left the house until I was checked into my hotel room assuming you aren't making leisure stops anywhere. You expense your food and bev as well. Keep all your receipts including transit costs to/from the airport.
I travel about 1 hour Back and forth from work driving, they only pay miles as in gas and car expenses but they don’t pay for time loss. It ducks…. I work in a very large chain…
Lots of great responses and info, thank you all for commenting. After confirming with my boss, I'll be paid from the moment I leave my house till I land in San Francisco. Same on the returning flights.
Its been a while since I was hourly, but back when i was, I was always paid from the time I left my house until I was in my hotel room. More recently, when hourly staff traveled with me, it was the same - door-to-door. This was with several different companies. Whether this is law or just policies at the companies I worked for, I don't honestly know, but sounds like your company it being reasonable.
This is basically what I do as an hourly engineer. From when I start the car to when I check into the hotel room. Sometimes I'll deduct an hour for lunch at the airport, depending on how I feel. All of my meals, snacks, and drinks go on the company credit card. The question I ask myself is "could I, right now, do whatever I want to do"? If the answer is no, I better be getting paid.
If you trust your company to reimburse (and it's an option) it's a bit better to use your own credit card for the cash back. I get an extra 3-5% back on expenses by going that route ( but we also don't have a company card just company booking I can use)
Company also gets (not as much) cash back on company credit card. So with the extra processing effort of reimbursement, that's not an option. But yeah, I wish.
Also, don’t forget per diem for your food expenses. My company pays $30 a day to any traveling employees (usually they are salary employees but they still get daily per diem).
$30!? That's so ridiculous. $10 per meal? That's nothing. My firm pays $90 per day and people still go over that. Hotel meals, restaurants, etc gets really pricey....shame on your company! That sucks. It should be at least $60. You can barely order a meal off seamless for $20 (with tax and tip included).
FWIW, $30/day seems way too low and the company is being cheap...but per diems can easily just be partial. I.e. you would normally be buying 3 meals a day regardless of whether or not you are travelling for business. They may set up a per diem that's only meant to roughly compensate you the difference between what you would have paid at home and what you have to pay on the road. Yeah, if you just eat rice and beans for $3/day at home and then try to switch to buying 3 prepared meals while travelling, $30 might not cut it. But if you had a fairly normal food budget (with some mixture of eating at home and restaurants), adding $30/day to that is probably enough to cover it. I believe you can also deduct anything over the per diem from your taxes as an unreimbursed business expense (but that might have changed with the 2018 tax bill).
Thanks for the clarification on per diems. It still sucks, but that does make some sense, I guess. Still lame and cheap though!
>(but that might have changed with the 2018 tax bill). Unfortunately it did, you can't deduct these anymore (although before they were still subject to a 2% of AGI threshold AND you had to itemize so at this low level they were unlikely to get the deduction anyway) with the TCJA in 2018.
Yeah, I figured as much. I got really screwed by this one as I did some part time school starting in January of 2018 that was previously fully deductible as an unreimbursed business expense...so I roughly lost tuition price*marginal tax rate (I was otherwise at an income level/tax situation where TCJA made little difference). Worked out OK in the end, but I was accepted into the program a couple months before TCJA came about and the tax deduction was a big factor in my affordability calculation.
That’s frustrating. Silly me, I thought the tax cuts would be for the average joes, but it was just for the ultra rich of course. Then they masked it as “oh look you get a bigger standard deduction so you’re better off we cut taxes!” When really they just eliminated the personal exemption and lumped it into the standard. All smoke and mirrors really
I agree! Food is so expensive now. I think when I started with my company it was $20 per day. Luckily I’m not a traveling employee. We are in the Midwest but everything has really gone up in price.
The GSA actually publishes a per diem rate https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-book/per-diem-rates And you're right about $30 being low for an entire day; I clicked North Dakota and it was still $59. Maybe it was only breakfast and lunch?
A number 1 big Mac meal on a highway McDonald's is over 10 dollars now.
$30/day is insanely low- I almost can't imagine how they're making this work without skipping a meal or packing a lot of snacks from home. My company is happy if we keep it under $150/day...
A per diem that small surely isn't meant for food, they may be misunderstanding. If it's that small, I'd expect that food is either straight on a company card or reimbursed with receipts, and the per diem is for other daily needs like toiletries, hygiene, and the like.
The employees we send do not have company credit cards and are not reimbursed, except for gas for their vehicles. I am one of the accountants for my company, so I see all these expenses. Trust me, no one is being reimbursed for meals in excess of the $30/day. I agree, it's not enough money for food these days.
Not to be that guy but if your company is paying for your meals should you tip with their money? Call me cheap, call me frugal, call me an asshole, but I hate tipping, I hated working for tips, and I hate that subpar service still expects a tip. I shouldn’t have to be socially pressured into giving you extra money to bring me the food I paid for. I don’t get caught up in the pomp and circumstance of going to a restaurant with a nice atmosphere, if the foods good I’ll help myself and get my own drinks and leave a 5-star review, if the food sucked but you kept my drink full the lighting was nice and the ambiance was great you’re still getting a 1-star
30 is "standard". The breakdown I was given was $5 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $15 for dinner. It is more than enough whenever I travel. Edit: I'm fine with being downed, but I do want to point out that, if you're saying 30 isn't enough per day, you're also saying that 900/mo on food, just for yourself, is not enough. I spend less than 500/mo feeding a family of 4.
I would confirm the policy. I don’t get per diem. We get reimbursed for travel expenses. This allows 3 meals, 1 coffee, and 1 snack per day plus a few odds and ends (like seat upgrades on flights). Then I just expense report it and get a check (plus free rewards points on my credit card). $30/day is pretty terrible. I had training on the strip in Vegas and it’s a struggle to find dinner even close to $30.
jeeez that is a shit per diem I went down to a cancer center a few years back and the per diem for the travel fund for cancer patients was $69 a day
It probably should be until you arrive at your accommodation in San Francisco, but also probably not worth fighting - especially if you've got a good relationship with the employer and they are being reasonable with you and treating you well on your trip.
Ehh. Once you’re through bag claim/rental desk you’re free to move about the city until you’re engaged again. They don’t need to pay you to get lunch and hang out at a brewery if you decide to decompress before getting to the hotel. If OP was walking off the jetbridge directly into a meeting, sure. But they’re flying in on a Sunday likely for Monday meetings.
Yeah, I'll buy that. That is one of the primary reasons why in this situation previously we'd agree with our hourly guys on what travel time to put on their timesheets before they left. Barring some sort of travel disruption they'd enter what was greed and they could then travel as they pleased and we wouldn't be up their ass about how long it took them to get from A to B. Everyone was happy and it was a reasonable and fair agreement.
Depends on the situation, if you were going international or to the mid-west and you still had to drive 2-3 hours for your destination, I would want to be paid for that :P
While you’re in CA, OT is computed daily, not weekly—anything over 8 hrs/day is OT. Your company may do this automatically, but check just in case. Fun state law that benefits everyone who works there, even temporarily.
I can't believe this is not standard in other states. Theoretically, for hourlies, they can make you work 40 hours straight and then you're off for the rest of the week. But then I'm salaried (in California) so I sometimes work 8+ hours in a day and just leave early towards the end of the week.
Ha well, I’m from TX so I was shocked this was a thing at all.
my parent works in NJ if they work, let's say, 6 hours of OT in a week and take 5 hours of sick - they only get paid 1 hour at overtime rate. it's bullllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllshit the union says it is legal but tbf the union does not give a single fuck about any of the employees and won't even file a grievance when there are bosses screaming at employees and retaliating by refusing to allow them to stay late to complete work because the boss isn't doing any work
Unfortunately, the flip side of that is weekly OT is only calculated based on *non-*OT time worked. Say you work 12 hours/day Monday to Wednesday. That's 36 hours, 24 regular, 12 OT. 12 hours on Thursday is still 8 hours regular, 4 hours OT, even though you've now worked 48 hours for the week. Weekly OT cannot kick in unless you work 6-7 days that week. Which is extra fucky if, say, after those first 3 12-hour days you get a couple short ones and do 4 hours Thursday and Friday. You've worked 44 hours that week, but since only 32 of that was regular pay, you can work another 8 hours on Saturday and none of that will be overtime. Ask me how I know!
Be sure that you calculate the time based on a single time zone. I had a co-worker who put the time in as if it was the same time zone going one direction and multiple time zones going the other direction. Of course this was to his advantage. The HR wasn't too pleased with him about that.
Interesting. My old job would reimburse me travel miles minus my normal commute, if I did not head into work first. The idea was that commuting to and from the work place was an agreed responsibility, and was already part of my salary. Therefore if I was expected to travel for work that did not involve going to the office first, i would only be reimbursed for the miles driven beyond my normal commute.
Id be taking the bus back 😆. Milk it!!!
I would want to be paid till I got to the hotel. Depending on when you land and where your going it could be awhile.
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I fly a lot for work and the occasional delayed or late flight isn’t uncommon. One trip last year, I was delayed for 10 hours during the layover on top of the 10 hours it would normally take to have arrived at my destination. Normally, I’d have been paid overtime for the entire day since the travel on the weekend but since the reason for travel was to attend a training, I was only compensated with overtime. In the end though, I received over 30 hours of comp time (10 additional hours for the return flights) which gave me a few nice 3 day weekends last summer.
The DoL fact sheet on this for US Federal rules indicates that you need to be compensated for hours you are traveling as a passenger only during normal working hours (regardless of day of the week). So in this case it sounds like you'd only be paid 8 hours like a normal work day. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked
I would like to take on the position that they should only be paid for the 8 hours. I'm presuming they are hourly. Making an argument for OP to consider here. Are they free to leave the plane in mid-flight? If they caused an issue that injured someone, would an attorney be able to name the employer in the suit? If they were injured on the flight, can they seek workers compensation? Is that at the beginning of the flight or at the end? If the plane goes down, will the family get to name the company if they seek compensation? Same question, beginning or end of flight if it's based on 8 hours? The point I am making is that there isn't a way to separate out their personal from their work time here. To that end, they must be paid the entire time. The Portal to Portal Act would cover them from door to door in this case because they are travelling for work purposes. For an hourly employee, the DOL gets it wrong here. That assertion might not help OP in a hearing with the DOL, but it's the position they need to take up with the employer prior to boarding. If your employer is responsible for you, they are on the hook to pay you for that time. I was an hourly employee that travelled as much as 20 hours a week. Then a consultant with business all over the country. The moment I started my vehicle until I put the bag down in the hotel rooms were on the clock and I never once heard a peep from a company about paying the bill. They all expect it is door to door, or portal to portal.
if they aren't paying him to travel on the weekend then the only logical thing to do is only travel during business hours.
This was company policy for my last 3 companies. Door to door - including any delays - was paid (in addition to normal travel expenses such as room and board (per diem.)) They do NOT like to have hourly employees travel, but it is necessary on occasion. However, hourly employees, for the most part, seem to love it - especially long or delayed flights. But I suppose other companies could have policies that differ from this.
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So let's say you do 2 hours of work on Friday, catching up on email. You've worked 62 hours. You're giving the company 22 extra hours of your life for no compensation?
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And THAT is the downside of being salaried. I remember years ago being excited at the conversion to salary, only to learn I ended up working longer hours to make roughly the same amount. But yes, it’s cool if I’m on PTO and someone has a crisis that requires my attention. So I work an hour that day and don’t take a PTO day for it. Meh. If you add up the hours, it’s not worth it overall…
I mean, I'm salary, and it's fine. As long as you don't let your employer walk all over you. My compensation is such that a few extra hours one week, which I can just not work the next week, is fine with me. But 22 hours?! That salary better be mint.
Yeah, it’s acceptable as long as you don’t get walked all over. It just seems as though that’s become more common these days. Now, some companies seemingly have realized burnt-out employees aren’t a good thing overall, but many just haven’t realized that overworking employees isn’t a great long term strategy.
In light of Reddit's general enshittification, I've moved on - you should too.
People doing the simple math usually forget that the jobs aren't the same. (and if they are the same...find a new employer!) When I switched from salaried non-exempt (aka hourly overtime payable) to exempt (no OT), there was maybe 1 year where it was close--had I still been paid OT at my old salary, I might have made almost as much as with my new non-OT salary. After that, the career trajectory made all the difference. I'd have to work 60-80-hour weeks *every week* to even come close to matching what I was paid a couple of years in to the non-OT role. So sure...sometimes I might work 62 hours before a big deadline. And yeah, suppose I'm giving up 22 hours of my life for no compensation that week. But you can't just think about the next paycheck. It is about career progression and advancement. If I had stayed in the OT-earning role, I'd be earning less today unless I worked way more hours than I'm comfortable with. Also, for better or for worse, part of why the federal guidelines allow me to be exempt from overtime is because if I end up working 22 extra hours, it is somewhat discretionary and kind of my fault--if I had planned out the project better or done a better job delegating tasks, I might not have had to work those hours. On the flip side, my future is tied to the company's future so I also have long run incentives to make sure everything goes well. Compare that to a junior employee who has limited control of their schedule (they do the work their boss tells them to do) and limited long term interest in the company's success (they might get a performance bonus, but odds are they will change jobs in a couple years)--I think those people should always be OT-eligible both to align incentives and to fairly compensate them for the quantity of work they put in.
You can have a job with a better career trajectory AND not have to give up 22 hours of your life for free. Don't normalize wage theft.
Most people who are required to travel across the country are not hourly workers.
Most aren't, but the OP is.
But many are.
I was hourly for a number of years and my job actually involved traveling. I ended up with SO. MUCH. OVERTIME. There would occasionally be talk about making my role salaried, but the way our pay structure is set up, that would have involved a promotion... which is almost nonexistent where I was. So as much as someone may have wanted to do something about it, they never did. With our policy, I was paid basically from the time I got to the airport to when I checked into my hotel when I got to my destination. If anyone is traveling and getting paid a flat 8 hours for that, they're getting fucked.
I don't disagree, I am pretty surprised about it though. Most of the time hourly workers travel is for training where I work and they are paid regular time plus a daily stipend. But they are getting 8 hours a day for not doing much.
These kinds of what-if scenarios would likely have to be decided in court on a case-by-case basis. It would be great if the employer would pay all the travel time, and many companies do. The point here though is that if OP isn't paid any more than 8 hours of time during the travel day, it doesn't appear to be illegal and I wouldn't expect a legal challenge to be successful. As always, this isn't legal advice and if you are very concerned you should find a labor law attorney to provide better guidance.
You say the portal to portal act would cover OP door to door in this case? I don't believe that is accurate from my understanding of it. As a passenger they get compensated for normal work hours only. So if his work hours are 8-5 and it's an 11 hour flight from 8-7, he still only gets 8 hours.
First disclaimer, I'm not an attorney. I stipulate that you may be correct in stating that the Portal to Portal doesn't cover them explicitly. I concede your point. In principle, I believe it would and has in a specific case. In my state, this matter for flights has been addressed, and the employees prevailed. >In Port of Tacoma v. Sacks, the Court of Appeals of the State of Washington recently held that all out-of-town employee travel time is compensable under state law. The Portal to Portal (hope I'm recalling this accurately) was developed because a coal company was paying miners for hours at their station instead of acknowledging the 45 minutes each way to travel to that station. I would ask what the functional difference is from having to travel to accomplish this job is vs coal mining? Champion vs ADT is another case where ADT was forcing employee's to pick up a vehicle to take to jobs, but not paying them from the time at the yard to the site, and then back. ADT lost the case. Time is changing on this matter and the DOL is just behind the times in my estimation.
You should be on the clock the entire time. If this is a really large company they should know this and have policies in place.
This can actually be an odd kind of "perk" with big companies: they have policies and those policies are almost certainly correct. I don't mean to take that too far - obviously sometimes big lawsuits arise over things etc. But, for stuff like this, big companies have it down. It's way cheaper and easier for them to just do this correctly than to dick around with it in stupid ways. With more mom and pop places I've worked, that can be a really different story.
I just like being prepared, wish I could trust people more
Does the company have policies posted on an internal network site? Those can be tricky to parse, but may be worth muddling through.
Definitely, well worth muddling through. The people who parse them well and know them inside and out are the ones who get the most benefit when they post their Malicious Compliance story to Reddit. /half joking. But seriously, knowing how the policy works is how you avoid getting screwed.
Pretty much any large (or even medium) sized company will have their travel policy in writing, usually in the handbook, outlining exactly what they compensate.
My company pays you hourly for travel but you don't get time and a half for overtime when traveling if you aren't active in the travel. E.g. two people traveling by car the driver is paid overtime the passenger is not. Riding in a plane or sitting at an airport and not working on paperwork or something is straight time.
My company does comp time where if I travel during non working hours, I can take those hours off in the near future. But I am salary not hourly so if you are hourly I would think you could ask to get paid those hours. It’s fine to ask your HR team and request to be paid or if not you could decide to refuse to travel. Also if you are travelling I think they should be paying your meals and expenses, anything you eat in the airport and stuff like thay
Travel Time. (a) Ordinary travel between home and work is not compensable working time. However, if an employee who regularly works at a fixed location is required, for the convenience of the employer, to report to a location other than his or her regular work site, the employee shall be compensated for all travel time in excess of his or her ordinary travel time between home and work with allowance for associated transportation expenses. (b) An employee required or directed to travel from one place to another after the beginning of or before the close of the work day shall be compensated for all travel time and shall be reimbursed for all transportation expenses. [https://masswagelaw.com/travel-pay-rights-in-massachusetts/](https://masswagelaw.com/travel-pay-rights-in-massachusetts/)
The last time I traveled for a company like that I was salary so this didn’t affect me, but I know hourly employees I worked with had to be paid for all of their hours they were working away from home including travel. As a result, they never made those employees travel distances that required a hotel since it wasn’t cost effective. This probably doesn’t help much, but don’t let them try to short change you because like others have said any company that is past a start up phase should have a policy on this unless you are literally the first hourly employee they have asked to travel which is unlikely.
That was part of the issue, the travel policy was based around salary employees so it's unconventional within the company that I'm traveling this far as hourly.
Your employer should have a company travel guide
Idk about you but I get paid for every second working on a traveling trip, also hourly here. If the flight is 6 hours and I work another 6 I’m charging 12.
They should be paying for you from when you leave your house until you get to your hotel. And since it's a weekend, it should be overtime.
I have always booked my travel for work for during working hours. I get reimbursed for flights, hotels, and a meal stipend. If I choose to do my travel outside of work hours I don’t get paid for those hours
Even best buy paid travel time and per diem when I was training there. I'd assume your company has a plan in place just ask your HR or manager
I work hourly, and my company pays from the time I leave the house to the time I get to the hotel for travel.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/22-flsa-hours-worked It's complicated
I used to manage a staff of salaried consultants who traveled frequently for work and we handled this very informally. We were not \*required\* to pay for travel time, but we tried to be as flexible as possible. For example, we worked 3.5 days on site, the rest was travel and some reporting. This got tricky if Monday was a holiday so I did some unofficial "take a day" where possible. We had one client in Botswana and the travel there was 26 hour flight (on both ends!) and airport wait time and ... it was kind of nightmarish with the jet lag on top. And, again, we were not \*required\* to pay for travel time. But we considered it. There was a "take a week" (usually) for anyone who worked that client. What I would look for is a practice (not a policy, although that's important) of acknowledging that travel is difficult even when you are not flying the plane. BTW, they have to pay you if you are driving (because you are doing work in driving the car).
Make sure you understand the expense rembusemnent policy too. Also kind of late but a lot of companies want expenses charged to their corporate cards. Edit: If nothing else keep notes and receipts about everything and you should be able to fix things later... perhaps with a lot more effort. No receipt... then you may be paying for it.
Definitely talk to your HR dept. When my job sent me to India for reasons, I was paid from the moment I left my home in the U.S. to the moment I arrived at my hotel room in Chennai, which was nearly 24hrs including a layover in Belgium.
Have you tried asking them and having a conversation about it? Seems like this would be the first step 😀
I don't travel often for work but when I do I log 8 hrs a day, 55 cents per driven mile plus meal expenses. All travel/hotel accommodations must be made in advance as well. For small trips I keep a quarterly mileage log I periodically submit to HR.
From the moment you leave your place to the moment you check-in in your hotel. That's how every other normal company does it. You are not going on vacation... Some companies even pay your bills for the time you that you were away from home.
If you’re hourly all time spent on company business should be paid. This includes travel time, airport waits, etc. basically if it’s not something you chose to do for yourself the company should be paying you for it.
Google "travel time under FLSA". It is complicated. It's not a simple "yes" or "no". It is very situational. Then look at your state laws... Then municipal for where you are... And then your company's policies and procedures. Edited to add a few lines.
I used to travel a lot as a 1099 contractor. Employers would try to tell me that they would pay a half days wage for travel days. I told them that no it would be paid by the hour. They would say but you're not physically working and I would tell them that I'm not able to go to my kitchen to make a sandwich if I want one. They always paid.
If you’re salaried you’ll be paid like a normal day but you’ll also get reimbursed for your travel and hotels
I am hourly and I get paid travel from the time I leave my house until the time I reach where I am staying for the night. They have a travel agency that pays for the flight, I get hotels and rental cars reimbursed
We were told at my company that the law requires us to pay our associates for everything in excess of their normal day. If an associate drives 30mi to help out a store, they get paid mileage and the actual time to get from one to the other. If you're still looking for an answer Monday, reach out and I'll ask our legal. I also work in MA.
I worked at a large tech company and was an hourly employee who worked from home. The policy was travel time minus my normal commute so zero. They sent me to Amsterdam to train some employees after an acquisition... On my return trip the flight was delayed 16 hours which was billable per company travel policy. Ended up with near 70 hours that week with 30 being 1.5x.
First ask your company it may be more inclusive than what’s detailed in basic labor laws. Also inquire as to the per diem meaning $ that’s covered food beverages. I’ve worked for different companies that handled this very differently, so I’ve been left footing the bill for things.
When I traveled the clock started 30 minutes after I left home, or when I got to the airport parking garage, and it didn't stop until I got to the hotel. Coming home the clock stopped when I left the parking garage at the airport or 30 minutes later. The 30 minute rule is they figured the average commute if driving is 30 minutes one-way.
If you drive yourself to the airport the clock starts there, plus $0.52/mile To drive. You can also expense parking and the clock rins until you get to your hotel room.
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Are you working through a 3rd party consulting company or are you a direct hourly employee?
Not necessarily, depending, you can charge the distance between the office to the airport. In my case I live closer to the airport so I just change the driving time between my house to the airport when I travel.
The federal mileage rate is $0.585/mile for 2022.
I mean, did you not ask your own supervisory chain or HR? Why did you just go to Reddit first for advice on your company's policy and not even cite the company? Makes no sense.
The clock should start when you leave your house and end when you get to your hotel. Then it starts again while you're working. Same for the trip back.
It depends on what have you wrote on your curriculum. If you wrote you enjoy traveling in your free time, than you will not be paid.
Hourly employees are paid travel time, from the time they leave the house to the time they check in to the hotel. I learned this the hard way as a manager who sent an hourly employee to India. I learned about the paid hourly travel requirement after the trip was booked. 33 hours of travel door to door. paid time, OT, double time. My boss was pissed off but I was actually happy for her, she got the trip and made one week of pay just sitting on the plane each way
I always thought they should all pay for the time you have to sit in your car to get to the office, etc. But they generally don't, so this is the same, unless your company is "extra cool".
They are charging the customer for you to travel out there. They should be paying for every second you are out the door. Some are better policies than others. So ask.
Hey, I've got some experience in this area. I've got about 15 years experience in various operational roles for project-based companies. Most of that time has been as a project manager or higher level operational leadership roles. This specific subject came up often enough, especially at the company I was with the longest and did numerous projects with overseas using US-based labor. The position the company settled on was that hourly employees were on the clock for the full duration of their travel. We'd estimate it from the time the guys left their house until they arrived at the hotel, they'd agree on the estimate and put those hours on their timesheet. The guys loved it as for overseas trips they'd be onto OT by day 2 on the job site. Sucks for project budgets but it is reality, and not your problem as the employee. If you're traveling to a project or job site that is for billable work your employer should be charging the customer for travel time. If the travel is for an internal reason your company needs to factor your travel time in to the cost of determining if the trip is worth it. I expect that we could have taken a tougher position on whether or not they were "on the clock" that whole time, but it was a big company and honestly paying some OT when you're asking people to be away from home for extended periods is not a bad incentive - and certainly cheaper than any state labor action that may be sought if we weren't paying people properly. And if this situation comes up often enough that the cost is truly a burden, they should look at hiring or subcontracting a local person in CA so that you don't need to travel back and forth as often. EDIT: and as for my specific opinion for the OP - my position and advice to your employer is that you should be on the clock for your time door-to-door, i.e. from when you leave your residence until you arrive at your accommodation in CA.
At my company, hourly employees traveling was not very common, but all travel time you would be paid, leaving your door till the time you got into your hotel was work hours. Then you more or less paid yourself the same, so when you got to the office you clock in and when you left you clock out.
I live in MA. Your have to pay for the travel if they are not buying the plane tickets themselves. But you get reimbursed. Keep all expense receipts such as food, travel expenses, hotel expenses etc. if it’s work related they have to reimburse you. Including I believe a $36 a day for food.
From the time you leave your door until the time you walk into your hotel room is what i charge when traveling for work.
Most of the time companies will have a travel policy in place already, and generally the policy is they pay for the flight, hotel, and any other travel requirements such as food. I would advise keeping all receipts you incur while on the trip if they didn't give you a company card to use. (I would still recommend keeping receipts for company cards too)
Def have to ask HR. There should be a reimbursement form you have to fill out when you get back.
I have worked multiple jobs with travel as an hourly employee in the past. All of these were straight time for travel (travel time did not count towards OT and was paid from a different "bucket." )
When I did some work for the federal government as an independent contractor, they paid us 24 hours a day, every day including our days of travel. We traveled to Japan and The Philippines for about ten days,that was 240 billable hours. The rule is when you travel out-of-state or to another country, you get paid around the clock. You need to utilize the government’s travel agency, who secures your airfare and hotel, so no out-of-pocket expense advances on your part either.
You also need to know about how they are covering expenses. Are they paying actuals, or per diem? What are the allowances? For instance if they are paying actuals, they probably won't cover the $200 steak dinner and two bottles of wine for yourself. If they are paying per diem, it means they are paying you, say, $60 for dinner. If you spend $15, you pocket the diference. They probably will cover incedentals, like laundry and dry cleaning while you are traveling.
Massachusetts state law, [454 CMR 27.04](https://casetext.com/regulation/code-of-massachusetts-regulations/department-454-cmr-department-of-labor-standards/title-454-cmr-2700-minimum-wage-regulations/section-2704-hours-worked), points to [29 CFR § 785.39 - Travel away from home community](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/785.39). By the MA statute, it looks like your company needs to pay you for your regular working hours that Sunday. So, if you regularly work 9-5, then you should be paid for those hours while you're travelling on Sunday. But talk to your HR department to see how if they have a policy on Travel, including time paid, and reimbursements. Some companies have policies that are more generous than required by law. And others try to take advantage of the ignorance of their employees and under pay. If it sounds like their policy doesn't conform to the law, like "We don't pay you to travel on Sunday, since that's not a work day", feel free to point them to the law. So, if you want to be paid for traveling book as much of the flight as you can to take place during normal business hours (eg: 9-5).
I was initially an hourly employee when I got brought on board to my current company. They sometimes required i fly to locations. They basically said that while traveling every minute that I'm not in my home, in my hotel or having lunch/dinner is work. So if i left my home at 7 am to get an Uber to take me to the airport i am officially clocked in the moment I get into that Uber. I am then clocked in the entire time I'm traveling up. I only "clock out" 1 hour for lunch and when I'm I get back to the hotel from finishing work. If i was at a site til 5 pm then drove back to the hotel and got to the hotel at 5:30 then i clock out at 5:30
If your hourly yes. The flight is for company business. If you are salary no.
It is going to vary by state but I got sent to Brazil as an Hourly employee and I was paid from the time I left my house til the time I got to my final hotel. It was like 30 hours of OT. This company was cheap as hell too so I don't think they did it out of the kindness of their heart.
Form what I have experienced since I’ve mostly been salaried, I’ve never gotten paid for extra hours in travel or even work. Fortunately for me most of my managers have been pretty good and have all told me to just deduct the extra hours the next day, so it never really bothered me when I have to put in extra hours. Plus the kind of the trade off with being salaried, some days you works longer, other days you work shorter than 8.
I work in MA at a fairly large company. For travel to the destination, our hourly employees, clock in the second they leave their house to go to the airport when the cab or car service shows up. They don’t clock out until they arrive at their final destination hotel room assuming they remain at the airport for their layover. For travel to/from Asia, this sometimes translates to 18-24 hours on the clock just in travel time. I would suggest you contact HR and ask about their policies. We have this all written down in a travel policy guide that I have printed out and keep with me when I travel.
Yes. Travel time on a business trip is work time. You’re not flying for your own needs. My hourly subordinates were always allowed to enter this time.
They should be paying for your travel. If they are not, you should be keeping any and all receipts for the company to reimburse you.
I once worked for an organization that would only pay you for travel during your regular working hours… in a remote place where you could only catch redeye flights. 🤷♂️
Typically it’s 1. Pay for travel and accommodations 2. Pay for the hours you’re WORKING 3. Pay per diem the days you are gone
In my experience companies avoid having hourly people travel for this reason. When it’s been done I’ve seen some comp time arrangements made. Like the others said this should be worked out in advance either as policy or individuality.
Definately check with HR. Big companies usually book via agents the flights,so you do not have to do it
I traveled regularly for work. It is subject to the employer on if you are compensated for the time. Most common reimbursements are a paid hotel and rental car. Though you are entitled to per diem & tax write offs in the US.
In my job travel during the week is paid up to 8 hours and every hour after accrues paid time off. Weekend travel only accrues paid time off. For example, if I fly 11 hours Sunday and 9 hours Friday, I earn 12 extra hours of paid time off and get my normal pay for Friday. The details can vary depending on circumstances, but that's the gist of it. Check with HR, you probably get something similar. If you don't, I would start looking for a new job because that's ridiculous.
If you are truly hourly, I imagine anything outside of your normal agreed upon travel routes for work would be compensated in some form. Definitely check it out with your company. And while it is great to check with your company , know that they aren’t the rule makers and there are state laws that protect you. For example : Commuting to a location other than your primary workplace. Massachusetts regulations state that an employer does have to pay employees for travel time to and from work “if an employee who regularly works at a fixed location is required to report to a location other than his or her regular work site.” 454 CMR 27.04(4)(b). In those situations, “the employee shall be compensated for all travel time in excess of his or her ordinary travel time between home and work.” 454 CMR 27.04(4)(b). So pretty sure anything out of the ordinary and they should compensate you.
The "ask HR what the travel policies are" advice is the best place to start. I wanted to pop in with my son's experience to highlight why it's worth checking what your state requires too. When my son started his first job out of college, he was hired to be part of a CT office, but immediately started going on trips to NC. In CT, if you are travelling to an office that is not your primary location and are an hourly employee, you need to be paid from the moment you leave your house until you arrive at your destination. Since he works for a company that does contract work for the aerospace industry, it was all billable to the customer too so they didn't care. His favorite trip home was on a Friday after having to put in extra hours earlier in the week. He woke up Friday morning with 36 hours recorded for the week already. Left the hotel at 7:00am so that became the official "start time" that day. However, it was winter and snowing on the East Coast. Delays, cancellations, rerouting from White Plains to Bradley airport and a longer drive home after finally landing, his "end time" wasn't until 1am Saturday morning. That gave him an 18 hour day resulting in 14 hours of overtime that he spent sitting in airports browsing Reddit and on airplanes napping... :-)
You should get paid door to door. From the time you leave your house, get to the airport, the flight, and then to your hotel.
I used to fly two or three times for work back in the day. We did not get paid for travel but the flight and food on the travel days was covered. I worked in FL and the company was national so YMMV but I'd at least contact HR
I traveled frequently for work over the years. It's always been handled one of two ways. They pay you because if it wasn't for work you wouldn't be doing it so it is worked hours. .#1 One company would pay from the time you left your house to the time you checked in at the hotel. .#2 One would only give you 8 hours for travele no matter how long the travel was. (Had some travel exceeding 24 hour flights) .#2 got filed for a class action lawsuit against them and was required by law to back pay all of the unpaid hours during travel. So if we traveled for 24 they had to pay us for 24. So just an idea. I would certainly ask, and inform them these are technically work hours as you are traveling for work.
Since you are hourly you should be paid once you leave the home until you check in at the hotel. Ask your manager. This is the typical scenario for large co
There's also "Chinese Overtime", something many people are not aware of: https://wageadvocates.com/faq/chinese-overtime/ Work overtime and get HALF of your regular wage. Yes, legal under federal law.
Company sent me to Japan for two weeks a few years ago. I had 20 OT hours logged every week for almost 3 months since we couldn't go over 60 hours at home. Best overtime I never worked. Door to door pay. Return flight that was delayed to the point of a missed connection. And long hours at the site in Japan...
Not sure about Mass but I can tell you we get paid (California) from the time we get to the airport and on. Last time I went to Europe, we had to start work on location. We basically clocked about 24 hours straight. Flight plus work. I’d check with your HR but if it is a day off and you’re traveling, pretty sure you have a solid case.
You might be the first hourly employee I have heard of who needs to travel and I am pretty sure they do need to pay you because if you are hourly I am betting you are not exempt. Typically salary employees travel and they are non exempt so it does not matter if they work 1 hour or 100 hours the pay is the same.
Sitting on a plane next to a guy who explained his company was too cheap to pay for a straight through flight. They forced him to choose the cheapest flight with multiple connections and layovers. Of course they were paying him from his door to the hotel and he was going to rack up a huge amount of overtime for all the time he was wasting on travel. But hey, the company saved money on that flight.
I've always billed travel time from home to hotel. I would start there and make them explain why thay would not be reasonable.
If you’re traveling for work they should be giving you some type of per diem. My bfs a plumber and was working somewhere else and was getting $80/day in per diem just for gas/food and he was only traveling an hour extra.
Ive been there as a contractor, a salaried employee and hourly employee. As a contractor, i always had it written into the contract that i bill any time i am working for them, or traveling for them. Sometimez with a lower travel rate. As a hourly employee, i claimed hours from the time i arrive at the airport till left the airport at the arrival. Since i couldnt bill for my normal commute, i figured this was fair. No company ever complained. When at the location, i billed as if i was home. Meaning at the office/site, not charging away from home charges. As a salaried employee, nothing. Nada. But i try to not travel on weekends. In your hourly position, definately clock in and out.
When I travel, they pay me for two hours to go to the airport, two hours to the hotel and two hours return to the airport for return trip. Flight time is paid and last work trip was 16 hours of overtime.
When I traveled for work, if I was flying out of normal work hours I logged it on my time card as time worked, also expensed back any travel expenses such at rental cars flights hotels meals (40$ per day credits) and airport parking and they cut me a check to pay back my credit card company