The implications for your business
If you employ workers with no fixed workplace you will have been affected by the European Court of Justice ruling that time spent travelling to and from home counts towards working time.
This will have an impact on pay, holiday pay, National Minimum Wage considerations, and Working Time Regulations issues relating to breaks and average hours per week.
As an employer, you may now have to pay your workers for their journey times from the beginning of their day and throughout the day. That increase in pay would feed into the calculation of holiday pay. It’s not difficult to foresee the problems you may encounter in monitoring individual worker’s travel time for each working day. Those affected will include care workers, plumbers, electricians, peripatetic salespeople and many others.
You will also have to count the time spent travelling in the calculation of the maximum weekly working hours for the purposes of not exceeding 48 hours, if workers have not opted out of the 48 hour working week. Workers must be able to take at least 11 hours’ rest between finishing work one day and starting work the next day.
For assistance in ensuring you meet the challenges raised by this ruling and to minimise your risk of back-pay claims or to discuss any of the issues please contact Claire Bell on 0115 8448 350 or send her an email.
Posted on September 11, 2015