Maintenance engineers driving to and from work

Hello

I run a lighting planned maintenance Company. For the last 6 years a major headache has been hours worked by our mobile engineers. We have an employment contract that states the engineers working day is 10hours, 2hours for travel. My difficulty is the travel time could exceed 5 or 6 hours in a day if the engineer leaves later in the morning therfore getting caught up in traffic creating a knock on effect throught the day. The engineers are happy with the 10hr agreement but I am not sure it would hold up in court. However, if the place of work was there home, then the amount of work on site could only be 4 hours. We do record their travel time and on site work time and at presnt it works out at 9hrs per day but they say they don't stop for lunch.

Re the mobile engineer (with a company vehicle), is he self employed (paid by invoice) or is he on your payroll?

Reason I ask is that if he is paid by invoice, it could be argued that there is enough substance there to create an employment relationship (provision of vehicle, degree of control, etc).

The answer depends on where the rep's normal place of work is.

For example, their terms of employment may state either the office or their home as the rep's place of work.

If the former, and they generally come into work before going out on the sales, the working day starts on arrival at work.

If, however, (and this is more common) the rep leaves home and heads straight for the target company, the day starts between leaving home and arriving at the destination. The reason I state this is that, strictly speaking, if it would take the rep 20 minutes to get to their office and their target for that day is 1 hour away, the day starts 20 minutes into the journey to the target client. Some employers choose not to argue about the 20 minutes that would normally be soent commuting to work.

If a rep's normal place of work is their home, the day starts when they start work whether that be at home or on their way to a client.

Once again, I hope this helps.

Useful information can I just move the
scenario a tad and substitute a sales rep for the maintenance driver. ie where does a sales rep working day start? ie when they start their journey/hours to drive to their sales call destination or when they arrive at their sales call destination?

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

As I am sure you will appreciate, working time is a complex area and has thrown up many interesting queries.

My advice in response to your query is based on the following:

- you have an M&E company that services your needs over the year

- on top of that you have a maintenance man who comes to your premises 2.5 days per week

- this maintenance man is also on call and has one of your company vans

- I assume you treat him as self employed, albeit that he has a company van.

I do not know the contractual arrangements but my basic advice is follows:

- routine travel between home and the place of work does not count as working time

- time spent travelling between sites during the working day is working time

- it would appear, therefore, that the regular travel on the 2.5 days is not working time

- 'inactive' on call time i.e. time spent pursuing your own interests, not at a specific workplace albeit on the end of a phone is not working time

- once a call is received and the worker responds that is working time and includes travel time to and from the on call site.

It may be that there are slight variations on the above principles but, without further information I do not know whether these variations apply.

I trust this helpful. Should you have any further queries, please call.

Andrea Bateman 01242 248237.

We have an M&E company servicing all our M&E needs over the year and a maintenance man who attends two and a half days a week. He has a company van becaue he also has to be on call out as part of his duties.

He travels 40 miles from his home to our place of work and this may happen when travelling from home to his other sites. He has advised me that his travelling to get here and home is not in his paid hours. This could mean extending his hours so he covers 8 hours on site plus all his travelling time.

My thoughts are that he works as a mobile engineer, has a company vehicle and gets sent all over the place which includes call outs from his home.

Are you able to advise me where his employment time starts? as he leaves home or at any site he is visiting?

What is 'working time'

Many thanks