How to track work hours during business trips

13 of October, 2022

How are business trip hours calculated? Do travel hours count as work hours? These are some of the questions raised by employers who have workers who need to travel outside their place of residence for work reasons, whether for meetings or training. Time tracking in business trips is important for those companies that require traveling, so pay attention and discover all how to track work hours.

How to track work hours in a business trip

When we talk about business trips, employees must still clock in without exception and carry out their daily activities, recording their real working time. However, there are some issues about tracking work hours during business trips that are difficult to explain.

In general terms, when an employee goes on a business trip, commuting time must be recorded as part of their working day. Basically, it must be taken into account that these trips are necessary to carry out their tasks and responsibilities within a job position. An example of this kind of position would be sales representatives.

How do you calculate working hours during work trips?

What happens when an employee has to leave the office? For instance, to go a meeting or on a business trip. And what happens when the same person needs to go to different places? If you are an employer and this is a recurring issue in your companny, you have to inform yourself and know how to track working time during work trips. This is one of the most frequent doubts that employers have when it comes to complying with the law and when implementing a time tracking software, since it must be adaptable to all the needs of each job.

Therefore, as travel also includes rest times, experts advise that each company should establish a protocol for it. However, before addressing how time tracking works during business trips, whether they are short-haul or international trips, it is necessary to clarify what is considered working time and what is not. The term working time refers to:

“any period during which the worker remains at work, at the employer’s disposal and in the exercise of its activity or its functions”.

A tool to track work hours during business trips

In any situation, the best thing to do to keep a record of the working day for workers who are not always in the office is to have a time tracking software with geolocation that complies with the law and is adapted to the needs of jobs that require traveling. It is all about choosing the right time control software that facilitates clock in and clock out from a mobile device, anytime, anywhere. Sesame HR can help you with all this.

In these cases, implementing a time tracking system that does not allow multi-device clock in/out or that does not have a mobile app in which the employee can record the start and end time of their working day may be the wrong choice and make it difficult to keep track of working hours.

“To compute the hours of business travel, the truth is that there is no clear standard in this regard, so experts recommend companies to establish their own action protocol”

In other words, it is advisable for each company to establish an internal protocol to compute business trips, specifying which trips are counted as effective work time and which are left out. In addition, companies will treat work trips differently if they are agreed as part of the contract or if they are carried out in an extraordinary way.

A final thought

In the United States, it has been established that time spent traveling during normal work hours is considered compensable work time. Time spent in home-to-work travel by an employee in an employer-provided vehicle, or in activities performed by an employee that are incidental to the use of the vehicle for commuting, generally is not “hours worked” and, therefore, does not have to be paid. This provision applies only if the travel is within the normal commuting area for the employer’s business and the use of the vehicle is subject to an agreement between the employer and the employee or the employee’s representative.