Do you include travel time in your working hours?

The Tyco Case concerned workers with no fixed workplace,whose employers could choose to change the order of customers, cancelappointments, or require workers to call on additional customers on their journey home. The ECJ held that for these workers, with no fixed or habitual place of work, travel time to the first customer of the day, and travel timehome from the last customer, should count as "working time" for the purposes of the Working Time Directive.

As a result,if theemployerorganisesthe order of appointments, it may need toreorganisethe order of the worker'scalling pointsor perhapsremove appointments to ensurecontinued compliance with theWorking Time Regulations.If the worker sets their own order of appointments, the employer should consider whether there are steps it can take to ensure routes are planned in a time efficient manner.

If it does not use these already, the employer may wish to insert contractual provisions to ensure that workers will not move out of a designated areawithout consent.They should ensure suchrequirements areclear when recruiting.

The ECJ considered the potential issue ofworkers conducting personal businessduring their first and last journeys. TheECJ took theview thatemployers may need to implement monitoring procedures to avoid potential abuse and that while this might be anadditional burden foremployers it was"an inherent consequence" of the employers in this case having chosen to closeoffices in favour of having amobile workforce.

The case could impact for example thousands of care workers who visit people's homes on a daily basis with appointments at the beginning and the end of the day.

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