For jobs requiring local/regional travel from home to clients, what are the actual hours worked?

You need a daily or weekly expenses per diem. Mine is $30. per day locally and $75 – $125 per day out of town.

When I was a consultant I charged my clients for travel, but I capped it at 8 hours a trip.

If it is an employer-employee situation, it should be spelled out in the employee manual. Most companies do not pay travel time.

Employer reimburses mileage and tolls. Travel time was not addressed in the employee handbook. During interviews and orientation, it was discussed that travel time was included in hours worked. Things later changed, and now normal commute time is deducted from travel time. There have never been officially written guidelines.

It may depend on whether your position is considered “exempt” or “non-exempt”.

Exempt employees are not on a time clock, so it doesn’t matter how many hours they work in a day or week (depending on state laws), as long as they work a a specified minimum.

Non-exempt employees are typically on the clock as soon as they arrive to their workplace, be it the office or to your first client. If it is the latter, as soon as you finish with the last client, you are off the clock.

Does that address your question, or am I missing something?

Position is exempt. So, would travel time be included or excluded in the minimum hours works? The home is also considered an off-site office. When not with client, at off-site location, or at main office, work is conducted at home. This is not outlined in the employee handbook, and it seems to fluctuate depending on the employer’s needs. Sometimes home is not considered an authorized off-site workplace if it is possible to work at the main office for at least 2.5 hours. If less than 2.5 hours, then the employee is permitted to work at home.

Why wouldn’t an employer spell this out in an official manner (i.e. employee handbook)? Considering this policy has been verbal and subject to change, is it appropriate to request official documentation? Or, would it look poorly against the employee to request it? If yes, why?

Disclaimer: I am not an HR or legal expert, so please take any statements made here with a grain of salt. They are solely based upon the experience of working for one major corporation in the US for 24 years, many of which included travel to other states or within town. Agreed?

A person in an exempt position is offered an annual salary. Each paycheck will be for the same amount of Gross pay, other than some one-off situations.

The minimum number of hours worked a day in order to receive credit for a full day’s pay may vary by state law or company or the supervisor’s discretion…I just don’t know. Where I worked, it was a min. of one hour, as incredulous as it seems. It wasn’t outlined in our employee handbook either, mainly because it was up to the manager to work out each situation in advance. It was not up to the employee to say, “I’m only working an hour today.”

It sounds like you have questions about the rules are. If it were me, I’d ask my supervisor for time to sit down and discuss the confusion. And if pay is being deducted, I’d go straight to HR to find out what the company’s rules are for having pay docked.

P.S. If your transportation is a personal car, make sure you know what the rules are should you get into an accident while working. I’ve always had a rental or car leased by the company.

It depends on your contract with the employer, or their travel policy. The U. S. government spells it all out in full for their employees.