Travel time is considered hours of work if the agency orders the employee to report onsite after starting a workday working remotely. Image: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock.com
OPM has issued guidance to clarify when travel time for teleworkers and remote workers constitutes hours of work for purposes including eligibility for overtime.
The guidance covers both telework—in which an employee is expected to regularly report to work at an agency site and that remains the official duty station for purposes such as locality pay rates—and remote work, in which there is no such expectation and the offsite work location is the duty station.
In both cases, it says, policies for overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act and “Title 5” overtime rules continue to apply. However, “the exact application of the rules may depend on the specific circumstances.”
For example, if an agency orders in advance that a teleworker must work onsite on a day when telework had been scheduled, the telework is canceled for that day, the employee has a normal workday at the site and time traveling to and from the site is considered personal commuting time, not hours of work. However, if the order comes after the employee has begun teleworking on a day, travel time generally would be considered work hours for overtime purposes.
Similar considerations apply to remote work, with the additional consideration that travel time is considered hours of work if the agency orders the employee to report onsite after starting a workday working remotely. Travel time also is considered hours of work if the employee was ordered in advance to work onsite if the employee’s remote work site is outside the commuting range for the agency site, usually a 50-mile radius.
For both categories, if an employee begins a workday but then chooses to work onsite, travel time to and from the agency site is to be deemed commuting time.
The guidance, at chcoc.gov, also covers special considerations such as employees on flexible working schedules.
OPM added that the policies do not apply to official travel nor to dismissals due to severe weather or other emergencies.
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