United States General Services Administration

Interagency Telework Issues Working Group Subcommittee DRAFT Reports

United States Office of Personnel Management

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your questions about when commuting or travel is hours of work for teleworkers.

You ask when an employee's travel between his or her main office and a telework site (home, satellite office, or telecenter) is hours of work. You also ask whether the employee's work schedule changes in such a situation.

General Guidance

Commuting from home to work and vice versa is not hours of work. When an employee travels directly from home to a temporary duty location outside the limits of the employee's official duty station, the time the employee would have spent in normal home-to-work travel is deducted from hours of work. (See 5 CFR 550.112(j)(2) and 5 CFR 551.422(b).)

Travel during the employee's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty is hours of work. Employees should be required to obtain approval for travel from their supervisors. It is not appropriate to schedule overtime hours to cover travel time. (See 5 CFR 550.112(g)(1), 5 CFR 551.422 (a)(1), and 5 U.S.C. 6101(b)(2).)

Supervisors generally may not change an employee's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty after the workweek begins. (See 5 U.S.C. 6101(a)(3).) However, supervisors may cancel regularly scheduled overtime work or may order irregular or occasional overtime work. For employees under flexible work schedules, supervisors may require, during a workweek, that some (planned) flexible hours of work be performed at another time not in excess of 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week. (See OPM's Handbook on Alternative Work Schedules, section 12d.

You identified five scenarios. Our additional guidance follows:

1. HRM/DUTY STATION: When an employee has a preplanned event, e.g., a meeting scheduled in the main office on the employee's telecommuting day and remains at the main office for that employee's normal work schedule.

Answer: This scenario implies that the agency has a compelling reason to require the employee to work at the main office for at least part of the day. When that occurs, the agency may want to cancel the employee's authority to telecommute on the day of the meeting in the main office or reschedule his or her telecommuting day. If a telecommuter is required to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty on that day, the agency must credit the travel time as hours of work. In order to maximize productivity and avoid situations where a telecommuter has a greater pay benefit than employees who do not telecommute, agencies should avoid requiring a telecommuter to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty.

2. HRM/DUTY STATION: When an employee is directed to come in (called back) to the office for an unplanned event, e.g., to work on an urgent assignment for which the employee doesn't have the resources available at home to complete.

Answer: If a telecommuter is directed to travel to the main office during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the telecommuter's travel hours must be credited as hours of work. If the telecommuter is directed to travel back to the main office before or after his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty for irregular or occasional overtime work, the employee is entitled to at least 2 hours of overtime pay under the "call back" rules. (See 5 CFR 550.112(h) and 551.401(e).)

3. HRM/DUTY STATION: When an employee forgets to take home the correct resources needed to work all day, so comes in long enough to get them and return home.

Answer: A telecommuter must receive approval from his or her supervisor for any trips to the main office on his or her telecommuting day. If the trip is approved and occurs during the telecommuter's regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the employee's travel time is hours of work. For this reason, the supervisor must evaluate whether such a trip is necessary before granting approval. The supervisor may want to require the employee to work at the main office for the remainder of the workday. If a telecommuter repeatedly fails to plan properly and does not have the necessary resources to work at home, the agency should reevaluate the employee's continued participation in the telecommuting program.

4. HRM/DUTY STATION: When an employee needs or wants to arrive or leave during the normal work schedule and is approved to complete the day at the alternative work site/home.

Answer: As stated above, if an employee is permitted to travel to and from his or her telecommuting work site during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty, the travel hours are hours of work.

5. HRM/DUTY STATION: When an employee's alternate work site/home is outside the 50 mile commute radius or takes more than an hour for the normal commute?

Answer: As stated above, normal commuting from home to work, and vice versa, is not hours of work. This applies no matter how long the employee's normal commute is.

If an FLSA-exempt employee is required by an agency to travel to an alternate work site outside of the employee's official duty station to perform agency work or to attend an event scheduled by any agency in the executive branch of Government, the travel is not to an uncontrollable event. For this reason, overtime pay is generally not authorized. (See 5 CFR 550.112(g)(2).) The employee should be permitted to travel during his or her regularly scheduled basic tour of duty whenever practicable. If the travel by the employee is to an uncontrollable event (e.g., training scheduled by a private company), the travel time is hours of work, except that the time the employee would have spent in normal home-to-work travel is deducted from hours of work.

If an FLSA-nonexempt employee is required to travel on a 1-day assignment away from the employee's official duty station, all of the employee's travel time on that day is hours of work, less any time the employee would have spent in normal home-to-work travel. If an FLSA-nonexempt employee is required to travel on an overnight assignment away from the official duty station, hours on nonworkdays that correspond to the hours of the employee's regularly scheduled tour of duty are hours of work. (See 5 CFR 551. 422(a)(3) and (4).)

3/16/01

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