Morning everyone,

I was approached by my HR department yesterday and they asked a question that gazumped me. They are in the process of writing an international travel policy as we will soon have a lot of employees who be travelling overseas on business.

The question asked was "is flying classed as working time". I know its not particularly a health and safety question, but does anyone have a similar policy in their workplace and if so, do you class flying as working time or do you class this as a period that can be used for rest?

thanks in advance for any responses.

Recent court cases regarding both the working time directive and minimum wage involving visiting health workers and construction workers judged business need travel as part of working hours.

Aircraft from a personal perspective are not particularly restful due to other passengers, in-flight announcements / service trolleys / entertainment systems.

The last employment involving significant air travel classed arrival at the airport as the start of working duties. Standard flight scheduling was set as Monday am through Friday pm. Weekend flights (generally long haul / cheaper flights) were classed as unpaid overtime with time off in lieu used in compensation.

Passport, travel visa costs and destination related innoculations were met as necessary business expenses.

Staying late to finish something off is not part of your working week!
Yes its there in black and white on the .Gov web site. How on earth does that work then? Employers given free reign to give you as much work as they like and if you don't get it finished in works time, well that's ok because you can volunteer to finish it your own time!
And before anybody talks about workers protection you just have to look at all the reports in the press of poor working conditions, low pay and exploitation in this country.
I always thought we would go forward with good practice in this country but looks like we are heading backwards to Victorian times and beyond! looks like this and the last governments idea to slay the health and safety monster is on track to remove all protection for workers!
Sorry Thursday rant over!

Just to add another element for consideration: what about 'thinking time' ?!!

I guess that most people, irrespective of what type/s of work they do, spend at least some of their time when not officially in/at work thinking about the issues, problems and challenges they face at work. This is because it's quite hard for most of us to completely switch our minds off about such matters at the end of each working day or shift unless we are fully pre-occupied with non-work activities or situations. Come to think of it, during my working years, I quite often thought about work issues while mowing my lawns or doing other tasks involving physical but minimal mental effort. In fact, such lone tasks were notably conducive to good analytical thinking because they tended to be free of the various distractions like people, telephones and computer screens commonly encountered while at work!

Most of us don't get paid for constructively thinking about work matters when we are not officially in/at work. However, some years ago I think I read/heard that "thinking time" is an established element in legal circles and that lawyers include it as part of the total hours for which they charge in their fees. Please can anyone with better knowledge of the legal world confirm if this is the case?

Graham B

Toe could be correct - it really is appalling how some responders to this thread have deviated from the original question, including the one who wittered on about 'thinking time' - but, hey, this forum, as its name suggests, is for discussions so, just like face-to-face discussions between people, it's surely no surprise that some threads can twist and turn in their content or include digressions and humour. Moreover, such aspects help to keep the forums fresh, informative and interesting!

Graham B

I do my best, most creative thinking during my sleep, Graham. At least, I presume that is why I often wake up with a good solution to a work-related issue in my mind. Yet I am not paid for sleeping at home and would expect sleeping at work to initiate some kind of unpleasant HR-type process.

It is Friday today and we deserve a drifting conversation.

rickstefanetti84

This question was addressed by a company whose employees were victims of a mid-air collision and the H R management asked me to provide the support needed by the single survivor, to move beyond this PTSD state after he identified the remains of his dead colleagues.

While the probability of a mid-air collision is very small, it's offers a reasonable way of deciding whether air travel is in working time.