My tasks include training which takes place around Finland, do I receive compensation for the time I spend travelling?

I am about to enter into an employment contract for a position of an organisation secretary. My duties include occasional training across the country. The travels can start or end outside regular working hours, so part of them take place during my free time. The collective agreement for civil servants is applied at my workplace. Do I receive any compensation for the time I spend travelling to the trainings?

 

The principle of the Working Hours Act is that travel time is not included in working hours if it does not constitute work performance. However, time spent travelling during working hours is not deducted from the working hours. There are no provisions on the compensation of travel time outside the working hours in the Working Hours Act. Many collective agreements contain regulations on the compensation of time spent travelling outside working hours with an equivalent number of hours off or a simple hourly rate. The union recommends that travel time compensation should be recorded in the employment contract, using these principles.

 

Reimbursements for travel expenses, such as daily allowances, are not considered travel time compensation, but compensation for the excess living costs incurred by the travel.

 

The regulations on travelling during free time applicable to the public sector are described below.

 

State sector:

1. What counts as working hours

Working hours include the time spent working and the time during which the civil servant or employee must be available to the employer at the workplace. Travel time from home to work is not included in working hours if it does not constitute work performance. On the other hand, the time spent travelling from a location appointed by the employer to the location where the actual work is performed and back is counted as working hours.

  

During official journeys, only the time used performing actual duties is counted as working hours. If the person’s working hours during a day of official journey or secondment come to less than their regular working hours, the time spent travelling is added to their working hours. However, the total working hours may not exceed the regular daily working hours.

  

For example, if a person travels to the location where the work is performed for four hours in the morning, works for two hours, and travels back for four hours in the afternoon, his/her actual working time is two hours. However, owing to the system described above, the time spent travelling is added to the person’s working hours to make the daily hours correspond to his/her regular hours. No evening, night, Saturday, Sunday or holiday eve work supplement is paid for the hours added to the working hours.

  

When an employee is on secondment, the time he/she spends travelling from one location of office to another is not added to working hours.

 

For example, if a person has duties at another location on Tuesday and must start the trip on Monday night and sleep at the destination, the time spent travelling on Monday is not counted as or added to working hours. However, if the person’s duties on Tuesday take no more than two hours, after which the person starts his/her return journey, the time spent travelling on Tuesday is added to the working hours, to make Tuesday’s working hours correspond to the person’s regular hours. Any travel time in excess of the regular hours is not counted as working hours.

 

Thus, the principle is not to count travel time as working hours if the travelling takes place in the free time. However, employees are entitled to reimbursement for travel expenses and daily allowance for the period.

  

2. Reimbursement of travel expenses

Travel expenses are the additional costs the employee incurs on the official journey. Regulations on the prerequisites for eligibility for travel expense reimbursement and daily allowance are included in the travel expense reimbursement agreement of the Collective Agreement for State Civil Servants and Employees Under Contract.

  

The amount of pay and daily allowance for travel depends on whether the person is an employee under contract or a civil servant. An employee receives salary for the time he/she spends travelling and cannot use for earning because of the trip, even if the travel time is not counted as working hours. However, the amount of remuneration may not exceed the amount corresponding to the employee’s regular daily wages. An employee receives remuneration for official trips taking place on a Sunday, a public holiday or another day defined as free time in the employee’s working hours system, in accordance with the employee’s standard working hours and single hourly rate, for a maximum period of eight hours.

 

For instance, if the employee must use the entire Monday for travelling in order to work on Tuesday, he/she is entitled to receive his/her normal wages for Monday.

  

A civil servant shall receive a daily allowance of EUR 55, if the civil servant must travel on a Saturday, Sunday, a mid-week holiday referred to in section 5 of the Collective Agreement for State Civil Servants and Employees Under Contract concerning working hours, another day which would otherwise be his/her day off, or a day marked as a day off in the shift plan for weekly or period-based work, and if the time spent travelling is at least five hours. The civil servant shall only be eligible for compensation if the travelling takes place on a day mentioned above during which he/she would not normally work and lasts for at least five hours.

 

 

Municipal sector:

Working hours include the time spent working and the time during which the civil servant or employee must be available to the employer at the workplace. Travel time is not included in working hours if it does not constitute work performance. However, travel or transport from an origin appointed by another authority or supervisor to the location where the duties are performed and back are counted as working hours. Commuting between home and workplace is not counted as working hours.

  

During official journeys, only the time spent performing actual duties is counted as working hours. If the person has travelled during his/her working hours, their working hours will not be made longer to compensate for the time.

 

Travelling from one location to another within working hours during an official journey is counted as working time, provided that the most economical method and direct route available are used for the travel. For example, if an employee escorts a patient, the escorting trip is counted as working hours, whereas the return trip without the patient is not.