Audit Hybrid and Field Commutes: Midday Worktime

A midday drive to a customer site can look like a break on the time clock. The pay question is whether that drive was unpaid travel or paid work.

The Wage and Hour Division, the federal agency that enforces the Fair Labor Standards Act, released two opinion letters explaining when home-to-work travel counts as payable time under that law. FLSA2026-9 and FLSA2026-10 were relevant to employers with hybrid, remote, field-based, or dispatch staff who begin work from home. The division classified the ordinary commute as a separate nonpayable category that may fall inside the continuous workday. In FLSA2026-9, it concluded that a midday commute can remain an ordinary commute and not worktime even when it occurs in the middle of the continuous workday. For those workers, the classification can change overtime math because the same drive may be unpaid in one schedule and payable in another.

An unpaid midday drive needs an employee-controlled break

The break has to be the employee's. If the manager can require the worker to be reachable, to answer dispatch, or to start work the moment the drive ends, the break is no longer a clean off period. That changes the pay analysis.

Good practice is to define the break in the schedule. A written note that the worker is off duty, not on call, and free to use the time for personal purposes makes the audit easier. It helps, but it is not a legal requirement.

Split-day schedules make this easy to miss. A worker may start at home, drive to a client site, and return home for the afternoon. The drive is still travel between work locations, but the pay question depends on what the employer requires around it.

Work before and after the drive can make it payable

In FLSA2026-10, a field service engineer's appointment-setting calls count as payable work when they are essential to the engineer's main duties of equipment installation and service. The engineer's drive to the first job site is compensable when the employer requires substantial work immediately before leaving and immediately after arrival.

The pattern to watch is required work on both sides of the drive. A manager who expects calls, updates, or tasks before leaving and again after arriving has made the drive part of the work sequence.

Good practice is to separate the drive from the work. Finishing required calls before the drive and starting the next task after the break keeps the drive more likely unpaid. If the work can be done before the drive or after the break, schedule it that way. If the job requires work during the drive, the drive is more likely payable.

Run a three-question audit before the next shift

Use the checklist below. Each item is testable in a minute, and each one catches a different problem.

• Is the midday break employee-controlled, with no employer requirement to be reachable or ready to work?
• Is the employee doing principal work before, during, or immediately after the drive?
• Are all actual work hours recorded, even if the drive itself is excluded?

Question one protects the unpaid break, and a no answer changes the pay question. Question two catches work that attaches to the drive, and a yes answer usually moves the pay question. Question three keeps the record defensible. Even when a midday commute is unpaid, the employer must keep a record of every hour actually worked, wherever performed.

Update the remote-work and timekeeping policies to match the audit. The timekeeping system should show the break when the worker is off during the midday drive, and it should show the hours when the worker is working before or after it. The policy should say what the break means, who may approve a split-day schedule, and how worktime is recorded. The record should match the actual day, not the intended schedule.