Hi I recently became management for a small company. The nature of this business requires that employees use a companmy vehicle to get from job site to job site throughout the day. I have reason to believe that some of the drive times between jobs are incorrect and that employees may be running personal errands on company time. Do we have to pay the employees at the same rate of pay while they are driving as we do for working. For example, 3 people are in one vehicle and it should only take them 20 minutes to get to the location, it takes them 55 minutes. Now instead of paying 1 hour of drive time we are paying nearly 3. Can we compensate at a lower rate or not at all or do we have to pay them for that time since they are in a company car?

You have two different issue here:
- Under federal rules, there is no legal problem with paying employees a different rate for driving between work sites then work done at the work site. I have no idea what rules (if any) your state has on this issue.
- Non-Exempt employees are paid based on actual hours worked. In your example, the employees took 55 minutes to travel what you think should only take only 20 minutes. You have apparently decided (based on no actual support that you mentioned) that this delay must be based on the employee making personal stops (which you would not have to pay for) as opposed to traffic delays (which you would have to pay for). May I ask how you determined this? Have you bothered to actual talk to the involved employees? Absent actual support, in my experience, DOL would be more likely to believe the employee then the employer in such situations.

The following is the related federal (FLSA) regulation.

29 CFR 785.38 - Travel that is all in the day's work.

Section Number: 785.38
Section Name: Travel that is all in the day's work.

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Time spent by an employee in travel as part of his principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, must be counted as hours worked. Where an employee is required to report at a meeting place to receive instructions or to perform other work there, or to pick up and to carry tools, the travel from the designated place to the work place is part of the day's work, and must be counted as hours worked regardless of contract, custom, or practice. If an employee normally finishes his work on the premises at 5 p.m. and is sent to another job which he finishes at 8 p.m. and is required to return to his employer's premises arriving at 9 p.m., all of the time is working time. However, if the employee goes home instead of returning to his employer's premises, the travel after 8 p.m. is home-to-work travel and is not hours worked. (Walling v. Mid-Continent Pipe Line Co., 143 F. 2d 308 (C. A. 10, 1944))

We use google maps to plot out thier day and the approximate time it should take to get to the job site. The area we live in is a fairly small town that does not have a significant amount of traffic. In perfect weather and not during rush hour it takes me 7 minutes to get home, in poor weather at the peak of rush hour traffic it takes me 15 minutes tops. I tell you this to explain the nature of traffic in this area. The route that was between the two job sites had no construction and no accident reports for the day in question during the time they would have been driving. The odometer readings in the company car are also off by approximately 20 miles.

We have spoken to the employees and they all say that they did not do a personal errand and at the same time they cannot account for the discrepancy in times. If this were an isolated incident I would not even notice, however this particular team has had this happen frequently over the last 3 weeks. My boss does not want to pay them drive time at all but I told him if they are in a company vehicle we have to pay them and to my understanding they must be paid minimum wage. I am very new to the HR field so this is not something I am evenb close to being an expert at.

If we lived in a bigger city and worked in a larger area I could see possible traffic delays, however the area we are located doesn't have tremendous amounts of traffic even in rush hour and the travel time this occurred was around 9:30 am which is not a rush hour time frame either which leads me again to question why it took them an additional 35 minutes to get there. Hopefully that information helps clarify the situation. Thank you for your help! :)

Just a clarification: while you are correct that you have to pay them, it's not because they are in a company car. It's because the law says you have to pay them for time driving between work sites. What vehicle they are in makes no difference.

I would however, question the extra 20 miles on the odometer. That can not easily be explained as a traffic delay. If there is not a reasonable explanation for this, I'd terminate for dishonesty. I doubt that you will have to do this more than once before others take the hint and mind their ways. Whether they decided to run personal errands or drove around the block 10 times, it appears they artificially lengthened the workday.