Mobile Timekeeping for Business Trips and Remote Work Travel

What is mobile timekeeping for business trips and remote work travel? Since the introduction of remote work, business travel has become more accessible than ever before. Remote work makes it possible to log into your work resources, collaborate with your team, and log time worked from anywhere in the world. While travel has always been an integral part of many businesses, calculating just how many hours are payable has always been a matter of policy, and not always precision.

However, just as business infrastructure has gone mobile, so too has our ability to transparently track time. Professionals who travel for work – or who work remotely while traveling – now have the ability to clock in (and out) based on the real-time hours they work when outside the office. This level of transparency is great for both employees and employers, ensuring accurate records, fair pay, and even trackable work-life balance time when on the road.

The key is to make use of mobile software that enables easy time tracking and work collaboration from anywhere, anytime.

Mobile Timekeeping for Remote Work Unlocks Travel and Off-Site Connectivity

Traveling professionals were always the pioneers of off-site work capabilities. However, with the remote work revolution of 2020+, the ability to travel and work has unlocked not just for traditional roles, but for any job that can be done from a personal computer.

Cloud-based data platforms, distributed toolkits, and video meetings make it possible to jet-set for business and personal reasons. These digital solutions allow you to clock in hours as reliably as if you were coming into the office each day. Activity and time-tracking software have made the new era of remote work more transparent in terms of time worked and productivity than ever before.

Now, professionals can take business trips without hesitation and can even travel for personal reasons and set up a fully functional desk from anywhere to start clocking hours.

Clocking Billable Hours Outside the Workplace

One of the long-running challenges of remote work, however, has been accurate timekeeping. Many workplaces prefer to track working hours using a time clock method, starting the clock when employees clock in on-site, and ending when they clock out. Fortunately, digital tools make it possible to replicate this process easily for traveling remote employees.

All that is needed is remote-capable timekeeping software and collaboration platforms that provide timestamped work. Professionals can connect to their employer’s organization through a mobile app and begin tracking personal timesheet records based on the specific hours they work – down to the minute they begin and end each work session. A remote employee may clock in for a full day of work using cloud-based software and mobile applications or clock in and out throughout the day depending on what their time is dedicated to.

This makes it possible for employees to account for every hour that they work, whether they’re putting in overtime at home or clocking just a few hours a day between relaxing vacation activities.

Clocking the Hours You Work on Business Trips

How to pay for time on a business trip is a matter of policy that varies from company to company. The law dictates that time fully occupied by the company must be paid. This typically includes travel time, lodgings, and off-site commuting, in addition to normal business hours in which the employee is attending to their remote work tasks. Outside business hours, free time after work in a remote location typically is not paid.

But schedules are more flexible than they used to be. Mobile business software makes it easy for employees to start the clock when they are on the job, taking calls, and working with clients – then stop the clock when they catch a museum tour or catch a nap at the hotel.

If a business trip or employee’s schedule calls for unusual hours, a timeclock app can track exactly the number of hours worked instead of estimating based on the normal span of a business day. This ensures the employee is paid appropriately whether they are in high demand at their destination or catch a few days off in between critical appointments.

Working Your Best Hours on a Flexible Schedule With Mobile Timekeeping

Remote work also opens the door to a far more flexible schedule. Many people, for example, are night owls – or experience jetlag – and find themselves working late into the night. While these are not typical business hours, these hours of work deserve to be properly recorded and compensated. The right app can make it easy for employees to simply tap into the digital time clock when they start to work and clock back out when sleep finally beckons or breakfast rolls around.

The same is true of quick bursts of afternoon activity on weekends, early-morning checklist-crossing, and after-dinner project reviewing. With cloud platforms and apps, remote employees can dedicate their best focus times to the job with the transparency and activity logs that employers need to pay these hours with confidence and appreciation.

Getting Paid for Helping Out on Your Vacation

Working vacations are a known issue in many high-demand industries, especially for people in indispensable roles. When your lead engineer or the manager for a critical account is on vacation, they may need to pick up the phone or clock a few hours of work at any moment. Even if they are officially on approved time off.

These hours deserve compensation. Fortunately, you can easily clock little stints of work in the form of phone calls and remote management using cloud-based tools with timestamps and time-tracking features. Whether the interruption is a few minutes or a few hours, full appropriate compensation serves to reward dedicated professionals for answering vital calls no matter where they are when the call comes in.

Remote Work and Business Travel Have Never Been Easier

We hope you learned a lot regarding mobile timekeeping. At BrightR Limited, we make it possible to easily hire remote professionals from Canada with the skills that will help your business to thrive. Never has there been a time when both remote work and business travel have been more accessible and beneficial to the company. Whether you are tracking work hours inside the company’s cloud-based platforms or billable hours spent with clients, mobile software makes it easy to keep your entire workforce on track, no matter where they are in the world.

To expand your workforce with remote hiring and Canada-based talent, contact us today.