How to track employee hours at multiple job sites

What do you need to record when a crew works several sites?

You need a start, an end and a location for every stretch in between, so that one shift can be split into the places it was spent. A single start and end plus one job number is how a three-stop day ends up charged to whichever job the foreman remembers last.

• One shift, many stretches. A move from Job A to Job B inside the day is a transfer, not a new shift.
• A location per stretch. Each job, the shop, the yard and the supply house you use most.
• Drive time as its own line. It is paid, and how you charge it is a separate decision.
• Who moved and when. The record should show the day a worker's main job changed, so crew counts by site stay honest.

The general version of this, across every method, is in the construction time tracking guide.

How does each tracking method split a day across jobs?

Each method splits the day differently, and each breaks in a different place. The split is only as good as whoever, or whatever, does the splitting.

Which one suits you depends on how often crews move. The methods comparison puts eight options on the same terms.

Is the pay rule the same as the job cost rule?

No. The pay rule decides which minutes the worker is paid for, and the cost rule decides which job those paid minutes are charged to. Mixing them up is why a foreman will say a drive was free when he means it was not charged to anyone.

On pay, federal rules are clear on the main point. Travel from job site to job site during the workday counts as hours worked (29 CFR 785.38), and normal travel from home to work does not (29 CFR 785.35). State law and union agreements can add more. Is travel time between job sites paid goes into the detail.

On cost, the law is silent. That is your call, and it needs a written rule. Three common ones:

1. First site gets the day. Simple, and wrong whenever the crew moved.
2. On-site time only. Each job is charged for minutes inside it. Drives and supply runs sit in an overhead bucket nobody owns.
3. On-site plus the leg that led there. Each job takes its own on-site time, the drive to it and any supply run made for it. Shop load-out goes to the first job.

What does one day look like when it is charged to two jobs?

Here is a journeyman's seven-stop day, charged under the first rule and the third. The numbers are illustrative, and the hourly rate is an assumption you should replace with your own loaded rate.

Do that for six workers over a week and Job B's labor, and its margin, looks very different. For how loaded rates are built, see how to calculate labor burden.

Where does the paid day start for a worker who reports to the shop?

It starts where your rule says work begins, and under federal rules that is usually at the first place the worker is required to report, not at their front door. Travel from home to the first job site is normally commuting, but a required stop at the shop to pick up tools or get instructions makes the travel from the shop part of the day.

What should a foreman or office check each week?

Check that every shift's location lines add up to the shift length, that crew moves match what you scheduled, and that drives and supply runs are not sitting under a job by accident. A short list does it.

• Do each worker's location lines add up to their paid shift, with no minutes left over?
• Is every drive between sites on its own line, and is it paid?
• Do crew counts by jobsite match the schedule? Any worker moved mid-week should show on the day it happened.
• Are supply-house runs charged to the job the material was for, per your written rule?
• Do any days show one job for the whole shift when the worker is known to have moved?
• Are edits to allocations logged with a reason?

The foreman's version of this list is in the weekly timesheet checklist, and the daily headcount view is the daily manpower report. If you want a written policy for drives, start with a company drive time policy.

How ZeroBadge handles this

ZeroBadge places time by location. The badge reports about every 5 minutes, and each stretch is classified on site, in transit or other and allocated to a jobsite, with supplier stops drawn as locations. A move between sites stays one shift. Reports stored during a signal gap upload on reconnect with their original timestamps. ZeroBadge shows the minutes and you apply the pay and cost rules. More in multi-jobsite time tracking.