Use this quick guide to compensate your team fairly for their time, enhancing the offerings and skills of your practice.
If your team is traveling locally, on the same day as the course, they are due to receive their pay rate for their travel time.
For out-of-town travel, compensation should be paid when it is during standard work times.
For overnight travel that involves an airplane, train, bus, or boat commutes do not require compensation during regular work hours.
For food compensation, you can pay a per diem of about $40, depending on the city/expenses. Per diems promote frugalness as if they were using their funds for food, and it increases predictability as it aligns with your budget. If you're attending with them, communicate the budget for food, and have a night where you treat them to a more upscale or unique/fun meal. Proper treatment will go a long way and will encourage collaboration.
Compensating your team is not required if these four conditions are met:
1. The employee is not required to attend the conference or training.
2. The meeting is not directly related to their role or skills needed for the job.
3. The event is beyond regular work hours.
4. The employee is not working or discussing work during this period.
It's rare that these 4 points would be relevant for training events and it's in good taste to create your business case to include the budgets for all travel costs and compensation costs for your team to attend. Be fair to your team. Your team should never make LESS money for learning that will benefit your organization. Don't try to skirt around the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) by misclassifying your team as exempt status when they do not fit into that category.