Field service engineers are a breed apart from workshop engineers and as some one who has worked as a workshop engineer and then as a field engineer based from home and now the service manager for the same, i make it my responsibility to employ the right engineer in the right locations and pay them from home, all vans are tracked anyway.

Having the convenience of an engineer paid from home going out to a break down in the evening is remembered long after the half hour here and there scraped each day to save a few quid.

I expect professional mature engineers working for me and treat them as such, sure there are some chancers out there, but managed correctly they either tow the line or leave.

Trust me, working in senior management i see far more money wasted on half arsed schemes and pointless courses, than trying to pinch an hour or two a day on travel time.