GPS Tracking ROI

Several weeks back I reported on an article which raised the question, could employee tracking via GPS be responsible for suicide?  Is it really that wrong and invasive?  Well regular readers know that I focus on the positive aspects of GPS Tracking for Business ROI and it is easy to prove that GPS employee tracking is one of the best financial investments a business can make.  Most importantly in today’s tight economic times and high fuel prices.

And as I reported in the original GPS as a Killer article, employees have no right or expectation of privacy when they are taking someone’s money, ostensibly to work.  I do know, from looking for what people search for here on www.satviz.com, the site about using GPS tracking for profit that there are a lot of crooked employees out there.  For every search that asks about the benefits of GPS tracking there are at least a dozen asking about defeating GPS tracking.  Well, I have news for the ‘defeatists” … I’m pro tracking and intend to stay that way.

Getting back to the article, one of the most astounding claims is that the fact that Telstra, a larger telecommunications provider, tracked their field employee’s vehicles as they went about their jobs and this caused an employee so much stress he committed suicide.  A number of folks seem to have taken up the cause that the company’s “excessive surveillance” led directly up to Mr. Dousset’s unfortunate death.  let’s look at what seems to be “excessive”:

One such tracker, the GoFinder Reporter, sends employers detailed daily time sheets showing every stop made, parked time, driving time, distance covered, maximum speed and even an estimate of the amount of fuel used. Each location can be displayed on a street map or Google Earth.

OK, let’s talk about “excessive” here.  Telco technicians sent to the field are hardly low-rate workers.  It takes quite a bit of skill to be able to perform that work, not to mention an easy $200,000 USD investment per service truck.  Now in addition to what seems to be the basic fact that any employer should be allowed to monitor such an investment, consider this:

• I have installed hundreds and hundreds of tracking units.  I have yet to find a single case where employers did not find significant “time stealing”.  Even an (honest) union should not be able to argue that the employee owes a days work for a day’s pay.  Certainly if the employer was cheating the workers they would be on the employer instantly, as would only be right.  Employment is a two-way street, is it not?  The law and basic fairness dictates neither side should cheat the other.
• For every case where an employer found a worker where he isn’t supposed to be I can cite you a offsetting case where the employee was accused of wrong doing, perhaps by an angry customer, and was proved to be doing his job correctly by GPS tracking.  More than one employee has been saved from actual legal liability by proving, via GPS tracking, s/he was not in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Good workers are proud to show off their work.
• Many field employees have to cover a lot of ground.  What happens if they are in an accident, victim of a crime, mechanical breakdown, etc.?  isn’t a means to keep them safer in their day-to-day rounds worth something?  It’s perfectly logical to look at this as a safety service the employer provides.  Don’t the workers in this case have to wear little hard hats, seat belts, safety shoes and such provided by the employer?  Why doesn’t the union complain about that?  Because it would be stupid to put free choice of hazardous actions in lace of on the job safety, that’s why.

Business owners can also log on to a website to view the current position of any of their vehicles at five-minute intervals.

Privacy experts and unions say employers need good justification for snooping so closely on employee movements and even then do not require such highly detailed reports. They question whether employers switch off the tracking outside work hours.

• Let me get this straight.  It is excessive ‘snooping’ to insure that vehicles the employer provides for work are only being used for work?  If someone came to me back when I was a federal supervisor, I would have referred the guy immediately for drug testing.  What are these guys smoking?  The employer buys the vehicle, maintains it. \, licenses it, insures it, and (big thing today) fuels it, and it is an invasion of privacy that the owner be able to protect his vehicles from abuse?  Wow.

There are a couple other giant lapses of logic in this article that I’ll write more about son.  meantime, if you are a business owner, a fleet or operations manager, as government manager or supervisor, listen up!

Regardless of what the talking heads on TV tell you, there has never been a better time to invest in GPS Tracking for Fleet ROI.  You will save, immediately, labor hours, fuel and vehicle maintenance.  Absolutely.  And lose the idea that managing your business is show how snooping or an invasion of privacy.  It is, indeed, your responsibility to manage and you can’t manage what you can’t measure.