What Are You Afraid GPS Tracking Will Tell You, Part 3

I’ve written recently on this subject several times, here and here. Today I came across this item which makes me wonder even more what goes through people’s minds when they consistently reject the legitimate use of GPS technology in a fully disclosed, business environment.

From a blog named the Phoenix Insurgent: … Because of the nature of the job, it’s often hard for bosses to evaluate exactly how much work has been done, and workers routinely reorganize their workload themselves by dumping flyers in the garbage, taking much longer than necessary to complete assigned tasks and deviating from assigned routes for their own purposes. Frequently out of the direct surveillance powers of the boss, the relative autonomy of the job is a bonus from the perspective of the worker and a problem from the point of the view of the boss, perpetual enemy of human freedom that s/he is. (emphasis mine)

This article is bemoaning the fact that many businesses are using GPS tracking technology to improve service, cut costs and enhance worker safety. Due to the title and general tone I wasn’t going to spend much time reading farther … then I took a look at the article’s original inspiration, here: , a respected “mainstream” newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald.

IT USED to be such a simple job.

The 14-year-old girl would pick up the pamphlets at a warehouse in Artarmon and deliver them around Lane Cove.

Not any more. One Saturday recently she turned up at the warehouse to find that she would have to strap a global positioning system around her waist.

Her employers would be able to track every step she took, ensuring not only that she visited every house she was paid to, but that she followed the route devised by management to save time, and that she did the deliveries within the set time frame. Instead she quit….The president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Cameron Murphy, said the move was a “disgraceful attack on people’s right to basic privacy at work”… Mr Evans said PMP was the first business in the world to use GPS technology in this manner and that it allowed the company to demonstrate to its customers that all their pamphlets were delivered on time…”We’ve cut the amount of time it takes to do their job by 40 per cent and we are still paying the same rate,” he said.`… “The professional people who do this job are happy they can now prove they have done a good job,..

Go read the full article and tell me what is so negative about monitoring worker’s behavior and insuring customers are getting what they are paid for? A business owner or other boss is a “perpetual enemy of human freedom”? Well I have news for some of you … a business (or government agency) doesn’t exist to provide income for workers. It exists to perform a job and make a profit/fulfill a public need. Workers are free to leave any work … that’s real freedom.

In one of my early GPS tracking sales experiences I had a client question the accuracy of the installed system. it seemed everything was in order except that one vehicle never seemed to move on Saturday, when the driver was assigned to work 8 hours at time and a half. When questioned the driver had no problem in stating that he, in fact was doing the Saturday work along with his regular Monday through Friday work and happily forging a time sheet that indicated he worked each Saturday when, in fact, he never even went to work. He finished his own self-incrimination by loudly telling his manager that “if you don’t trust me, I quit.”

That’s “worker freedom and “worker autonomy” at its finest for you, folks. If you feel your role as a business owner or manager is to furnish charity handouts to recalcitrant workers who don’t even show up, or who dump their fliers in the trash, who speed 80 mph in school zones, etc., then press right on.

If you feel that business and management has a different role and that an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay is still a valid principle … get over your fear and manage your business properly. You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Technorati tags: gPS abuse, gps tracking, geoslavery, worker autonomy, gps roi