You may not be familiar with the term Geofencing, but if you’ve ever used a ride-sharing app or used Facebook to check-in at a location, you’ve been exposed to geofencing. Geofencing is rapidly becoming the best way for employers to track the movements of their workers to keep them safe and ensure productivity.
A large portion of company’s today have employees that work from remote locations. Those employees include field workers and frontline employees who carry out business responsibilities like delivery services, customer support, production line operators, and so forth. These companies rely on mobile handheld devices used by their workforce to ensure that all tasks are performed and fulfilled accurately and on time. Enterprise mobility devices work to encourage employees to remain productive during the day and help to keep employers informed of their activities, but it is becoming more and more vital that these companies are also able to keep tabs on their activities and locations in real-time.
The Role of Geofencing for Frontline Workers and the Field Force
Imagine that you are a construction manager in charge of an entire crew on a specific worksite and are responsible for all work and operational activities within that site. You realize that you need to set a geofencing boundary around the site using GPS-enabled software. Adding a geofencing app to the mobile devices already in use by your field and frontline workers, you are now able to be continually updated in real-time about employee activity and movement in the field. Notifications and alerts are sent to you when a worker enters or leaves the set boundaries, allowing you to accurately track work time, while at the same time giving you the ability to monitor company-owned devices, vehicles, and equipment.
Geofencing guides work efficiency and team discipline by preventing employees from clocking in before their shift begins, or before they enter their specified work location. It also keeps employees honest. Absent and late workers cannot tell you they were somewhere they were not with a geofencing app installed on devices. This goes a long way in resolving lost production hours and process delays.
Frontline and Field Force workers are tracked seamlessly on mobile devices using a geofencing feature. It helps your workers to remember to clock in or out when entering or exiting your set perimeter and allows you to track when they enter or leave your pre-set geographical area.
Examples of Geofencing in the Real World
1. Travel Service Companies
Companies that provide travel services can use this geofencing app to set perimeters for their agents and employees using corporate owned vehicles.
2. Manufacturing
Manufacturing companies can use geofencing to protect and track valuable assets or keep unauthorized employees out of restricted areas.
3. Fleet Management
Trucking and fleet companies use geofencing to track the location of their vehicles. With GPS and geofencing they get help in preventing vehicle theft with locking and security measures and are alerted immediately when a vehicle is stolen. It also helps them stay aware of employee driving habits to make adjustments if and when necessary.
Benefits of Geofencing For the Work Force and Field Workers
When implemented correctly on the devices of your frontline and field workers, using a powerful geofencing app provides several key benefits to your business.
- Geofencing promotes accuracy in time sheet management. This also strongly discourages employees from having co-workers clock in or out for them, or time theft punching.
- Managers can ensure that employees working remotely are safe and held accountable for their work within the pre-set perimeters.
- Managers and employers are able to simplify their payroll process by more efficiently tracking employee time and location.
- Geofencing drives device and data security by notifying managers when a lost or stolen device exits the perimeter of a defined boundary.
- Allows for tracking and analysis of geofencing breaches to identify a pattern of wrongdoing by the device users.
What Employers Should Know About the Geofencing App
1. Most employees don’t mind being tracked
Employee polls have shown that as long as employers are honest and transparent about how their employer gathers and uses the information they collect, they don’t mind being tracked while on the job.
2. Tracking keeps workers safe
With a GPS enabled geofencing app, employers and managers can see how many workers are on site or how many more should be added to get work completed safely. Working at night, especially on a construction site, is very dangerous. The geofencing app allows managers to monitor workers who are on site after dark. 33% of companies currently track their field workers to increase job safety.
3. Employees assume tracking is the future
Most employees are already familiar with geofencing and GPS in their social media or shopping experiences, so getting them on board with tracking might be easier than you think. Workers understand that GPS tracking is part of the future, and some office workers believe it may even eliminate their need to physically go to their jobs in the future.
4. Be open about privacy
If you are considering implementing a GPS tracking system in your company, the most important thing you can do is to be upfront and honest with your employees about its use. It’s vital to let your workers know when and how they are being tracked and what you will do with that information. 60% of employees are worried that their data could be shared, and 41% believe their personal information could get spread around the workplace. It’s important that they know they can trust what your intentions are for their data.
5. Find a solution that works for you