Many contractors use GPS time tracking - especially those with workers in the field. If you’ve been considering adopting technology to track time, here are the advantages of GPS tracking for your field service business.
What is GPS Tracking?
GPS tracking is the process of tracking the location of a person, vehicle, or object with the use of satellites, or, Global Positioning Systems.
It uses 24 satellites located in space, orbiting and sending signals to earth, relevant to positioning, navigation, and timing.
For employee GPS tracking - a device such as a smartphone or tablet - reports their location when they are on the clock, and logs their travel throughout the day with a breadcrumb trail with an accuracy of 16 feet on a clear day.
The Top Benefits of GPS Tracking
Contrary to what many employees might think, GPS tracking is not an invasion of privacy. In fact, one of the benefits of a GPS is they are protected.
With a good GPS time tracking solution, you no longer have to wonder where your employees are throughout the day, and they no longer have to worry about checking in any time they move to a new location.
Companies with employees in the field enjoy many advantages of GPS.
1. Accurate Payroll
Employees don’t have to worry about false accusations of their whereabouts throughout the workday, and they can rest assured their pay will be accurate. With employee GPS tracking, you can take the guesswork out of timesheets, eliminate time theft and never wonder where your team is again.
2. Reduces Paperwork
Rather than your employees carrying clipboards with paper and pen to log their locations during the day, they won’t have to worry about it. They can go through their workday without having to log everywhere they went since it’s being automatically tracked for them. And you don’t have to worry about lost, damaged, incomplete, or inaccurate travel logs.
3. Better Job Costing
With the real-time data you get from GPS tracking, you are able to get a more accurate picture of the amount of time taken for each job. This allows you to do better job costing for future jobs.
4. Boosts Accountability
Employees will be more likely to put in their best efforts and practices, when their GPS locations are being tracked. Fewer unauthorized stops, means better productivity. And since they know their locations are being tracked, you eliminate the risk of buddy punching and increase accountability.
5. Geofencing
Using Geofencing, your administrative duties are reduced because you can receive automatic notifications of when an employee reaches a designated area, as well as when they leave.
Employees will also receive notifications in the way of reminders to clock in and/or out, when coming and going to the designated area.
6. Minimizes Fuel Costs
When you use GPS to track employee location, you can pull up a map to see where each employee is located. This allows you to send the nearest technician to any calls you get, as well as help them avoid traffic issues to shorten their commute times.
7. Provides Automated Real-Time Alerts
With GPS, you can get real-time information on the location of your workers in the field. This is useful if you have an emergency call for services, and you can inform your customer of exactly when the technician will arrive. Similarly, you can find out the location of your workers to let the customer know where they are, in the event they are running late.
With real-time data, you always know where everyone is, rather than having to call them to find out.
8. Improves Customer Service
When you’re able to dispatch the nearest technician to emergency calls, your response times are drastically improved, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.
9. Increases Safety
With GPS tracking, you can pull up the location of an employee that is not responding to phone calls, and send someone to go check on them. If your field service involves the use of harmful chemicals, you can use GPS to track them, should you need them removed.
10. Smarter Route Planning
Looking at the history of travel as well as any existing (or new) road construction projects, you can plan better service routes to save time and fuel, and avoid long waits for your customers.
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Adopting Employee GPS Tracking
With all of these advantages of GPS tracking for contractors, it’s a good idea to research the best options available for your company. The benefits of GPS are not just for the business, but for each employee, as well. If you want to know how employees feel about the use of GPS time tracking, take a look at our survey, Top Employees’ Concerns on GPS Tracking.
