Employee Geofencing: Does It Work + Pros and Cons

Adding geofencing to your employee time tracking toolset is a great way to prevent time theft, reduce operational costs, and make sure employees are all working at the correct locations.

But if you’re new to geofencing, it can be hard to understand. In this post, we’re going to demystify geofencing, explaining what it is, how it works, and the pros and cons of geofencing for employees.

What is employee geofencing?

Geofencing is a technology that uses GPS to create a digital border around a job site, kind of like a fence. These areas interact with devices that use GPS — such as cell phones — to determine when someone is either within or outside of the geofence. 

For employers, this means that you can track when employees enter a geofence, how long they’re within it, and when they exit it. This can help you: 

• Block employees from clocking in before they arrive at a job site or clocking out after they leave.
• Identify if they left the job site while they were on the clock and determine how long they were gone.
• Provide notifications to employees when they arrive at or leave a job site, reminding them to clock in/out.

Not all geofencing is based on GPS, though. Other things that are used to establish location data are Wi-Fi and RFID. These methods don’t really change the way geofencing works, but it’s good to know if you want to use those technologies instead.

Does geofencing work?

Geofencing can be an effective tool for preventing time theft and reducing operational costs, particularly for employers that are managing a mobile or distributed workforce. 

Geofencing is commonly used in industries like construction where employees are working at different project sites, as well as in healthcare, retail, and hospitality businesses that have multiple locations.

Geofencing for employees allows you to ensure that employees can only be on the clock when they’re located at your job site or office, helping you improve payroll accuracy.

Geofencing pros and cons for employers

If you’re trying to decide whether or not to implement geofencing at your business, consider these pros and cons to make a decision.

Pros

• More accurate time tracking: A big problem for employers occurs when employees clock in or out at the wrong times. Sometimes, this might be accidental, and sometimes it’s intentional. Geofencing prevents this, improving the accuracy of your time records and making sure you don’t pay for time when employees aren’t working.
• More accurate time records: Geofencing can help you determine when employees leave the job site while they’re still on the clock. You can use this data to identify when employees are taking longer breaks than your policy allows for.
• Improved safety: Geofencing can also be used to alert you when an employee enters an area they shouldn’t be in because it’s dangerous or restricted.
• More accurate client invoicing: If your business does work for clients, geofencing can help you determine exactly when an employee arrived at and left the client’s location, improving the accuracy of your client invoices.

Cons

• Setting up geofences can be time-consuming: If your worksites never change, setting up geofencing is a simple, one-time project. However, if your worksites change frequently, setting up and removing geofences can create a lot of administrative overhead.
• Differing state laws: While there aren’t any specific federal GPS tracking laws that apply to employers, different states have different regulations. Make sure to check with a legal professional to understand the laws in the states where your business operates before implementing geofence tracking.
• Employee privacy concerns: If you’re introducing geofencing for the first time, employees may be uncomfortable with the idea. To make them more comfortable, provide them with a detailed GPS tracking policy that lets them know when and how they’ll be tracked, as well as why you’re implementing this tracking.

How to get started with geofencing for employees

To implement geofencing for your employees, you can use Buddy Punch, one of the best geofence time-tracking apps on the market.

With Buddy Punch’s user-friendly geofencing technology, you can easily create a virtual boundary around one or more locations where your employees work.

You have complete control over the size of the boundary. Limit it for small office locations by making the radius 150 feet in diameter, or expand it for large job sites to as much as 5,000 feet.

You can also assign individual employees and entire departments to different job site radiuses to easily manage large, distributed teams — and set specific job codes for each to track the time employees spend at those job sites to their respective projects.

With geofence boundaries set up, employees are only able to clock in and out within those boundaries. Buddy Punch uses real-time GPS tracking on your employees’ mobile phones to identify where they’re located, and if they’re outside of the geofence, they’re prevented from punching in or out.

If employees are within the correct geofence, they can clock in and out without a problem, and the hours they worked are automatically tagged with the appropriate job code.

Additionally, Buddy Punch is much more than just a geofencing app — it’s a complete workforce management platform. Use it for payroll processing, managing time off requests, monitoring overtime, creating employee schedules, and tracking employee hours. See all Buddy Punch features.

Want to learn more about Buddy Punch? Start a free trial, watch a recorded demo, or request a personalized demo.