The Pros and Cons of GPS Tracking for Employers
GPS tracking can help you prevent theft, reduce operational costs, and optimize your routes. But on the flip side, it can also create privacy and legal concerns. These benefits and disadvantages are important to consider before you adopt GPS tracking.
If you’re trying to decide whether or not you should implement GPS tracking at your company, consider these pros and cons of GPS tracking for employers.
The 4 different types of GPS tracking employers use
Before we jump into the pros and cons of GPS tracking, it’s important to know the different ways employers use GPS tracking.
Employers use GPS to track their employees, company vehicles, heavy equipment, and tools, and there are pros and cons for each different type.
1. Employee GPS tracking
Using a time clock app with GPS, you can ensure that all employees are at the correct job sites when they’re getting paid to work.
Here’s how it works with our own time-tracking software, Buddy Punch.
All of your employees download Buddy Punch’s mobile iOS or Android app to their phones. They’ll use the app to clock in and out of work. The app uses the phone’s built-in GPS technology to determine where employees are located at different times during the workday, depending on which of three GPS features you enable:
- GPS on punch: When an employee clocks in or out using the app, Buddy Punch logs their GPS location to their timesheet. Admins can review the location data in timesheets to make sure employees were on site when they clocked in or out of work.
- Real-time GPS: With real-time GPS, you can see where all employees are located on a map at any given time, and you can access breadcrumbs of their movements across the workday. This is helpful if employees are moving from job site to job site or leaving to collect equipment or supplies.
- Geofencing: Geofences are digital borders you place around a job site. If an employee tries to clock in/out when they’re not within the geofence, the app blocks the action. You can also set up notifications to remind employees to clock in when they enter the geofence and out when they leave it.
Employee GPS tracking helps you prevent time theft by blocking employees from clocking in/out from somewhere other than a job site. It can also help you make sure employees aren’t running non-work errands during the day when they’re being paid to work.
2. Company vehicle GPS tracking
Tracking your company vehicles with GPS requires a combination of hardware and software.
First, you purchase GPS tracking devices to install on your vehicles. These devices may need to be hardwired into your vehicles or plugged into an OBD-II port (if your vehicles support it).
After installation, you connect the devices to the software you’ll use to track them. The vehicle GPS tracking software will then show you where your company vehicles are located at all times. Additionally, some offer reports to help you stay on top of vehicle maintenance or route optimization capabilities.
Company vehicle GPS tracking can help you recover your vehicles in case of theft, and many auto insurers will provide a discount on your insurance for vehicles with GPS tracking installed.
3. Heavy equipment GPS tracking
Tracking your heavy equipment works largely the same way as vehicle tracking: you install GPS tracking devices on your equipment and then connect those devices to the provider’s tracking software. Here’s a list of the best heavy equipment GPS providers.
Like vehicle tracking, heavy equipment tracking can help you recover stolen equipment, reduce property insurance costs, and stay on top of equipment maintenance.
4. Tool GPS tracking
It’s easy to leave a job site without remembering to collect all of your tools, and having to re-purchase even small tools over and over again can pile up. With GPS tracking, you can see where all of your tools are located so you can recover them if they’re lost or stolen.
GPS tracking for tools is simple: just head down to the nearest hardware store and pick up a package of Bluetooth trackers. Then, attach those to your tools, download the smartphone app that tracks them, and you’ll be able to see where all of your tools are located at any time.
Here are some options to consider that are available at The Home Depot.
Related: Learn what industries use GPS tracking, or see how GPS is used by landscapers, plumbing companies, and construction companies.
The advantages of GPS tracking
There are far more advantages to GPS tracking than disadvantages. Here are some of the pros of GPS tracking for employers.
Prevent time theft
Using a GPS time-tracking app lets you ensure that employees are on-site when they clock in or out of work. This helps you prevent time theft acts like clocking in while on the way to work and buddy punching where one employee clocks in for another.
You can use geofencing to prevent employees from clocking in/out when they’re not on the job site, view GPS data on their timecards to audit their locations, or track their movements throughout the day with real-time tracking.
Prevent property theft
Geofencing is a type of GPS technology that creates a virtual border around a location. GPS data is then used to identify when something enters or exits that border.
Geofences can be paired with GPS-tracking devices to alert you when your vehicles or equipment are removed from a location they weren’t supposed to be removed from.
For example, you can get an alert if your heavy equipment is removed from the field in the evening when none of your employees are working, alerting law enforcement immediately and providing the GPS tracking location so they can recover the equipment.
Recover lost or stolen property
If your tools, equipment, or vehicles are lost or stolen, the software you use to track the location of that property can be used to recover the property (by yourself if it was lost/misplaced or by law enforcement if it was stolen).
Discounted insurance premiums
Many insurers offer discounts on vehicles and equipment that are tracked with GPS. One of the reasons is that, as we discussed before, the likelihood that stolen property will be recovered is much higher if the property is equipped with a GPS tracking device.
Safer vehicle operation
Beyond insurance discounts, many auto insurance providers will also provide you with GPS-tracking devices that monitor things like speeding, erratic breaking, and other poor driving behaviors.
If employees know their driving behaviors are being monitored, they’re more likely to drive safely, protecting both themselves and your company’s vehicles.
Better maintenance scheduling
Some GPS tracking providers provide you with not only location-tracking capabilities but also usage data. This usage data can be used to alert you when it’s time to perform maintenance on your vehicles/equipment, and it can also alert you to usage waste, such as vehicles/equipment idling for long periods of time.
Route optimization
For logistics, delivery, and other transportation companies, GPS tracking software can help you optimize the routes your employees take to do their work. This helps you complete work more quickly and also reduces your fuel costs.
Automated mileage tracking
Both vehicle GPS-tracking devices and mobile GPS time-tracking apps can help you track the specific mileage employees traveled. This is helpful if you reimburse employees for miles traveled — you can get the data automatically rather than relying on employees to provide it or manually checking odometers.
Employee safety
GPS tracking can help you identify the locations of your employees if they’re not where they’re supposed to be. This can help keep employees safe in companies where interaction with the general public presents security concerns, such as cleaning companies, taxi services, and other home-based service businesses.
Improved customer communications
For delivery, logistics, and other transportation companies, real-time GPS tracking data can be provided to customers to keep them better informed about when their deliveries will arrive.
The disadvantages of GPS tracking
While GPS tracking has many advantages for businesses, there are some disadvantages too. However, most of these disadvantages can be overcome with careful planning and transparent communications.
Here are some of the cons of GPS tracking for employers, plus tips on how to overcome them.
Legal issues
Business owners generally have the right to monitor their employees’ locations, but some states have specific guidelines you have to abide by to do so legally. So before you start tracking your employees’ locations, you need to be well-versed in any federal and state GPS tracking laws that apply to the locations where your business operates.
In general, you need to make sure you’re only tracking employees’ locations while they’re on the clock, you should only track company-owned vehicles, and you should notify employees that their locations are being tracked.
For help with notifying your employees that they’re being tracked by GPS, you can use our free GPS tracking policy template, available for both Google Docs and Microsoft Word.
Privacy concerns
In the wrong hands, your employees’ location data can pose a serious risk to their security. Check with your GPS tracking provider to find out how they keep employee data secure, and set strict rules around which individuals at your company have access to employee location data.
Employee pushback
Sometimes, you’ll have employees who are strongly against having their locations tracked by their employers. However, this is rarer than you might expect. A QuickBooks Time study found that 70% of employees are fine with their employers knowing their locations, and only 6% said they would quit if they were asked to be tracked.
The best way to avoid employee pushback is to be very transparent with your employees about the fact that they’re being tracked, when they’ll be tracked, why, and who will have access to their location data.
Before you start tracking employees, provide a venue where they can ask questions and share any concerns they have so they don’t feel like they’re being forced to do something they’re uncomfortable with.
Explain the different components of your policy: the purpose of GPS tracking, how they’ll be tracked, when they’ll be tracked, who will have access to their location data, and how that data will be secured. This will address the bulk of the concerns your employees are likely to have.
Accuracy issues
There are times when GPS data can be inaccurate because of limited access to satellite signals. To circumvent these issues, make sure to check GPS availability inside your work buildings and at your job sites, then turn required GPS functions off in areas where you know poor signal access will cause issues.
Costs
GPS tracking isn’t free. In some cases, you’ll need to purchase GPS tracking devices; in others, you’ll need to pay for a monthly software subscription. And you may need both.
However, keep in mind that while there’s a cost to GPS tracking, it can also lead to significant savings in terms of preventing time theft, insurance discounts, reducing fuel costs, and improving productivity.
Make sure to factor in not only the cost of the technology but also the savings you can expect in order to evaluate the ROI of GPS tracking hardware and software.
Should your business use GPS tracking?
Deciding whether or not to implement GPS tracking in your business involves weighing both the benefits and potential drawbacks.
On one hand, GPS tracking can enhance your operations by preventing theft, reducing costs, optimizing routes, and improving employee safety. On the other hand, it raises concerns about privacy, legal compliance, and potential employee pushback.
Ultimately, the decision should be based on your company’s specific needs and priorities. If theft of time or property is a serious concern, GPS tracking is definitely worth implementing. If you’re just mildly curious about employee locations during the workday, the cost and effort of GPS tracking are probably not worth it.
By considering these factors, you can determine if GPS tracking is right for your business.
