Tracking A Phone Can Work, But Be Careful
A question that comes up from time to time is whether a company can, or should, track an employee’s business phone. At first thought, this can sound like an easy and cost effective method of keeping track of employees, and in some cases it is. We offer an app that can be a great solution, but it’s important to think through all the pros and cons before you start.
We’ve put together a few Pros and Cons to think about before you decide to turn your staff’s cell phone into GPS tracking units. While any decent smartphone will work as a tracker, it’s not always the best option.
Here are are a few of the pros and cons to think through before deciding if this approach makes sense for your business:
Pros:
Using an employee’s cell phone as a tracking device can definitely be the best choice at times. Some of the key benefits to this option are:
- It Can Be Cheap: If all of your employees are already carrying around a phone, adding cell phone tracking is a low cost option when compared to dedicated tracking hardware. Most phone plans will provide more than enough data to cover the relatively small amount of data traffic required by a GPS tracking application.
- No Additional Systems to Maintain: If you can avoid having to install dedicated tracking devices installed in your vehicles, then there is one less system for the business to deal with.
- Track Your Staff When They Are On Foot: If you need to track an individual who spends most of their time on their feet, cell phone tracking is an obvious option.
Cons:
While cell phone tracking can be the best choice under the right set of circumstances, it’s important to consider the long list of downsides before moving forward with the cell phone tracking option:
- Power Usage & Battery Life: Keeping the GPS on for cell phone tracking 24/7 can rapidly run down the battery in a smartphone.
- Privacy Concerns: If you are tracking the employee’s phone, you should make sure that you are not tracking them when they are on personal time.
- Tracking Reliability: Smartphones can be turned off by the employee at any time, which might be used to hide the very behaviors you are trying to monitor.
- Not Tracking the Vehicle: If it’s important that you know the location of your vehicles, then attaching a piece of tracking hardware to the vehicle is going to be necessary.
- No Vehicle Telemetry: Modern dedicated tracking hardware can provide a lot more information than just vehicle location, and even send in alerts and warnings when an employee is misbehaving.
If you are going to do this, we highly recommend that you inform the employees that their phone is being tracked, as things can get messy in a hurry if an employee finds out that you were tracking them without their knowledge.
The bottom line is that there is no one right answer to whether cell phone tracking is a good idea or not. Just make sure you think it through carefully before making the decision. If you some help deciding if GPS Tracking technology can help you manage your staff, feel free to schedule a free consultation with me and I’ll be happy to dive deeper into the pros and cons with you.